7 On-Page SEO Mistakes you Should Avoid

The only way for survival in this digital-savvy business world is through ample knowledge of SEO, considered to be one of the key metrics for driving traffic and subsequent results for any company. If generating large traffic numbers for your website is your end goal, you have to keep up with the changes in the digital marketing sphere.

While SEO, in essence, isn’t too much of a new concept, the dynamic nature of the industry demands changes in techniques every now and then to keep the ball rolling. Therefore, much like search engine algorithms, SEO techniques, too, get updates and changes every few months that digital marketing professionals need to keep a track of.

However, with more than 90% of all online experiences starting from a search engine, making your website, mobile app, or web pages perfectly SEO optimized has become the need of the hour. While it is important to stay updated with the latest SEO techniques, knowing which SEO implementations can cost your business adversely goes a long way in having a foolproof SEO strategy.

What Is On-Page SEO?

On-page SEO is an optimization technique used by digital marketing professionals worldwide to rank webpages on the top slots of SERPs. Having a well-optimized page ensures it ranks high on SERPs for relevant keywords and drives targeted traffic.

The most common on-page optimization techniques include proper and correct optimization of factors like web content, URL, metadata, images, and page speed. Basically, on-page optimization is all about making sure your webpages’ internal elements are developed and enhanced in such a way that they achieve search engine friendliness.

Why Is On-Page SEO Optimization Important?

For any search engine, its success lies in the relevancy of its search results for the user presenting the search query. And it is because of this very reason that on-page optimization is a necessity for businesses online.

The whole purpose of doing on-page optimization is to make sure that users online and search engines understand the offerings of a particular page. Properly optimizing webpages also creates the opportunity to find your target audience and send across the message effectively.

If your web pages, which contain all the relevant content, are not optimized to their full potential, it can translate into fewer chances for your website getting the authority it deserves, eventually leading to you missing out on traffic. And if you’re not getting noticed, it will adversely affect your conversion rates too.

On-Page SEO Mistakes You Should Avoid

While a lot of businesses online have caught up with the SEO bandwagon, there are still marketing professionals out there who struggle with SEO and make expensive SEO mistakes than cost the company in the long run. And if you think you fall into that category, we’ve got news for you.

Here, we’ll discuss some of the most common on-page SEO dilemmas faced by managers which are quite likely to hurt your search engine rankings. Using this knowledge, you can clean up your SEO act and see better results take over rapidly.

Unoptimized Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions and title tags play a huge role in any company’s business SEO efforts because they influence search engine rankings in every way possible. Title tags allow search engines to identify what the page is all about, so they should be kept between 50-60 characters.

Meta descriptions, on the other hand, serve the purpose of not only informing users of your existence but also convincing them enough to click on your article. A good meta description might just be what’s standing between your content and stellar conversion rates.

Low-Quality Content

To avoid publishing any low-quality content on your webpages, you first need to understand what constitutes a low-quality content. In a purely SEO context, any type of content, whether it is long-form or short, that is not original or unique. Many businesses even try to take the shortcut by plagiarizing content from other sources.

Instead of having pages after pages filled with mind-numbing content, companies should concentrate on building authority and trust with their content. This not only benefits the business by translating into better conversions, but it also helps build a strong relationship with customers.

Keyword Stuffing

The power that keywords hold over any SEO strategy of a business is undeniable. However, gone are the days when using a particular keyword multiple times in a published piece of content delivered outstanding results.

Stuffing your content with keywords is only going to hurt your SEO strategy by making your content spammy and unnatural. Therefore, instead of keyword stuffing, focus on using new target keywords to your advantage and rank your site high on SERPs. Remember, your clients should feel your content is informative rather than furthering your marketing efforts.

Slow Page Speed s

If there’s one factor that is majorly responsible for high SERP rankings, it is page speed. Most search engines like Google and Bing have been dedicated to the cause of making the web faster for their users, and they are doing everything in their power to get there.

Although improving a website’s loading time might not look like a job of paramount importance, a faster website will go a long way in ensuring more page views and more sales for your business. To make sure you’re on track, you can use the Google PageSpeed Insights service and follow their guidelines.

Ignoring Local SEO

Search engines like Google have been laying major emphasis on the importance of local SEO that allows many businesses to provide valuable information about their location and the clients they are targeting. This way, when a user searches for a product/service, the results show the places nearest to them.

Most search engines have now started to give importance to "close-to-me" searches, which makes local SEO an important asset in a business’ rank building and income-generating endeavours. Therefore, make sure you assert your location, offer all information, and answer available questions to continue being in Google’s good books.

Mobile Unfriendliness

In today’s fast-paced world, the majority of online users rely on their mobile phones to look up any and every information that they need. Therefore, if you have a website that is not optimized well enough for mobile users, you are definitely on the losing end of the race.

A website that isn’t mobile-friendly brings down the user experience of that website, which is considered to be another important ranking factor for SERPs. If your site isn’t considered mobile-friendly and user-friendly by top search engines, your poor layout will send customers away as quickly as they arrived. This approach will benefit your business in all aspects, including SEO mistakes in 2020.

Incorrect Use of External Links

When it comes to external links, the quality of your links is given a lot more importance than their quantity. Your exhaustive SEO efforts will only reap desired results when you link to relevant, better-ranking websites that come with a strong reputation.

Webpages that contain too thin, duplicate or irrelevant content do not add any additional value to your website, and only harm a website’s SEO performance. Therefore, make sure you do not make the SEO mistake of linking back to such pages. Ideally, try external linking for sites that have linked to you because it brings back traffic in the future.

Bottom Line

From what we know, SEO is growing to be bigger and better with the passage of time. This means that businesses now have more opportunities for expansion by simply maximizing their SEO strategies in their digital marketing campaigns.

However, businesses can only prosper if they keep in mind the SEO mistakes mentioned above and stop making them. As we step into 2020, companies need to revaluate their SEO strategies and comb out any errors they might be making to rank high on SERPs and generate better revenues.