Finding the balance between evergreen and timely content can drive traffic and keep your blog relevant. Check out our guide to balancing these content types!
Avoid common SEO mistakes that can tank your traffic. Learn quick fixes for page speed, duplicate content, and more to boost your site’s performance.
Is your website traffic not taking off, or worse, taking a nosedive? You might be making some technical SEO mistakes that are costing you valuable visitors. But it doesn’t have to be that way! We’ve got the lowdown on the most common SEO mistakes to avoid and how to fix them fast.
The Problem: More than half of all web traffic comes from mobile devices. You’re missing out on a huge audience if your site isn’t mobile-friendly.
The Solution: Use responsive design to ensure your site looks great on any device. Test your site on multiple devices and screen sizes to ensure things load correctly, the layout doesn’t shift off the screen, and all interactive elements are immediately responsive. Need help? GPO’s SEO services can optimize your site for mobile users.
The Problem: Slow-loading pages frustrate users and increase bounce rates. Google also uses page speed as a ranking factor, so slow sites often rank lower in search results, especially if users continue navigating back to the search results page after clicking on a site.
The Solution: Optimize image size and format, leverage browser caching, and minimize CSS, JavaScript, and HTML. Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights can help you identify specific page speed issues, including ones that pertain to your site’s Core Web Vitals.
The Problem: Duplicate content is one of the major content mistakes that harm SEO. Duplicate content confuses search engines and users and can lead to lower rankings. If your site has a lot of pages saying the same thing, there’s a good chance Google won’t want to crawl it or index it.
The Solution: If it is essential to keep multiple versions of the same content on different pages on your site, use canonical tags to tell search engines which version of a page is the original. Ideally, every page should include unique content to show Google your site as a whole provides value for users. Regularly audit your site to find and fix duplicate content issues. Start your audit with our SEO auditing guide.
The Problem: Meta descriptions may not directly impact rankings, but they can affect click-through rates. Users may find poorly written or missing meta descriptions less helpful, which can result in fewer clicks and lead to decreased rankings.
The Solution: Write compelling, keyword-rich meta descriptions for every page. Keep them concise (under 160 characters), and make sure they accurately describe the page’s content.
The Problem: Broken links and 404 errors create a bad user experience and can harm your rankings. They prevent search engines from indexing your site correctly.
The Solution: Regularly check for broken links using tools like Screaming Frog or Google Search Console. Fix or redirect broken links to relevant pages.
The Problem: HTTPS is a ranking signal, and it’s crucial for security. Sites without HTTPS can appear untrustworthy and may be penalized in search rankings.
The Solution: Switch your site to HTTPS by obtaining an SSL certificate. Ensure all elements on your site (images, scripts, etc.) are served securely. As an added best practice, make sure all internal links on your website include https in the link. Using absolute URLs (href=”www.example.com/blog/”) instead of relative (href=”/blog/”) in your hyperlinks is a great way to avoid accidentally linking to HTTP URLs.
The Problem: An ineffective internal linking structure makes it harder for users and search engines to understand your site’s hierarchy and index your pages.
The Solution: Use descriptive anchor text and link to important pages within your content. This helps search engines and users navigate your site more effectively. Explore our detailed SEO predictions for 2024 for more tips on making your site more helpful.
The Problem: For businesses with physical locations, ignoring local SEO can mean missing out on local customers searching for your services.
The Solution: Optimize your Google Business Profile, use local keywords in your content, ensure your site has dedicated local pages for cities and service areas you operate in, and get reviews from satisfied customers.
Avoiding these eight common SEO problems can help improve your site’s traffic, rankings, and user experience. If you need expert guidance, GPO is here to help! Our SEO consulting and monitoring services provide you with actionable items that will transform your site’s performance. Visit GPO’s Organic Search Services to learn more about how we can assist you in achieving SEO success.
Finding the balance between evergreen and timely content can drive traffic and keep your blog relevant. Check out our guide to balancing these content types!
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