Common SEO mistakes

 

Common SEO mistakes (issues) to avoid

SEO mistakes at a technical level

The continuous updates of Google's algorithms can make it problematic to detect many errors, since what worked before, may not now.

Not understanding a susceptibility in our strategy can be the cause of the collapse of organic traffic.

So let's start with the technical errors first:

Misconfigured robots.txt file

Here the imperative mistake is usually having the User-agen set: * Disallow: / congenital from the expansion form of the web, which stops crawling and indexing of the web.

Earlier overview a website, check the configuration of this file, specially the index to which we will allow admittance or not to search engine robots.

DO NOT copy any situations from this file that you get online.

Create your own custom and update it every time you make significant changes at the structure level.

Wrong met robots                                                                 

Like the earlier one, there are web developers who use the robots Meta tag to block access to search engine bots during software design, and then forget to eliminate it once the web is threw into manufacture:

<meta name="robotss" content="noindex,nofollow"/>

This line should only be in the URLs that we actually want NOT to index, and comprise nofollow if we want Google to not take into account external links or transfer professional to them.

Outdated or syntax sitemaps

If we work with WordPress or any other CMS this essential not be a difficult, since in most we can add plugins or plugins to harvest them.

But in own developments this is regularly alternative story.

With tools like this you can produce them from your URL organization and make sure they meet syntax standards.

Charging speed extremely slow

We mention to websites that take extra than 3 seconds to load.

The usual unsure is generally big and very heavy images, but you essential also check:

• Denounced is and css files
• Server quality, answer and configuration (RAM memory, shared / devoted processor, SSD disks, PHP 7.1 etc.)
• Don't use a cache system
• Installation of extra plugins and add-ons than essential

Insufficient security

If your server and web installation is not well endangered, a DDoS attack could continually bring it down, as well as receive immunizations of spiteful code, copied content, duplicate that could harm you’re placing.

Preferred domain and incorrect redirects and SSL

It is extra common than it seems:

We installed the SSL certificate, we changed the path to our domain with https, but we forgot to configure the redirects so that any domain form ideas to the new one:

• http: //
• http: // www.
• https: //
• https: // www.

This can be solved with a combine of lines of code in the server's htaccess file, and you evade delivery Google 4 different forms of your website that waste time.

Broken external links

It may look throwaway, but it is extremely important:

If Google appreciates that you link to many pages that do not work, it will comprehend that your gratified is not useful for users.

From my information, from 50 domains this starts to be a problem.

With an SEO audit they are easy to find and right speedily.

Excess of 404

Similar to the earlier one, though it does not punish directly.

You simply offer a very bad knowledge to the user, as well as a feeling of desertion of the web that can make them disregard other results of your website when they continue browsing.

In WordPress it has a quick solution, you only need this plugin to detect and correct them, or modification them to another connected URL.

Link quality and disown

We have freshly started working with a client whose link profile is made up of virtually little quality links and spam:

• Unconscious with black hat link building tools.
• Forums and comments in other languages
• User profiles on podia outside the area

Come on, it doesn't have a good link:

• Reviews or situations in related newspapers
• Links from industry blogs, magazines and forums
• Brand and domain mentions

 We will do an intentional DE authorization of links with Google's relinquish tool, while we work on safe link structure methods to maintain visibility and organic traffic throughout the process.

The good thing about it is that it locations itself very well for broad, wide-ranging and high-quality content.

Mobile version and user experience

This point is slight, since there is no general solution that is valid for all websites.

What you must keep in mind are some basic guidelines to promise that the knowledge is similar in both versions:

• Is the menu available and does it easy access to the same sections?
• Does the design familiarize to the desktop form starting from the mobile?
• Are pointless files, items, and capitals removed at each resolution?
• Are the adaptation elements observable, accessible and easy to use?
• Is the font size adequate and with enough contrast?
• Do elements overlay when scrolling or changing orientation of the mobile device?

And this is just part of what your design / UX / UI / CRO team must be conscious of...

Pagination

Have thousands of paginated URLs?

How considerable organic traffic do your pagination URLs get?

Are they useful for the user?

Surely when you have replied these questions you will be able to get an idea of ​​the impression they can have on crawling, indexing and the realism of using them or not .

This depends a portion on the project, so our advice is not to index them at first and complicate the links that enable triangulation finished them so as not to thin the page rank.

Of course, the internal linking works well to make unquestionable that there are no child pages, that Google can access all of them and make the link fluid flow through them in an optimal way.

Don't use friendly URLs

This is now a standard and essential not be forgotten, whether you program your own development for your website or if you use a CMS, especially for online stores.

Make sure your URLs are created with keywords, and if cruelly necessary, that the numbering or product codes appear at the end of it.

URL with parameters

Many CMS can add strictures and variables to URLs.

There is no problem with it, as long as the recognized Meta topics to the preferred URL for ranking.

Now, many times the content managers incline to have errors and adjustment the permanent URLs for the internal URLs that carry these parameters (in the case of WordPress: /? P = ID).

If this happens and someone reproductions those links, you will be behind putting strength due to the internal redirect that essential be shaped to resolve the landing page.

