In this competitive online driven world, massive steps are taken by the website owners to enhance their search ranking on Google and get a better traffic drive. In other words, all steps possible are taken just to upgrade an SEO score. We hire a reliable and reputed SEO company or consultants in order to get optimum visibility. But what actually affects or hurts an SEO score? Are you shooting yourself in the foot with your current SEO strategies for Google and other top search engines? There are certain technical SEO issues which we generally ignore and gets upset with the end result.
Before we move ahead, what actually hurts an SEO score? When it comes down to it, pretty much anything that might create a bad user experience will hurt your website performance in top search engines. The better the experience you provide to your users, the better results you obtain at the end.
Here are 12 major SEO issues (and 11 more bonus issues to avoid at the end of the article) which are commonly ignored by most beginner webmasters and new bloggers along with even some top SEO experts.
1. Content Duplicity
The most common issue is the duplicate content. The certain block of content completely matches with the other domain name and hence the user does not find something new to read. Moreover, when there are many pages with almost similar contents, Google itself finds difficult as which page to rank better. In such a case, it even ignores it in ranking considerations.
2. Pages With Too Many Links
Pages containing too many various links are also not user-friendly. It significantly creates a bad impression upon the minds of the users. In such a case, despite getting suitable content, users have to perpetuate clicks to move forward. Make sure the links are relevant and do not affect the organic information of the page.
3. Irrelevant Or Lack Of Keywords
Make sure the content of your page specifically focuses on the given keyword. It is important to mention the keyword which the users would normally search. Including irrelevant keywords also does not make any sense. Though this might be the way of manipulating ranking it can result in frustrated users.
4. Declaration Of Incorrect Language
Generally, you would like your content to be delivered to the right user. In other words, the content should reach to the users in the same way as they speak. The page’s ability to translate as per the location is the considerable factor.
5. Issues related to URL’s case
The problem of lower case and upper case for URL's generally occurs with those links which end with ‘.net.’ In case the servers are redirecting the issue, it should necessarily be fixed using the rewrite module.
6. 404 Errors
In many cases, pages could not be found and hence the code of 404 is displayed on the screen on the users. This does not only create hassling experience but your website might lose the potential users. No matter how valuable the page is, it would drift into the black hat hole column.
7. Sneaky Redirects
Certain redirects are really essential. But in many cases, if the redirect is to take the user to the original page, it would redirect to different pages. It is somewhat similar to cloaking in which the redirect takes the users to some other content which they were not looking for. This provides a negative user experience and Google could lower your PageRank accordingly.
8. Malicious Behavior
Malicious activities are performed both with and without the knowledge of the site. It actually includes the manipulation of content in such a way that the user might think that they are doing the right thing. But actually, they are downloading the unrequested files, corrupt folders, virus, Trojans and so on. It helps to have your site analyzed for corruption and to also get an SSL certificate to show visitors that your site is safe and secure.
9. Anchor Text That Is Over Optimized
Anchor text is actually the clickable and visible text of the hyperlink. In over-optimized website text, the maximum focus is to use keywords in a way so that it can add extra boost on the page ranking. In modern times, this is a core culprit that penalizes most of the websites. Sometimes, less is more.
10. Hacking
Hacking is the most common issue which removes your website from the index of search engine ranking. In the search ranking index, Google does not consider a hacked site. It is important to monitor the sites especially upon that content that are posted without your permission. Certain SEO tools should be added which would monitor upon the content of the page. Sometimes Google even makes mistakes when it comes to determining if a website has been hacked or not. And their mistake can cost your website all of its organic traffic for weeks or months.
11. Too Long Or Low Word Count
Too lengthy content can increase the time of page loading. Hence, it unnecessarily lowers the speed of the site thereby providing the poor experience to the users. Certain tools like Screaming Frog can be used to monitor such content that has too long word count and are unnecessary.
Programs like the Hemingway App can also help you write shorter and clearer content. Avoid including the least important parts rather embed it in a single terminology.
Don't write content so long that the reaction of your readers will be "TLDR" (too long, didn't read). Keep it simple and scannable with points and sections that can be read quickly on all devices.
12. Skipping Publishing Guest Posts
Everyone knows the value of writing guest blog posts for other websites. It builds backlinks, brand awareness, and boosts traffic. But publishing guest blog posts on your website is also an exceptional technique. It's a major mistake to keep a closed mind and not accept high-quality unique posts that could interest your readers.
Publishing guest blog posts on our business websites has proven to be very effective at driving more website traffic from social media, email marketing, and Google organic search. As long as the articles satisfy or exceed your website standards, they add new perspectives for your readers and help you to rank for new keywords. And because the guest authors are benefiting from their post being published, they are more likely to share your published post on their social media or link back to it on their websites.
I've had guest posts that some people may not have given a chance end up generating tens of thousands of website views and rank for hundreds of valuable keywords.
More Issues That Could Hurt Your SEO
1. Not focusing on website load times.
2. Cloaking or hiding true website intent.
3. Not focusing on relevant content.
4. Keyword stuffing.
5. Making it hard to find important content.
6. Too many redirects or incorrect redirect setups.
7. Forgetting about local search.
8. Not adding fresh new content.
9. Poor internal linking.
10. Not optimizing for voice search.
11. Expecting results to happen too quickly.
There are many more common SEO mistakes to avoid, but this covers a great deal of them.
SEO Is About Helping The Searcher
Any top SEO expert would tell you that the main purpose of SEO isn’t just to find extra or more customers, rather it is to help the users find relevant content. Your website and content should be such that users might easily get what they are approaching. In other words, they should find viable solutions for their queries. Think about the searchers and their needs, not just your own.
Find An SEO Pro
It's not easy to spot these issues but is the common mistakes which either you or the SEO companies commit. You can easily find top marketing company options and sort out such technical SEO issues easily. Focus on making your site informative while eliminating such problems. Make sure to create your website user-friendly. This would automatically help in driving maximum traffic and enhancing the ranking in the Google index.
I hope you enjoyed this blog post about the major SEO issues that could damage your website's search engine rank.
Interested in more articles about search engine optimization?
Read Related Resources:
• Avoid The Seven Deadly Sins Of Link-Building
• How To Recover From Google Website Penalties
More Bootstrap Business Blog Below
