Website Mistakes That Can Ruin Your SEO

If we take a look at the theory, SEO is just a line of steps you take in order to make your website in accordance to the search engine standards. But in practice, SEO is much more than choosing keywords and ranking high in search queries. As time goes by, search engines are evolving and they are becoming smarter – they have the ability to mimic the way that users search for something. Many website mistakes can cost you your SEO efforts. But to avoid them, you need to be aware of them first. So here we have compiled a list of the most common website mistakes that can ruin your SEO!

1. Poor backlink quality

Backlinks are one of the most important things when it comes to SEO. If many websites point links to your website, that is a clear signal that the content you share provides quality to visitors. However, it is not always “the more – the merrier”. One of the basic website mistakes that people make is thinking that any link is a good link. Absolutely wrong! If websites that have a poor reputation are linking to your website, that can hurt your ranking. We are not speaking about new website that are building their way up. We are talking about website that have negative rating from all of the different reasons. That might be because they have used black hat SEO techniques or they have poor content. To avoid this website mistake, make sure you check the quality of the backlinks you are receiving. Prefer backlinks from popular and trusted websites.

2. Poor website speed

Another common website mistake is not optimizing your website to be as fast as possible. This may not look so important, but people nowadays expect speedy websites. In fact, nearly half of the users have very high expectations – they want the website to load in 2 seconds or less! Slow websites will see their bounce rate going up fast, and as we know, that is a very important metric that search engine bots take into consideration! To avoid loading delays, optimize your website by using the proper code and reducing the size of your files.

3. Not doing an analysis

If you are getting the traffic you want and the conversion you want, it is easy to forget the analysis data. However, if things look good on the surface, it doesn’t mean that they are alright at the core as well. Make sure you pay attention to the analytics. Look for patters and take a look at the numbers – they will give you a good view of where your strategy should be headed.

4. Quantity over quality

Having fresh posts on your website is the absolute way to go – but not at all costs. If the quantity and quality are at the same level, then you are doing a great job! However, if you are focusing more on updating the website regularly with new posts, then you might be making this common website mistake. Always put quality as a priority – it is better to write an article that will provide value to the users, instead of writing five poor-quality articles that will only put your bounce rate high because the users didn’t find them appealing.

5. Forgetting about the ALT tags

It is very common for users to make their way to a certain website by using image search. But of course, the only way that they can get to your website through image search is if you use the ALT tags. ALT tags on images are the perfect way of giving your website a boost. By using relevant images and adding your keywords in the ALT tags, you avoid making yet another website mistake that can sabotage your SEO!

  19/02/2018     2,201 Views