Ignoring Page Speed Irregular Site Audit Not Updated for Google Algorithm Overlooking Basic Search Engine Optimization(SEO) Not Republish Outdated Content Not Optimizing Images Improper Keywords Usage Not Optimizing Heading Making wrong Content Strategy Not Updating Old Content Wrong CTAs Placement Not Checking GSC Performance Poor Landing Page Design Ignoring EAT Factors Poor Navigation Not Checking Indexability and Crawlability No Schema Optimization No Link to Quality Websites Ignoring Mobile Friendliness and AMP Bad UI/UX Not Implementing Proper Sitemap and Robots Wrong Category and Tag usage No Social Presence Guest Posting on Spammy Websites Not Filtering Spammy Backlinks Let's check out each of these mistakes in detail and ways to refrain from them. 1. Ignoring Page Speed It is the most important factor from the SEO Perspective. Many business owners ignore this. According to stats, 93% of the people will bounce from your website if your web page loads slow. What to do if your website speed is slow: Check the speed of your website with free tools like , , , and Google's Page Speed Insight Pingdom GTmetrix MakeWebBetter Page Speed tool Minify CSS and JS Enable compression Optimizing the Images with less size Remove render-blocking resources Clear cache Minify resources Visible content prioritization 2. Irregular Site Audit Check the technical issues fixes of your website. Google loves websites that are error-free. Having lots of issues on your website can damage your visitors' experience and can harm your website. Audit your website with technical SEO fixes on a weekly or monthly basis. What are the basic errors to check : 404 errors SSL Certificate Sitemap errors Robot.txt Https issues Schema markup Canonical issues HTML issues 3. Not Updated for Google Core Algorithm Google almost changes its algorithms more than 500 times a year. These changes are very small and do not impact many results. But in a year, Google rolls out its twice or thrice.  These core algorithms update impact many websites and in many ways. So, it’s really important to keep an eye on Google Algorithms when they are rolled out. Core Update of Algorithms You can use the following tools to check the Google Updates- , , , etc. SEMrush Sensor Algoroo Moz Cast Some major Google Algorithm are: Panda Penguin Rank Brain Possum Pigeon Fred BERT Hummingbird 4. Overlooking basic SEO Many websites ignore the basic HTML issues of  SEO and meta tags like title, description, etc. Although these are basics of SEO but play a major role to increase your ranking on search engines. What to consider in basic SEO: Focus keyword Keyword usage Meta title Meta description Social tags like OG, twitter card Tags and categories Alt in images Internal & external linkings 5. Not Republishing Outdated Content Often, many bloggers and content writers don't bother to update the older content published on the website. Republishing old content again and again with the latest trend for the topic can give a boost to the ranking of the older blog. What to do of the content which are outdated or obsolete: Remove the blog which is not needed. Deindex the obsolete content Update the blog with new content Republish the blog with optimizing the SEO data. Recheck the less performing blog from GSC and Analytics Link the old blog with new blogs after content is update Share the blogs on social media Reutilize the long content in the form of infographic or SlideShare 6. Not Optimizing Images Images are the decorative and attractive part which make your blogs less boring and help visitors’ to keep engaging with the article till the end. Images help visitors to understand more about the product and services. Source: Bluecorona Things to consider when using images: Use Alt in images with relevant keywords Use correct image name Proper title and description of images Choose correct file name and format Reduce image & file size Use responsive image for desktop, mobile, and tablets Make sure the images are fine for social tags Use data structure/ schema for images 7. Improper Keyword Usage Using proper keywords in your content or on any product page will let the user know what exactly the content is about. The words and phrases help in knowing the user about the blogs and give an overview of the search engines. Keywords Research is also important because they improve your search engine rankings. Ranking high on search engines needs keyword research as a top priority for an SEO campaign. In fact, we can say that without proper keyword research, implementing SEO is impossible. Source: Backlinko Pro-tips to use keywords properly: Plan your topic and the content flow Choose a focus keyword, related and LSI/ semantic keywords Use the keywords in content, heading, title, description, image alt, etc. Use tools like Google trends, GSC, Ubersuggest, etc to do keyword research. Use long-tail keywords Do competitor analysis Always check volume, competition, CPC, difficulty of keywords Don’t do keyword stuffing 8. Not Optimizing Headings Heading optimization leads to the proper text structure of the content. It also improves the accessibility and enhances SEO of the page. Heading also improves the readability of the page. Tips to optimize the headings: Use keywords in headings Use keywords in subheadings Don't make your heading of more than 300 words Add subheading if you have more content to describe. Use only one H1. Don’t duplicate H1 and Title. Use proper H2-H6 in a sequence form Don't stuff keywords in any heading and subheadings 9. Framing Wrong Content Strategy Planning a good content