9 Common SEO Mistakes (and How to Fix Them!)

There are many reasons why you may not succeed as well with your SEO services as you should. Most of them are probably due to some common SEO mistakes.

No danger. Even someone who has worked with SEO for several years can make mistakes.

Therefore, I will now address some of the most common mistakes with SEO and how to fix them.

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Before I continue, I would like to advise you to enter your site in our free SEO test . Our tool goes through your website and automatically finds places with shortcomings in your SEO that you can avoid.

I start from this SEO check as I now list some of the most common SEO mistakes. So, let's take a look at the 9 most common SEO mistakes and how you can avoid them.

1. You do not customize your SEO titles and meta descriptions

SEO titles, or title tags as they are also called, and meta descriptions make it easier for search engines and people to understand what each page on your site is about.

If you are not clear when writing them, they are not helpful for your SEO and no one will click on them.

You should always keep in mind your most important keyword when writing SEO titles and meta descriptions.

Say you design jewelry and have one page on your site with the keyword 'gold necklace' and another page with the keyword 'silver necklace'.

Gold and silver jewelry are completely different. You absolutely want both of these pages to appear in the search results for each metal, so you need to include the right words in the SEO titles and meta descriptions to differentiate them.

If both of these pages on your site had the title "designer jewelry", those looking for a specific product would not be helped because they lack context in the search results they have come up with.

2. You do not use keywords in the content or headings

This SEO mistake is easy to fix.

Just as you need to use keywords in titles and meta descriptions, you also need to include keywords on all your pages.

Keywords help search engines understand the context of your page, help determine how it should rank and when it should appear to the searcher.

Before you start creating content, you should do a keyword analysis to understand what people are searching for so that you can write something that answers their questions.

You should choose a top keyword and then some related keywords that provide a context for your content.

We think again that you are that jewelry designer and that you want to write about how to clean jewelry.

If you enter "how to clean jewelry" in a keyword tool, you will see that there is no crazy big competition around it and that there is decent search volume. This is a good goal.

Next, you should proceed to search on your main keyword and compare the results.

The top result is a video, so it's probably wise to format your content the same way. But to make it better.

And do not pack content with keywords. Use them where they blend in naturally.

In short, do not just choose keywords anyway and throw them at random in your content. Do research and use them strategically.

3. You are not working on getting links to your site

Links are an important part of SEO and can really make a difference in how you rank in the search engines.

When another site has a link to your page in its content, that site may share its value with you. These links are usually called backlinks, or backlinks, and the value that is transferred to your website is called link equity, or link value.

If we go back to the jewelry designer again and if you have a page about how to clean rings and a large jewelry store links to your page, then your page will get a boost with the help of that link.

Backlinks signal to Google that people trust your site and that it should end up higher in the search results.

However, not all websites provide the same amount of link value.

Using a tool like Ahref's backlink checker , you can see the value of different websites.

Getting people to link to your site is not easy.

Sometimes people may find your content through their own research and links to it.

But that is not always the case. So it may be wise to do some research on opportunities to link to blogs and websites that are relevant to your business.

Once you have found potential opportunities for links, you need to reach out and share the value of your content.

4. You are not using the correct redirects

When you want to permanently redirect someone from an old or deleted page on your site to a new page, you should always use a 301 redirect.

These redirects lead the user to the new page so that they are not just met by an error message. The redirect also transfers links from the old to the new page.

Again, link value is the value that a website gives to another website when they include a link in their content.

If you use a temporary 302 redirect instead of a 301 redirect, you will lose the coveted link value, so be sure to check which redirect you are using.

5. You do not tell the search engines which pages you want them to go through

Internal linking is a great strategy for getting the search engines to crawl and index the pages you have on your site.

When the crawler comes to a page that links to other pages, it follows the links to the other pages, and then on to other pages, and so on.

But a common mistake when it comes to SEO is that you do not have an XML sitemap, or on a sitemap, which contains links to the pages you want to include in the search results.

I especially want to point out that you should only include pages in your XML sitemap if you want them in the search results.

Pages that you do not want in the search results end up in a robots.txt file, which is my next point.

To create an XML sitemap, you can use a sitemap generator or even a plugin in some CMS.

6. You inadvertently block search engines from searching your content

A robots.txt file is a useful tool for blocking certain pages of your site from crawlers.

But it is also easy to accidentally block crawlers from pages you actually want them to crawl.

To fix this SEO mistake, just look at your robots.txt file (enter the URL of your site and add /robots.txt at the end).

User-agent, or user-agent, is the crawler you want to block. Next to "disallow" are the subfolders you want the crawler from.

The asterisk means you want to block all user agents.

So if you have set up an asterisk on your user-agent and then use disallow with a forward slash, block all crawlers from your entire site.

If it looks like this, you should probably fix it (unless you want your site to appear in the search engines).

7. You do not optimize with mobile-first in mind

One of the most common mistakes for SEO is not to think about mobile users when adding and updating pages.

The easiest way to make a website work on both mobile and desktop devices is to have a responsive page.

This means that your website is adapted to a variety of screen sizes. When reviewing your content, make sure all multimedia features are responsive, including videos and photos.

You can also consider using AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) on your website to further increase your speed.

8. Your website is not secure

Believe it or not, website security matters when you rank. And who would want to disclose their personal information on a page that has the warning "not sure"?

Not me anyway.

If the URL of your website starts with HTTP, it is not secure. Hackers can gain access to any personal information you collect, such as email addresses and credit card numbers.

If the URL of your website starts with HTTPS, congratulations! You have an extra security layer that encrypts the personal information listed on your website.

To secure your site, you need to install an SSL certificate.

9. You are not patient enough with your SEO

Last but not least… SEO takes time. I repeat: SEO takes time.

It is a big mistake to give up SEO after just a few days or weeks. It can take anywhere from a few weeks up to six months before you notice any changes after updating your site.

With a PPC campaign, you can see results as soon as you start it, but SEO works differently. SEO is a long-term strategy.

If you make major changes without noticing any improvements, do not give up. Just be patient.

Now that you know some of the most common mistakes around SEO, you can work on avoiding them.