Good search engine optimization (SEO) has a lot of moving parts. It’s easy to make a mistake and tank your rankings. It doesn’t help that SEO best practices change all the time as companies like Google update their search engine algorithms.
You need to know what missteps to avoid to keep your SEO fresh and your website rankings high. From keyword stuffing to neglecting mobile optimization, here are the SEO mistakes you must avoid in 2023.
Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing is the act of overusing search keywords in an effort to artificially manipulate search rankings. There may have been a time when keyword stuffing was effective, but nowadays it will get your page dinged by all the major search engines. While keywords still have a role to play in SEO, it’s more important to create high-quality content that users can draw value from. Choose one or two relevant keywords per page and use them sparingly. You want your content to flow naturally and your keywords to sound like they belong.
Ignoring Local SEO
If you’re running a local business or organization, you need to focus on local SEO. For example, someone who is looking for SEO services in Phoenix might want to work with a local company like Digital Current, but they’re not going to be able to find local companies in search if those companies aren’t optimizing their websites for local users. Make sure to include location-specific keywords on your page.
Optimizing Only for Google
Google might be the head honcho in the SEO game, but they’re not the only search engine out there. You could miss out on valuable traffic and customers by ignoring search engines like Bing and Yahoo. Make sure you’re optimizing your page based on SEO best practices for multiple search engines.
Sharing Low-Quality Content or No Content at All
Content is the most important tool in your SEO toolbox. It’s what attracts users to your site, encourages them to hang around, and keeps them coming back. Search engine algorithms prioritize quality content over all else when determining page rankings. You need to share high-quality, evergreen SEO content on a regular basis. Adding fresh content to your website on a regular basis gives you the opportunity to keep adding new SEO keywords to your site and to keep reaching new audiences. Just make sure you don’t post duplicate content – each piece of content should be 100 percent original.
Neglecting Off-Page SEO
While it can be tempting to put backlinks on the back burner, you shouldn’t neglect off-page SEO if you want to boost your search rankings. Link building grows your website’s authority, credibility, and relevance. It’s an essential part of boosting your search rankings.
Neglecting On-Page SEO
On-page SEO includes such elements as meta descriptions, title tags, and header tags. Making sure these elements are optimized with clear, concise headers, titles, and descriptions helps search engines understand the topics discussed and the content available on your website. You also want to make sure your website is easy to navigate and loads quickly.
Not Optimizing for Mobile
The internet is no longer stationary. Lots of people these days are getting online via mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Your website needs to be optimized for mobile users. Mobile optimization is now a key factor that search engines use to determine rankings.
Make sure your website has a mobile-friendly user interface (UI) that’s responsive to users and matches your site’s desktop interface. Optimize any images on your site for file size so that they load up easily in the mobile UI. Include a linked phone number so that mobile users can easily call you if they want.
Letting Your Page Load Slowly
Users aren’t going to stick around on your site if it loads slowly or not at all, and when users bounce away from a site quickly, that pushes it down in search rankings. Page speed is an important ranking factor for most search engines. Compress images, leverage browser caching, and minimize code to optimize your website’s loading speed. If you’re using a common content management system (CMS), like Wordpress, you should be able to find some plugins that will help you optimize your page speed.
SEO mistakes are easy to make, but they’re also easy to avoid as long as you have a strong grasp of SEO best practices. Take the steps to make sure your website is properly optimized, so you can focus on serving your customers instead of improving your page rank.