strategy with good topic scheduling can take your website to a higher level. We all know that content is king. Content is the major part for which SEO is performed. Content is used everywhere on websites. Be it a landing page, blogs, articles, images, etc. Some strategies to sum up while making content: Always publish long-form content Content must be SEO friendly Write content for people to give them knowledge Provide relevant information to users. Write fresh content. Don’t steal another's content. Don’t do content spinning. Do proper research before starting with your content idea. 10. Not Updating Old Content Republishing your old content is a must if it's outdated. According to stats, the older your content will be, the less chances to rank and visible over SERPs. Google uses fresh content to determine your website rankings. To maintain yourself on top, you need to update your content consistently which boosts freshness and SEO. If you are not interested in updating the old content and think it’s outdated or obsolete, you can remove it from your website. Source: Neil Patel What are the benefits to keep your content updated? Boost in rankings Improves website overall SEO performance. Improves CTR Providing new information to visitors Showing Google that your website is fresh and updated. Improve the accuracy of the topic & content You can add more link and remove broken links Add relevant resources with new keywords 11. Wrong CTAs placement CTAs or Call to Actions may not be a direct ranking factor but it can surely hurt your website and the user experience. Having a good placement of CTAs can increase your sales and conversion by 200%. Making good and attractive CTAs can bring you leads. Some tips to make a good CTAs: Add attractive words like submit, try for free instead of join us, click here, etc. Choose the perfect place to add the CTA button. Use urgency keywords to bring the customer’s attention. Use bold and clear CTAs Show CTA on exit. Show offers & CTA via popup. Always do A/B testing Use variants over landing pages and blogs. 12. Not Checking GSC Performance It’s necessary to check the overall performance of the website via the free tool (GSC). Many business owners and websites don't have GSC or don't check the performance report of blogs or content. Google Search Console Google Search Console is a free tool and in SEO, it helps us to tell about the performance on the basis of and Top Pages, Search Queries, Country, Devices. Top features to check on GSC are: Performance Overview Sitemap Removals & Other actions on Pages Security & manual Actions Coverage Issues Links actions like disavow and sitelinks Enhancement Legacy tools and Reports 13. Poor Landing Page Design Landing pages drive visitors through all the important links and sections where you want them to click and visit. You need to put using which visitors can easily navigate throughout the website. important elements on your landing pages Some best practices to improve landing pages: Design it as simple as you can Use Z or F layout Use contrasting colors Use attractive CTAs properly Use more content with optimized images Try A/B test Don’t distract visitors Add testimonials 14. Ignoring EAT factors or Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness factors are the basic and important guidelines which Google provides for all websites. EAT in SEO It consists of concepts like Page Quality, YMYL (Your Money, Your Life), Need Met, and many other factors that should be checked by all websites to increase its effectiveness. It tells about the search quality of the pages existing on your website. Some important criteria to check in EAT: Measuring of links Quality How much people trust your website Signals from search engines Reviews and ratings Mentioning from other authoritative sources Spam check Not following the data structure markup Following Google Algorithm updates 15. Poor Navigation Navigation is crucial and must be optimized by every website. It can result in the best success in terms of conversions or can decline your website to failure and no sale. It also impacts the user experience as well as the friendliness of the website. Some major points which you should note: Styling of menu bar Following standards Stuffing in menu bar and submenu Wrong navigation links and order Using of labels and texts Dropdown listing in wrong way Mobile-friendliness Responsiveness 16. Not Checking Indexability and Crawlability Google bots check the pages on the website and then index and crawl your website. So it’s very important to check your website that it must not create any issues in crawling. A checklist to review: Structure of website Redirects and loops Errors of Server or Client Server errors Blocking of resources/ web access Internal links Sitemap issues Unblocking the Robot.txt CSS and JS 17. No Schema Optimization Schema markup helps in letting Google know the proper structure of the website and boosts your SEO. It helps in showing featured snippets over search engines to help visitors get the knowledge quickly and accurately. Some important schema markup are as follows: Organization WPHeader/WPFooter FAQs Site Navigation News Blog/ Article Products Reviews 18. No Links to Quality Websites Quality links to your website and on the website, both are important. The more easily link juice will pass, the more your website is read by Google in an efficient way. Make sure to add good external links on your website and try to acquire backlinks from authoritative websites. Source: Neil Patel Some points to recheck: Add Nofollow