Make sure this does not occur.

URL structure and depth levels

Are your URLs well prepared and do you have the essential directories?

If you have addresses like: domain / my-category / products / basic-product / green-model / final-product /…

It may cost Google more to admittance the content than if you use a meeker structure.

In addition, you necessity bear in mind that the Page Rank will be thinned in individually step and you will lose putting strength for your final content.

SEO errors at the content level

Let's now look at the most common SEO errors inside on a website:

Internal links with no follow

This method was used years ago to sculpt the delivery of professional (Page Rank carving), but nowadays it does not make any intellect:

Any internal or external link on a page will continuously consume Page Rank.

So check your internal linking and disregard the tag rel="nofollow"even from lawful, contact and like pages.

It is always "better-quality" to complicate the links that you do not want Google to treat as such, and therefore thinned the link juice.

We put quote marks about it since difficulty is a technique that Google can reprimand.

Duplicate metadata

Duplicate internal content does not punish, but clearly we are losing promises to optimize and rank for diverse, related keywords or similar search purposes of users.

Make sure that at least the h1 and the Meta title are somewhat unlike, providing extra or applicable details to stimulate user click.

Snippets not optimized

Connected to the earlier one, try to make your Meta title and description good-looking, direct and correctly predate what the user will find in comparative to their search.

Use symbols, emoji’s, words with capital letters Discerning to highpoint keywords that attract the reader's eye and try not to go beyond prints so that they are not cut off.

With this character counter you can easily optimize your scrapings, both for title, description and general text, since it also counts words.

Alternative tags for images

They assistance so that Google and other search engines know what the image is about, and so that suitability systems such as clarification for the sightless can describe it.

It is a faultless space to include our keywords and expressions.

You can also whole them with lengthier decisions by adding the tag title="Texto del title".

But don't stew it, a line of about 100 characters is enough.

Duplicate content

As we supposed earlier, it is a fable that duplicate content under the same domain disciplines, but clearly Google is not pointless and will not waste time on URLs that offer precisely the same.

And your users do the same: if they jump to find the same information on your internal pages, they will additionally hesitation which form is correct, or they will go back to Google to find a website that suggestions them a well user experience.

With WordPress it is also common to create too numerous classes or tags to organize the content.

Make sure that all of them continuously offer diverse content and that they allow you to correctly filter by catchphrases.

There is nonentity worse than always detection the same post in all of them.

Thin content

Connected to the prior one, it is actual common to find empty tags or with just a pair of posts.

Separately from pages with little content, less than 300 words, this type of URL only makes noise, slow down the crawling of tactical content and giddy the user.

The early solution is to mark it as noindex, and once inspected, choose whether to eliminate it, swell its content or travel it to other sectors of the web to diminish our level of SEO errors.

Content cannibalization

One of the big SEO mistakes.

It regularly happens with clients absorbed with ranking for their main keyword, and they continuously create content on the similar topic, and in the end only one ranks for it and not actual well.

If this is your state, do a content audit and plan to unify comparable trainings or pages.

Once clear, run the content migration and don't forget to do the necessary 301 redirects.

Search intent

Related to the earlier one, it is possible that you suggest content that doses varied long-tail differences of a main keyword, but that the search purpose is the same.

In this sense, Google himself gives us the key:

• To know
• Know specifically
• Do something
• Do an act on a device
• Website (search for a website)
• Find a individual, business or sector

This is the spearhead to keep in mind when forming new content.

Header hierarchy

On this there is certainly no worldwide law, since you have total independence to establish the content as you want.

Now, as long as it makes intelligence to the user.

With HTML5 you can use some h1 tags for the main header, section header and article, and if you want you can start your post with an h2 (I've seen it and it works).

But better if you keep the hierarchy and regulate the css styles to balance the size and color by levels.

So, make sure that the inferior levels are headed by their aim level, and don't put an h4 after an h2, for example.

Internal linking and internal redirects

In forward-thinking content tactics, it is very normal to forget what we obtainable three years ago.

Though, we must always do the workout of reviewing it to link to the new articles that are threw, update the happy and correct possible errors.

Among them, it is very common to find links whose URL we have diverse and redirected, but not in the links inside the post.

With this we are behind specialist in the way of resending, we slow down the load while the 301 is running, and offended the user experience.

If you precise this SEO error, you will earn one more point.

Keyword stuffing

And lastly, the putting error par braininess:

Outbreak your texts by reiterating the same keyword over and over again.

• But it can get even worse:
• Continuously mark it in bold
• Hide it with the same background color
• Constantly use it in all links to your website

Through keyword research you can simply get a wide variety of keywords to use in your texts, internal and external linking, with which to achieve supreme impulsiveness and semantic breadth so that Google can location you better.

Conclusion

We all make faults, it is foreseeable.

That is why continuous intensive care is the key to rising your discernibility in divers in a continued, climbable and safe way.

For example, every month we review the status of lots of client websites and our own growths to detect dissatisfaction patterns that allow us to recover their living traffic, evade drops and make sure that, for our part, all is fine.

In this way we have collected wide skill in web putting in the face of waterfalls and consequences.