You’d be surprised how many people make simple SEO mistakes that hurt their search engine rankings.
Introduction
We’ve seen a lot of these SEO mistakes to avoid in 2021, and We’d like to take a few minutes to write about SEO mistakes to avoid in 2022 so you can avoid them.
Since the recent algorithm changes, Google has started prioritizing sites that are mobile friendly and optimized for speed. If your site doesn’t load quickly or isn’t mobile friendly, it probably won’t get much traffic from search results. Keywords are a crucial part of SEO but in different parts of the world people search differently so you need to make sure that your website is targeting keywords from all over. While SEO is important, social media can also be a great way to increase traffic to your website through shares and posts on Tiktok, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other platforms.
Focusing on ranking over a user’s experience
- Focusing on ranking over a user’s experience
- Having an excellent website is no longer enough. You have to make sure your site is easy to use and navigate, that it loads quickly on all devices, and that it’s mobile friendly. Visitors are also more likely to convert if they have a good experience with the site, so don’t forget about this SEO mistake when you optimize for conversion rate.
Not having a mobile-friendly website
According to Google, a mobile-friendly website is one that has:
- Easy-to-read text (not too small or too large)
- Links that are easy to tap or click on a touchscreen device
- Content that doesn’t automatically resize when the page is viewed on a smartphone or tablet
Making your website mobile friendly
Mobile-friendly websites are important for SEO because Google’s search results on mobile devices are starting to look different than desktop searches. Mobile-first indexing means that Google will use the mobile version of your website as the primary source for ranking and displaying content. To ensure you’re meeting this requirement, it’s important to make sure your website works well on all devices.
Make sure your site is 100% mobile friendly by checking it with this tool: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/#pge=1
If you don’t have a web developer or designer, some simple steps can be taken to make sure that your WordPress blog is compatible with mobile devices:
- Select “Yes” under “Is this website optimized for small screens?” in Settings > Reading. This ensures that shorter posts show up at the top of search results when there is limited space available to display content from all pages within the post (by default). It also allows users to navigate through posts easily without having been forced into reading long articles before finding what they were looking for! You can also hide comments by going back one step and selecting “No” under “Allow comment authors.“
Poor website speed
Poor website speed is nearly the most important SEO mistake that can cause a number of issues with your site and your SEO, as well as the user experience for your visitors.
If you have a slow website, you’ll rank lower in search results than competitor sites that have a faster speed. A slow loading time also has an impact on conversion rates because it affects how quickly people are able to navigate through pages and find what they’re looking for. Check your pagespeed!
The good news is that there are several ways to improve your site’s load times: Check this!
Not using unique and relevant meta descriptions
SEO mistakes small businesses must avoid!
Meta descriptions are the short snippets of text that appear under your website’s URL in search results. They should be unique and relevant to each page, written for humans rather than machines, and should generally be at least 160 characters long. When people click on a result they see the meta description as well as an image and possibly some other information. If it’s well-written then it will help them decide whether or not they want to click through to your site. If it’s poorly written then people might be put off or confused by what they see—they may even choose one of your competitors instead which will be the worst SEO mistake you will regret!
Ignoring local SEO
- Ignoring local SEO.
Local SEO is different from regular organic search optimization, and it’s critically important for small businesses to make sure they have a strategy in place to get their website ranked on Google Maps. Local SEO can be the difference between being found by potential customers and forever languishing at the bottom of page two of Google’s search results. If you’re looking to attract new business through your website, this is an essential addition to your marketing plan!
SEO what not to do! Only doing keyword research in English
If you’re only doing keyword research in English it’s a SEO mistake, you’re missing out on a real opportunity to expand your search traffic.
While many keywords are the same across different languages, there are also plenty that differ—and the ones that do can be worth their weight in gold!
You can use tools like Google Translate and Bing Translator on your own website to find these foreign-language variations yourself by looking for combinations of words that mean something similar to what you already know about what people are searching for (for example: “dog training” instead of “sit”).
This works extremely well if all you want is high-level information about what specific terms mean… but if you want more details about how searchers behave when they use particular terms or phrases (or whether they even use them at all), then outsourcing this effort isn’t just a good idea—it’s essential.
Not optimizing for voice search
Voice search is a growing trend, and it’s important to keep that in mind when optimizing for SEO. While you may think that text content is the same as voice content, there are some key differences. For example:
- Voice searches are more likely to include the brand name than text searches. This means you need to make sure there’s a good amount of brand-related keywords sprinkled throughout your site so that your website appears when people search by product name or company name .
- Voice searches tend to be longer than text searches because people use more words when speaking than typing (and we all know how much time it takes someone with a speech impediment or stutter to type out their query). Therefore, you should add longer keyword phrases like “best insulated jacket” instead of simply “insulated jacket.”
A lot of people make simple mistakes that hurt their rankings
There are a lot of people who make simple SEO mistakes that hurt their rankings. A lot of them can be fixed, and some of them are easy to fix. Others may take more effort or time, but all are worth the attention if you want your website to perform well in Google’s search results.
One important point is that not all SEO mistakes are created equal—and some matter more than others when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO). Of course, all webmasters should avoid making errors when building their site’s architecture; but certain errors can seriously affect how fast the site ranks in Google’s index while others have very little impact on its overall performance.
SEO Tips
If you’re not thinking about keywords you are doing a big SEO mistake, it’s time to start.
Keywords are one of the most important factors in search engine optimization (SEO). Your website needs to be optimized for specific keywords that are relevant to your business, so when people search for those terms, they find your site. The problem is that many businesses make mistakes when choosing what keywords they want their sites focused on and how they should be used. If done incorrectly, these mistakes can make all of your other SEO efforts worthless. Here are five common mistakes businesses make with their keyword strategy:
- Not using enough keywords
- Using too many different variations of one word
- Focusing on generic terms instead of industry-specific ones
Not optimizing for featured snippets
If you’re not familiar with featured snippets, they’re the results that show up at the top of a search query and include a summary of what the searcher is looking for.
For example, when I search “what is seo” Google’s featured snippet shows me:
This answer to this question comes from Wikipedia, who are obviously experts on SEO. Since they’re pulling data from Wikipedia articles and presenting them as answers in their own right, it’s clear that Google trusts them to provide reliable information—and they trust Google to rank all their content highly in response.
So how do you optimize for featured snippets? Let’s look at two examples from Moz: one where we did it right; and one where we did it wrong (but still got lucky).
Not using social media to help SEO
Social media is a great way to get your website found. It can also be used to interact with customers, build your brand, and even backlink to your website. Social media sites such as Tiktok, Facebook and Twitter can be used as an effective platform for guest posting or sharing content that leads readers back to your site.
You should take advantage of social media in order to increase traffic on your site by:
- Adding links or shortcodes that connect users from the page they’re viewing directly into a social network like Facebook or Twitter (For example: “Click here.“)
- Using analytics tools such as Google Analytics so you know what types of people are visiting different pages on your site (This will allow you more opportunities when deciding where best place links).
These are all things you need to do so that your website is found.
To get your website found, you need to make sure that it is using the keywords that people are searching for. There are a few different places you can do this:
- Title
- Header
- Meta description
- Body text
- Alt text on images
- Image file name (jpg, large image, etc.) If you want to go one step further, I recommend also including keywords in your link text and domain name.
Conclusion
We hope you’ve learned some valuable tips for improving your SEO experience. If you want to implement these changes on your site but you don’t know how to do it, we can help! In addition to our SEO services, we offer website design and development that can take care of all these issues for you!
The best thing you can do for your website is to use these tips. You will see an increase in traffic and be more successful with your website. It may take a little bit of time, but it will be worth it in the end!