link on an external website if you don’t trust them. Give dofollow links to the website you trust. Check PA/ DA of the website before adding any link. Don't buy links. Don’t Spam Link websites related to your niche Avoid Reciprocal links Low-quality links 10. Ignoring Mobile Friendliness and AMP Making you page mobile-friendly and implementing Accelerated Mobile Pages(AMP) is not that tiresome. But most of the websites take it lightly. It helps the visitors to check your website and go through your pages easily. Google also considers AMP and mobile friendliness as a top priority while ranking websites. Source: MakeWebBetter SEO tool Tips for AMP and Mobile SEO: Use AMP version for blog Check your website on tools like Mobile-friendliness test Check speed on both Mobile and desktop Add another layout and design for Mobile Version Check responsiveness on Desktop, Laptop, and Mobile devices Use Structured Data or Schema Optimize title and description for mobile SERPs Check CTR & other performance for mobile devices. 20. Bad UI/UX Poor UI/ UX can result in the failure of your website. Whenever any visitor comes on your website, the first thing they feel and observe is the UI/ UX. It should be attractive and easy to navigate so that they can reach other pages without any difficulty. Some tips for UI/UX: Follow the Website Guideline of EAT Increase dwell time Improve page speed Simple website structure Invest in site responsiveness Make website user friendly Proper navigation Helpful CTAs 21. Not Implementing Proper Sitemap and Robots Sitemaps.xml helps the Google bot to review and go through the website pages linking to each other easily. It contains the list of pages according to their category and subcategory Robots.txt tells which page should be crawled and which are not to be crawled. If you want any page not to crawl by google you can add them on the robot.txt file. Some points to review: Use single sitemap Implement proper sitemap structure Add a robot.txt file Check crawling budget Add the pages in robot.txt which are not needed Remove low-quality pages Test the pages regularly Optimize categories and page in sitemap 22. Wrong Category and Tag Usage Categories and tags help to boost SEO and help Google to understand your pages in a proper manner. WordPress Plugins like have an inbuilt feature to set the categories and tags in a user-friendly manner for Google as well as for visitors. Yoast Some points to take care while using tags and categories: Use keywords & related keywords in categories Don’t over-optimize Use relevant tags & categories for product and categories Do proper SEO Avoid stuffing of keywords Connect pages with the categories wherever needed Don't stuff pages with so many tags Setup tags and categories in the sitemap.xml file 23. No Social Presence Nowadays, social media plays an important role for websites. If you don't have social media links on your website, then you must start doing it today. Social platforms boost your visibility and give positive signals to the search engines. Make a social media checklist where you can prepare the list of tasks you need to do on particular social media platforms. Following are the channels with different benefits in terms of SEO: YouTube: Launch a channel where you can post your videos. Facebook: Crete you brown shops and link schedule posting as per your choice LinkedIn: Most professional platforms for B2B marketing Instagram: Showcase your products in a creative way. Pinterest: Add infographics, carousel, images, etc Twitter: Create tweets and find influencers easily Snapchat: create live stories and post TikTok: be trending in the form of short videos 24. Guest Posting on Spammy Websites Many SEO or website owners believe that doing guest posts will benefit your business and gain authority. It's really true but doing them in the wrong way can hurt your rankings too. Some suggestions for guest posts: Don’t approve any guest post from the person whom you don't trust Don’t do guest posts on spammy websites Flag inappropriate if you get a request too many times Check authority of the website Check EAT factors Connect websites of your niche if you want to do guest posting Allow guest posts if they are related to yours Ask for links but not URLs 25. Not Filtering Spammy Backlinks Filtering backlinks is one of the most important SEO tasks which people ignore. But to be serious, you should check and audit your website’s backlinks on a weekly or monthly basis. It’ll help you to protect your website from spammy websites that link back to your domain anonymously. Here are some todos: Audit your backlinks from tools like SEMrush, Moz, etc Select the links which have low trust scores or less domain authority Filter out the links which look spammy Check the link from GSC Check Spam percentage from Moz ToolBar Start making the list of links and add them to tool Google’s disavow Review the list of links which you disavow from tools again Protect your website from spam & stop ruining your website Conclusion Making a good and SEO friendly website needs consistent checks and audits. You need to check all points, ranging from technical to basic SEO. Performing SEO in an incorrect way can result in a bad health score of your website and hence will impact the overall performance of the website; not only in terms of SEO but also in terms of conversions and sales with loss in revenue. Take all precautionary measures and actions on your website and remain beloved in the eyes of Google and other search engines.

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