11 Common SEO Mistakes Costing You Leads and Sales (and How to Fix Them)

Optimize your website and attract more qualified leads with these actionable SEO tips!

As a leading SEO agency in the United States, we’ve audited hundreds of websites and identified the 11 most common SEO mistakes businesses are making. These mistakes can have a major impact on your website’s traffic, lead generation,and ultimately, your bottom line.

Here are the top 11 SEO mistakes you need to be aware of, along with simple steps to fix them:

1. Response Codes: Internal Client Error (4XX)

Description:

Broken links on your website that return 404 “Page Not Found” errors or other client-side errors.

How to fix:

Identify and fix broken links using the “inlinks” tab in your SEO tool. Redirect or remove unnecessary pages.

2. Pagination: Pagination URL Not in Anchor Tag:

Description:

Paginated pages aren’t linked within your website content, making it difficult for users and search engines to navigate.

How to fix:

Ensure paginated URLs are linked to within anchor tags (<a>) to facilitate navigation and improve indexing.

3. Canonicals: Non-Indexable Canonical:

Description:

Your website’s canonical URL points to a non-indexable page, confusing search engines and potentially harming your rankings.

How to fix:

Verify that all canonical URLs point to accurate, indexable pages to avoid confusing search engines and improve ranking potential.

4. Security: Mixed Content:

Description:

Your website uses a secure HTTPS connection, but loads resources like images or scripts over an insecure HTTP connection, creating security vulnerabilities.

How to fix:

Update all HTTP resources to HTTPS to ensure a secure connection and avoid browser warnings.

5. Page Titles: Missing:

Description:

Your web pages lack informative page titles, making it difficult for users and search engines to understand their content.

How to fix:

Write concise, descriptive, and unique page titles for each indexable URL to improve user experience and search engine ranking potential.

6. Response Codes: No Internal Response:

Description:

Internal URLs return no response from the server, making them inaccessible to users and search engines.

How to fix:

Identify and fix malformed URLs causing no response errors. Adjust crawl speed, user-agent, or network settings if necessary.

7. H1: Missing:

Description:

Your web pages lack <h1> tags or have empty or whitespace-filled content, hindering search engine ranking and user understanding.

How to fix:

Write clear, descriptive, and unique <h1> tags for each page to convey its main purpose and improve SEO and user experience.

8. Images: Missing Alt Text:

Description:

Images on your website have alt attributes but lack descriptive text, making them inaccessible to visually impaired users and less relevant to search engines.

How to fix:

Add descriptive alt text to all images to enhance user experience and improve search engine understanding.

9. Images: Missing Alt Attribute:

Description:

Images on your website are missing alt attributes altogether, depriving them of context and hindering accessibility and SEO.

How to fix:

Add alt attributes with descriptive text to all images, or use a null alt attribute (alt=””) for decorative images.

10. URLs: Contains Space:

Description:

Your website URLs contain spaces, which can cause broken links and sharing issues.

How to fix:

Use hyphens (-) instead of spaces in URLs for improved security and functionality.

11. Pagination: Sequence Error:

Description:

 The sequence of rel=”next” and rel=”prev” attributes on your paginated URLs is incorrect, hindering navigation and search engine crawling.

How to fix:

 Ensure paginated URLs have correct rel=”next” and rel=”prev” attributes for accurate sequence and improved crawling.

By addressing these common SEO mistakes, you can significantly improve your website’s visibility, attract more qualified leads, and achieve your business goals.

Contact us today to learn how our comprehensive SEO services can help you take your online presence to the next level!

Leave the first comment

Table of contents

Submit your RFP

We can't wait to read about your project. Use the form below to submit your RFP!

Gabrielle Buff
Gabrielle Buff

Just left us a 5 star review

google

Great customer service and was able to walk us through the various options available to us in a way that made sense. Would definitely recommend!

google

Stoute Web Solutions has been a valuable resource for our business. Their attention to detail, expertise, and willingness to help at a moment's notice make them an essential support system for us.

google

Paul and the team are very professional, courteous, and efficient. They always respond immediately even to my minute concerns. Also, their SEO consultation is superb. These are good people!

google

Paul Stoute & his team are top notch! You will not find a more honest, hard working group whose focus is the success of your business. If you’re ready to work with the best to create the best for your business, go Stoute Web Solutions; you’ll definitely be glad you did!

google

Wonderful people that understand our needs and make it happen!

google

Paul is the absolute best! Always there with solutions in high pressure situations. A steady hand; always there when needed; I would recommend Paul to anyone!

facebook
Vince Fogliani
recommends

The team over at Stoute web solutions set my business up with a fantastic new website, could not be happier

facebook
Steve Sacre
recommends

If You are looking for Website design & creativity look no further. Paul & his team are the epitome of excellence.Don't take my word just refer to my website "stevestours.net"that Stoute Web Solutions created.This should convince anyone that You have finally found Your perfect fit

facebook
Jamie Hill
recommends

Paul and the team at Stoute Web are amazing. They are super fast to answer questions. Super easy to work with, and knows their stuff. 10,000 stars.

facebook

Paul and the team from Stoute Web solutions are awesome to work with. They're super intuitive on what best suits your needs and the end product is even better. We will be using them exclusively for our web design and hosting.

facebook
Dean Eardley
recommends

Beautifully functional websites from professional, knowledgeable team.

google

Along with hosting most of my url's Paul's business has helped me with website development, graphic design and even a really cool back end database app! I highly recommend him as your 360 solution to making your business more visible in today's social media driven marketplace.

yelp

I hate dealing with domain/site hosts. After terrible service for over a decade from Dreamhost, I was desperate to find a new one. I was lucky enough to win...

google

Paul Stoute has been extremely helpful in helping me choose the best package to suite my needs. Any time I had a technical issue he was there to help me through it. Superb customer service at a great value. I would recommend his services to anyone that wants a hassle free and quality experience for their website needs.

google

Paul is the BEST! I am a current customer and happy to say he has never let me down. Always responds quickly and if he cant fix the issue right away, if available, he provides you a temporary work around while researching the correct fix! Thanks for being an honest and great company!!

google

Paul Stoute is absolutely wonderful. Paul always responds to my calls and emails right away. He is truly the backbone of my business. From my fantastic website to popping right up on Google when people search for me and designing my business cards, Paul has been there every step of the way. I would recommend this company to anyone.

yelp

I can't say enough great things about Green Tie Hosting. Paul was wonderful in helping me get my website up and running quickly. I have stayed with Green...