SEO
5 common SEO mistakes
SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is a long-term strategy. It requires continuous actions to arrive at and stay on the first page of the search engine.
While you are putting so much effort into your SEO, avoiding some common mistakes will have a positive impact on your strategy.
Here’s the list of the most common SEO mistakes.
Forgetting about HTTPS migration
“HTTP” stands for “Hypertext Transfer Protocol” and the “S” stands for “Secure”. An HTTPS website uses an SSL certificate to secure the user journey. HTTPS is one of the most important ranking factors and the deadline is already due. Indeed, Google announced all sites will have to migrate to HTTPS before 28 June 2018. But don’t worry, it’s never too late. However, the more you wait for more your SEO strategy and your rank will be affected. Here’s the best guide to migrating your website. I used it for my website. It was easy and quick.
Do not wait. HTTPS is not only important for your site ranking but also for conversion rate. HTTPS is an indication the visitor’s data are safe. For example, an e-commerce website will see fewer purchases if the site is not secured. Nobody will leave his card and personal details on a website that is not secured.
Write for SEO purpose
One of the first SEO actions is Keyword research. During this research, you will look for and rank the keywords describing your business activity. These keywords are search terms used by potential customers during their research on search engines.
For example, if you selling cosmetics online, you will need to have keywords such as “cosmetics” “beauty” or “skin treatment” in your list.
You will rank these keywords based on criteria such as relevance, monthly search volume, and competition.
Producing and optimizing content according to this list is part of your SEO actions. These actions will help you to improve your position on search engines and rank your website during your prospects’ searches.
While you creating new content you have to keep one thing in mind some questions:
Who will read your content?
Most businesses have several targets. These targets do not have the same challenges and goals. Consequently, they look for different information. You need to produce content for each target.
At which stage of the buyer’s journey the visitors are?
Depending on their stage, the buyer will need different types of information. At the awareness stage, the buyer needs information related to its problems. At the consideration stage, the buyer needs information related to solutions that can solve its problems. Finally, at the decision stage, the buyer needs information related to your products and how they can solve their problems.
There are many types of content: Blog articles, Whitepapers, Case studies, or Videos. All types are not suitable for each step of buyers’ journey.
Which questions are you answering?
Good content is answering a question that your potential customer has. If you have a solar panel business, your customer questions can be: How can I reduce my electricity bill? How can we use solar energy to reduce electricity bills?
By providing them an answer, a solution you will increase your conversion rate.
Forget about Meta Title and Meta Description
Content optimization is crucial and some snippets are more important than others.
Meta title: this is your page title displayed in search engine results and on your page’s tab. It briefly describes the page’s content. The Meta Title must contain less than 60 characters. You will need to insert the keywords relative to the page to improve your position on these specific searches.
Meta description: this snippet describe your page’s content. The meta description is also shown in the search engine. It should contain between 50 and 160 characters. You will also need to insert the keywords relative to the page to improve your position on these specific searches.
These snippets have a double interest. There are important ranking factors and they describe your page to help search engine users to visit your site.
Forget images optimization
Optimised your website’s images will have a double advantage. It will improve your website’s speed, and boost your ranking.
You can realise simple actions to optimise your images.
Reduce size: Your image size will have an impact on website speed. If you compress and resize your images you will improve Page Speed and consequently the user experience.
Image Alt Attribute: it’s the description of your image for search engines. That will help your image and website to be ranked for the keywords used.
Duplicate content
Duplicate content impacts negatively your position on search engines. Therefore you need to avoid it and tend to use original content. However, if you are still using duplicate content, you need to indicate your preferred URL to Google. You will need to add rel=”canonical” link element, you indicate which page is the preferred or original content.
