The most common SEO mistakes - find out how to avoid them!

Positioning is a complex process that involves many on- and off-page activities. Done properly, they produce long-lasting results and enable companies to reach potential customers. However, the road to success, i.e. getting high in the search results for important phrases, is riddled with pitfalls and full of challenges. The most common mistakes SEO are the result of ignorance, laziness, inexperience or the desire to "cheat the system" and achieve visible results in a flash. In this article, you will read about the most common mistakes. If, while reading, you notice that you are making some of them, don't worry! Correct them, learn from them and enjoy results on Google that will translate into profits for your business.

Lack of keyword research

Selecting the right keywords is the cornerstone of SEO. Skipping this step of the action or choosing the wrong phrases will lead to the website not reaching interested parties. 

Key phrases are the queries on which you want your content to appear in search results. You will need to use tools to find them. Some of them are free, so even if you do not want to budget for them at the moment, it is not a problem. First of all, simply go to Google. As you start typing in the keyword you are interested in on the bar, the search engine itself will suggest the most popular queries.

Other tools you can use include. Google Keyword Planner, Keyword Generator i Keyword Sheeter. 

It is also a good idea to positioning on long tail. Long-tail phrases are more precise, consisting of three or more words. They are less competitive and are more strongly aligned with user intent.

Lack of content optimisation

Nowadays, any text that is written with a view to being published online should be the result of SEO copywriting. This means that is to meet the demands of search engines, which in turn want to meet the expectations of their users. Of course, the starting point in on-page content optimisation is to perform a phrase analysis. These should then naturally be included in the content for the page (descriptions, blog articles, etc.). They should also be included in the headings and metadata: title, description and alternative image texts.

However, it is worth mentioning the other side of the coin, i.e. over-saturating the content on your site with keywords, which is also a mistake. The so-called keyword stuffing relies on unnatural 'upscaling' of phrases and stopped working many years ago, more specifically in 2011 when the Panda algorithm was introduced.

Duplication of content (external or internal)

Duplication of content, both within one site and copying from other sites (e.g. competitors) is for Google's robots a sign of poor quality. Therefore, sites with duplicate content do not stand much chance of gaining high search engine positions. Duplicate metadata should also be avoided. They should be original and attractive to users, so it is not worth generating them using tools to automatically create meta tags across the site.

TIP: To check how the created meta description and title will appear in Google search, use the of this tool.

Failure to adapt the website to mobile devices

The lack of optimisation for mobile devices is a huge mistake, as Google has introduced a Mobile-optimised indexing! Previously, the index used the computer version to assess the relevance of a page against a query. Now Googlebot scans and indexes as a smartphone user, as most of us use the search engine on mobile devices. Therefore, a page that adapts to screens of different resolutions is a must!

Incorrect (or no) redirections

Have you ever clicked on a link you were interested in, but instead of getting to the expected landing page, you saw a 404 message? If so, you can certainly confirm that such a message compromises the customer's experience with the company, as the error makes it difficult to stay on the site. Error 404 appears when a subpage of the site is deleted or a link to the site is changed. In this situation, the site owner must implement a permanent 301 redirect. This is a way of sending web traffic from the old to the latest version of the address URL. 

So remember - if, for whatever reason, you have decided to remove a certain sub-page, make a redirect that directs to another, preferably thematically related or simply the home page.

What 301 redirect has to do with SEO? It is essential to maintain traffic and gained positions in case of a URL change!

No SSL certificate

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a standard technology that serves to establish the encrypted connection between the server and the user. For a large proportion of hosting companies in Poland, an SSL certificate is available as an offer, usually even as standard. Remember that an SSL certificate is one of Google's ranking factors! It is a must, and it is especially important for online shops. A customer's suspicion that a transaction in a shop is not fully secure is a common reason why they abandon their shopping cart. 

Overlooking the User Experience

UX is nothing more than all the user experiences that occur when the user uses a particular website or application. All the activities that are carried out as part of UX are intended to make the Internet user's experience purely positive. It is therefore necessary to improve the website so that it is maximally useful, intuitive to use and interesting.

Why is UX so important? Nowadays, when we go online and browse websites, we expect them to provide us with valuable content, while also being effortless to use. When we come across a website and are discouraged after just a few seconds by its design, unreadable content or unintuitive navigation, we turn to its competitors.

Linking to the site from multiple low-quality sites

Due to a number of changes in Google's algorithms over the years, linkbuilding has also evolved. It used to be enough to acquire a lot of links from low-quality sites (so-called link farms) and it worked. Nowadays, using these types of tactics is more likely to harm a site than help it. It is now recommended to create valuable content that is useful to users and at the same time provides an opportunity to naturally acquire links from thematically related high authority sites.

Links can be sourced easily through platforms such as Linkhouse or Whitepress.

Ignoring indexing errors

W GSC (Google Search Console), you will find information about problems related to the indexing of your website that Google robots encounter on their way. These could be server-side errors or redirection problems. Review Google Search Console reports on a regular basisto find sub-pages that have not been deliberately excluded from indexation. Eliminate indexing errors and also check the tool for comments on other quality aspects of the site.

Failure to optimise page load speed

Site speed is a ranking factor. Its importance is high, due to the fact that the future (actually already the present) of the Internet is mobile devices. User experience is heavily influenced by page load speed - which is why it is so important to Google when ranking. Page load speed has a critical impact on conversions. Between just 1 and 3 seconds of waiting for resources to load, the risk of a user leaving the site increases by 32%!

PageSpeed Insights is a tool from Google that makes it possible to carry out page speed test. By performing the test, a set of data is obtained that determines the speed of access to the site's resources. With PageSpeed Insights, as the owner of the page, you can identify errors occurring on the page that negatively affect performance. 

No analysis of the activities carried out

Collect and analyse data, correct errors, improve, analyse again. How else will you know if your SEO is even having the intended effect? Check on an ongoing basis whether there is actually an increase in the position for the chosen phrases and whether the conversion rate is increasing. Tools such as Google Analytics i Google Search Console.

One more thing... have patience and don't give up on SEO after a month!

Remember, you cannot count on the effects of SEO to appear as soon as you start taking action. You can't expect a site that was completely invisible to Google a month ago to suddenly make it to the TOP3 of the search results. SEO is a lengthy process that generates returns in the long term. How long you wait for the results of your SEO will of course depend on a number of factors such as the initial state of your website, your competitiveness and your budget. In most cases, however, you will have to wait a few months. Nevertheless, the gamble is worth the candle - a company visible in a search engine is an opportunity to reach potential customers on an ongoing basis.