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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!
