It doesn’t matter how great your website is or how much you can fill it with. If you have a weak SEO strategy, then you won’t get the results that you want. 

Although there are a lot of articles online that will teach you how to properly use SEO, most people still commit several SEO pitfalls that negatively affect their search rankings. 

If you want to boost your site traffic and improve your site’s rankings on search engines, you need to avoid these common SEO mistakes:

1. Neglecting website audits

Regular website audits let you review and enhance your site’s performance while keeping both search engines and your target audience in mind. 

Do you have a user-friendly site? Can your visitor look for the information that they need in just a couple of clicks? How long does your site take to load? 

These things are carefully examined when you do website audits, along with technical SEO, content quality, and so much more.

 These should be performed regularly, and you should carefully track the results so that you can focus on making constant improvements. 

2. Ignoring local SEO

If you’re running a business that focuses on selling to a group of people that’s focused on a particular city or region, then you must learn more about local search.

According to a top SEO company in India, “Search engines such as Google, handle this a bit differently as to more global keywords. You can include region-specific keywords on your meta-descriptions and page titles. You also need to place your local phone number and address in your pages on the footer and header, so that it will show up on local search results.”

Finally, you might want to list yourself in review platforms such as Yelp, Google Places, FourSquare, and Merchant Circle. You might also want to consider adding a listing on local-based sites and other review networks. 

3. Keyword Stuffing

You’re probably aware that SEO stuffing is an absolute no-no. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the SEO playbook.

To define it, keyword stuffing is a practice wherein you load a webpage with numbers and keywords in an attempt to manipulate your website’s ranking on the search results of Google. 

These keywords would usually show up either as a list or group, sometimes, just out of context. 

Now, keyword stuffing negatively affects user experience because it can harm your website’s rankings in the long run. 

Despite the possible consequences that can happen when you practice keyword stuffing, it still happens in today’s time. Think of it as a bell-curve. When you add a keyword or two, your site will rank. 

But as you keep on adding up these keywords, it won’t benefit your site in the long run. 

For instance, the types of keywords that usually get penalized by Google are long-tail keywords instead of head terms. For instance “SEO agency New York” is a long-tail keyword. But if you kept on using New York a couple of times in your content, then that’s alright. 

4. Neglecting Analytics

Possibly the biggest mistake that you can make is to neglect analytics. 

Always check in to see whether or not your site is performing well, as well as the areas that aren’t performing. 

You also need to know where the conversions and traffic are coming from. 

You need to know this data to effectively optimize your content. 

5. Copied or duplicate content

Copied or duplicate content is the type of content that shows up on more than one place on the internet. 

It can either show up in the same, or different domains. 

This is usually the most common SEO mistake most e-commerce sites make since they have a lot of product pages that look quite similar to one another. 

But when stumbling across duplicate content, most search engine bots couldn’t choose which pages they want to index, and therefore they might decide not to let it appear on search results. 

To potentially avoid having the same problem, you need to craft content that’s unique and original. 

Ideally, this should relate not only to the body texts but also with the URLs and meta tags. 

6. Ignoring internal linking

Internal linking is the process wherein you link to another page on the same website. Now, when you’re placing external links to your site, you’re somehow losing your audience. 

Internal linking is a vital element for SEO, but still, a lot of people chose to ignore this element. 

7. Not fixing broken links

On the surface, broken links aren’t really a big deal. But over time, this can seriously hurt your website and your online reputation as a whole. It’s because broken links will eventually harm your search engine rankings, as well as your site’s overall user experience. As a result, you’ll lose out customers, and revenue. 

So, if your site is filled with broken links that prevent users to access important information that they need when doing a task, then they’ll likely move on to your competitors. 

Fortunately, there are a lot of tools that you can use to find these broken links, a lot of them are offered for free. 

Whatever tool that you decide to use ensures that you’re regularly on the look-out for possible errors, and if there are any, you try to fix them immediately. 

8. Non-responsive website

Another thing that Google takes into consideration is how responsive, and mobile-friendly your site is. 

So, if you haven’t stepped out of your mobile game yet, then you’re leaving your money on the table. 

When a prospect happens to land on your site using tablets or smartphones and your site isn’t optimized for those devices, then they’ll likely bounce, and go back to the search results. 

This increases your site’s bounce rates, and negatively affects your search rankings. If you Want to boost your business then Visit seo pricing packages usa.

Final Thoughts

So there you have it. Never stop looking for ways to make your SEO strategy more efficient. Staying away from these mistakes, and constantly improving your efforts will make you succeed in the long run.