7 Common SEO Mistakes to Avoid & How to Fix It

Since SEO is a technical digital marketing effort, it is common for people to make SEO mistakes. One of the signs can be how difficult it is to rank higher on search results for targeted keywords. To prevent it from happening, you should know some SEO mistakes to avoid in 2024. 

To figure out the common do’s and don’t of SEO, read this guide until the end!

8 SEO Mistakes to Avoid in 2024 and More

Many websites, whether large corporations or small local enterprises own them, miss a few crucial details. However, anything that makes it more difficult for you to attain the top spot could result in a sharp decline in user engagement and revenue. 

Then, what are the SEO mistakes to avoid? Below is a detailed explanation:

1. Crawling and Indexing Problem 

The first mistake is anything that can result in a crawling and indexing problem, such as an issue in robots.txt or adding no index tag to pages. 

Google will not be able to see the content on the page if it cannot crawl your content. Additionally, it is unlikely to rank for any relevant of your targeted keywords if it is unable to access the content of the page.

Not only that, but it is also tough to rank your website if you have inadvertently prevented Google from indexing any of its pages. Therefore, it is best to always perform site audits regularly to find issues that can block Google from crawling and indexing your site. 

2. Duplicate Content

Duplicate content is a page on your website that has the same material as another. This could indicate that it is an identical duplicate or with some modifications, largely has the same information.

Why is it bad to have duplicate content? This type of content results in the incorrect version of a page appearing in search engine results pages (SERPs), causes inadequate or disorganised page ranks and causes problems with your website's indexing.

To fix this, you can find the content by doing site audits and doing some solutions below:

• Redirecting a duplicate page to the original one using a 301 redirect.
• Enhancing one of the duplicate pages with original content.
• Specifying which of your duplicate pages search engines should display in the SERP by adding a rel="canonical" link to that page. 

3. Not Optimising for Site Speed

Slow page speed can bring you to SEO pitfalls. This is because Google will favour your site more if it loads faster, particularly now that one of Google's ranking elements is page experience. Yet, many webmasters forget that they must keep their sites running fast.

In this case, one of the issues is webmaster might use large-sized images in their site which take longer time to load. 

As a result, the page loads slower than it must be, affecting the user experience. Users who visit your site might leave your site early before scanning the whole page sections, increasing the bounce rate which is bad for your site. 

To fix this, you can test your page speed or do a site audit to find the underlying issue. Then, you can solve it by compressing the images on the page, moving to a different hosting if the problem is in the server, applying minification, enabling browser caching, or optimising the HTML code. 

4. Not Researching Keywords or Targeting the Wrong Keywords

Keywords have become one of the integral parts of SEO. However, many webmasters do not research their keywords and randomly create content. Though, no one will be going through any pages if no one is looking for such topics, and this will not result in traffic. 

In another case, the webmaster has already performed keyword research, but they target the wrong keywords. Optimising pages for generic keywords is one of the common mistakes website owners make. 

For example, if you run a local travel agent and you target the “travel agent” keyword, you may have set the bar too high. Regarding this, you can target more precise keywords, such as “travel agent in Penang”. If not, you would mostly compete with large travel agencies globally, which is not feasible. Therefore, targeting the wrong keywords becomes one of the SEO mistakes to avoid. 

Your chances of ranking for a keyword increase with its length and specificity. this also indicates that there are fewer searches for this particular term. 

5. Meta Tags Not Fully Optimised

Meta tags, such as title tags and meta descriptions, are crucial since they are the first things that users see after inputting the query to the search bar. Yet, not all sites optimise them better. 

Some issues found might be empty meta description tags, titles are too long, different titles for page and SERP, or meta descriptions are too long or short. 

To overcome this, you can run a site audit to see the meta tag issues, then you can fix them by putting targeted keywords on meta tags, differentiating and making unique titles for pages, and being relevant to the search intent. 

6. Writing Low Quality Content

Users are meant to receive the finest content possible from search algorithms. Thus, it stands to reason that poor-quality content will not appear highly on Google. 

Furthermore, it may result in low user engagement, poor conversion rates, and a damaged reputation for the brand. Using poor-quality content will negatively impact your SEO efforts overall.

On top of that, you must note that you write for human users first, not Google. Google wants to deliver the highest-quality answers while organising the world's knowledge. Therefore, if you want to rank highly in Google, you need to write high-quality content for your audience.

Some tactics you can do to produce top-notch content are:

• Write in E-E-A-T standard. 
• Provide updated information. 
• Provide relevant, accurate, useful, and valuable content. 
• Match the search intent. 

7. Not Having Enough Backlinks

Last but not least, your site might not have enough backlinks. Backlinks are one of the Google ranking factors determining your site authority. Therefore, one of the main causes of your pages' poor rankings could be a lack of links.

To build backlinks or do a backlink audit you can learn from your competitors and “hack” their linking strategies. You can also do some off-page strategies, like influencer marketing, content marketing, and guest blogging.

However, you should avoid link-building mistakes, like buying backlinks, since it is against Google’s guidelines. If they think you are doing this, they may downgrade or eliminate your website from their search results and hit you with an unnatural link removal action.

Those are the SEO mistakes to avoid you should know, especially if you are new to this field. SEO indeed requires more effort and time, and it might be hard to remember many things to work on. Yet, you must do it to maintain the rankings and not “waste” your budget for failing tactics. 

If you find it difficult or need a hand to work on SEO, SEO Services by cmlabs is here to help you. Our SEO specialists will not only ensure your website functions properly but also that you can dominate the online market in your niche. Set up a meeting right now to discuss your SEO needs in more detail.