SEO mistakes to avoid in 2023

SEO is increasing the organic traffic to a website by improving the overall visibility of all the web pages. To achieve the top ranking for all your target keywords, you should apply perfect SEO techniques to increase your rank. There are many online resources on improving your SEO practices, and the most common SEO mistakes should not be overlooked.

SEO mistakes to avoid in 2023-

1. Not optimizing your website for mobile devices

Most people use their smartphones and other mobile devices to access the internet. Hence, you must optimize your website for these devices. You should ensure that your website navigates seamlessly on a mobile screen. You also have to ensure that your content is readable without zooming in or moving to the right or left. You should remember that desktops and mobile websites are two separate entities, and if a mobile version of your website is not well-optimized, it cannot appear in the search results.

2. Not creating high-quality content

Your website content should be original, relevant, and engaging enough to keep the users returning for even more. While creating content, you should remember that you do not have much time to attract a user’s attention. According to famous studies, the average time to the site for the top ten search results is only three minutes and ten seconds.

3. Using duplicated content

Duplicated content on the website can hurt your previous SEO efforts, and it can also confuse the search engines about which version of the content is the most authoritative one. Duplicate content can lead to lower used engagement rates and a less positive user experience. This can impact the ranking of your websites to a great extent.

4. Forgetting that faster is better.

The most common mistake one should know about is the site speed. The faster your website, the more Google will try to favour it. With the page experience ranking factor rolling out slowly, it is crucial to work on the site speed to keep your web pages in the search results. Google PageSpeed Insights is a tool that gives you an overview of what aspects you can improve to boost the speed of a webpage.

You should also try to optimize your images, as many websites have relatively large images and it takes an ample of time to load. It automatically makes your website slower than it needs to be.

If you resize your images, it can speed up the loading time to a great extent. 

5. Trying to rank for the wrong keywords

If you want to rank in Google, you should ensure that you use the right keywords on every web page. One of the biggest mistakes one can frequently encounter is that website owners optimize their pages for generic keywords. 

The longer and the more specific your keywords are, the higher your chances of ranking for that particular keyword. This means that the search volume for this keyword is lower. You can also compensate for this by optimizing many web pages for different types of long-tail keywords.

Many individuals avail of SEO Canberra, a digital marketing agency which provides different types of SEO services to their clients.

6. Failing to invite people to visit your website

Metadata appears on the SERPs when a website comes up for specific queries. This includes the title of your webpage and the Meta description as well. The most crucial ranking factors for Google is the page title. Thus, you have to ensure that it is optimized correctly for every page. You can add a keyword to the title if it is possible. You should also make sure that your page title is not long.

If the page title is too long, it might get cut off. 

Meta description plays a huge role in your CTR, which gives an insight into how likely the potential visitors are to click on your website in the SERPs. You should optimize your Meta description with a clear and attractive message on what people can find on your website. 

7. Neglecting to write excellent content

It is crucial that every webpage has decent content, and Google needs enough copy to find out what your web page is all about and whether you can provide the answer people are looking for.

You should not expect Google to see you as an expert on a particular topic.

You should be suitable for the visitors and not just for the search engine. This is something you should keep in mind. Writing quality content means writing original content that shows your expertise. 

8. Failing to keep people on your website

Once a visitor lands on your website, your next goal should be to keep them on it. You should encourage your visitors to click through your site, and the best way to do this is to create a Call to Action, a button that offers an action to your visitor. You can also add relevant internal links to the other pages on your site. It is a significant part of SEO and should be a part of marketing efforts. By adding internal links, your site visitors and the search engine will know what pages are related to each other. Hence, you should ensure that you spend time on your internal linking to create a great site structure that keeps people on your website.

9. Need to think ahead: The future is mobile

In 2018, Google switched to mobile indexing which means that Google looks at the mobile version of your site and decides how high you should rank. If the desktop version of your website is set up well, but if the mobile version is not responsive, it will be reflected in your rankings, and it might make a negative impact. You should visit your website on your own mobile phone and check it properly and if you encounter any error while navigating your own website, you should set up a team of developers and get it reviewed.

Mobile usage is on the rise and it will continue to be on the rise.

Sophie Brown

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