When you are first starting out with SEO, there are some misconceptions that many people find themselves falling into. In this blog post, I want to address some of the most common things that people might be doing in an attempt to boost their SEO that actually might be hurting them. I’ll go through what those mistakes are, and how to avoid them.
Poor Mobile Optimization
One of the things Google looks for when it is determining how people rank is how long people spend on a page once they enter onto it. The longer people spend on that page, the more it signals to Google that the page has value and is worth it to rank higher.
With the continuing upward trend of people viewing a website on their phones, it is extremely important to ensure that the mobile experience of your website is optimized for the users experience. With most people creating their websites on a computer, this can be an easy thing to miss.
You want to ensure that you preview your site on mobile view and make sure there is no obvious design flaws that prevent users from consuming your content. This might include:
1.) Ensuring that all images are sized correctly and aren’t covering any content.
2.) Ensuring that your site menu is easily accessible.
3.) Ensuring that any pop-ups you have don’t consume the whole page without easily being able to close them.
4.) Ensure that there isn’t large blocks of text, or large sections with pictures. Make sure that it’s properly distributed.
5.) Make sure that the sizing of all text, including in graphics you have chosen to use is large enough for the average person to easily read.
Low Quality Content
Google prioritizes content that is the most helpful to people who might be searching for what you are writing about. It is not good enough and is often harmful when people write content just for the sake of writing content.
Google looks for content that was written by a human, (Not AI) and looks for the content that is well organized and can solve the problem/question that the searcher is looking for.
Although you can use AI for blog writing, you shouldn’t rely on it to generate the content completely for you. You will want to focus on writing valuable content for other humans, and not strictly to get onto Google’s search.
Ignoring On Page SEO
On page SEO refers to things like heading structure (H1, H2, etc.), keyword usage, optimizing your title and descriptions, and ensuring that your alt text and images are good.
1.) Optimize your Images
2.) Use only one H1 tag and then use H2 and H3 tags as appropriate to break up your additional content.
3.) Avoid keyword stuffing.
4.) Have a unique keyword for each page of your site to avoid keyword cannibalism
Insufficient Keyword Research
Another big issue that people might run into is not doing sufficient research for keywords. You want to target keywords that your ideal client is actively searching for but especially in the beginning you want to look for keywords that have a lower competition so you can rank faster. I’ve written a full guide on How to Choose Keywords for Your Website that you might want to check out on how to find the best keywords for you to target!
Ignoring Site Speed
Site speed is another thing that many people overlook. You want your site to load as fast as possible for the best user experience. If your website has a slow load time, it might cause people to not want to wait for it to load, thus signaling to Google that your website isn’t getting people the results they are looking for as it often causes them to go back to Google to get what they want.
In Conclusion
SEO takes time and effort. With the ever-evolving algorithm, it can be hard to stay on top of everything. By focusing on the steps in this blog post, you can begin your SEO journey and can get off on the right foot with creating your content to rank on Google.
