23 Common SEO Mistakes That Badly Hurt Your Ranking
Table of Contents
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving your website’s visibility and relevance for search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo etc. It is a proven strategy to optimize your website for search engines, attract more organic visitors, and convert them into leads and customers. It’s all about organically increasing brand awareness, authority and credibility in your niche.
But SEO is not a one-time thing. It is always in the loop—watching, learning, and making things better every day. You know, lots of things can influence it—like changes in algorithms, how people behave online, and what others in the game are up to. If you don’t follow and keep you updated with the latest SEO best practices, then you could be hurt by your common SEO mistakes.
In this blog, we will let you know the 23 common SEO mistakes that most beginners do, and you should also know to avoid these mistakes. These SEO mistakes could hurt your ranking, user experience, and conversion rates.
So, are you ready to know the 23 common SEO mistakes that you are ignoring? Let’s fix the SEO!
1. Not Analyzing Competitors
One of the most common SEO mistakes that many website owners make is not analyzing their competitors. Competitor analysis is an important part of any SEO strategy, because, by analyzing your competitors, you can:
- Identify the keywords that they are ranking for and target them in your own content.
- Discover the gaps and opportunities in their content and fill them with your own unique value proposition.
- Learn from their backlink profile and outreach strategies and replicate or improve them for your own website.
- Benchmark your SEO performance against theirs and set realistic and achievable goals for improvement.
If you analyze your competitors properly, you can know and avoid SEO mistakes that they already did. You can also find out what they are doing right and emulate or surpass them in your own SEO efforts.
2. Not Using SSL Certificate
Another common SEO mistake that can hurt your ranking is not using SSL certificate. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is the guardian angel that encrypts the data passing between your website and your visitors. SSL certificate is a digital certificate that verifies your website is secure and authentic.
Why is SSL certificate important for SEO? Because it affects both your user experience and your trustworthiness. Here are some benefits of using SSL certificate:
- It protects your website and visitors from hackers, malware, personal data hijacking etc. No data breaches, identity theft, or fraud worries. It even makes sure your website adheres to data privacy laws like GDPR.
- It speeds up your website! An SSL certificate makes your site faster by cutting down on delays and saving bandwidth by compressing and encrypting data. It even brings in HTTP/2, a quicker version of the HTTP protocol with cool features like multiplexing and server push.
- It can increase your user confidence and loyalty. SSL shows a padlock icon that indicates your website is 100% secure and verified.
- It enhances your SEO ranking and visibility. SSL certificate is one of the Google SEO ranking factors, as Google prefers secure and fast websites.
- It keeps the browser from popping up scary warnings or blocking your site – you definitely don’t want to scare off your visitors!
To use SSL certificate for your website, you need to purchase it from a trusted and reputable provider, such as Namecheap, Hostinger, Godaddy or Cloudflare etc. You also need to update your internal and external links, your sitemap, and your robots.txt file to use HTTPS instead of HTTP.
3. Ignoring User Experience
User experience (UX) is the feeling and emotion that your customers get when they use your website. It is the key to make them happy and loyal. Let’s see what are the benefits of improving your website’s UX:
- UX reduces your bounce rate and increases your dwell time. Bounce rate is the number of people who come to your website and go away quickly. It is the problem that you need to solve to make your customers stay longer. Dwell time is the amount of time that visitors spend on your website before returning to the search results. These metrics indicates how engaging and relevant your website is for your visitors. A low bounce rate and a high dwell time signal to Google that your website provides a good UX and a high-quality content.
- Trust and love come naturally with the right website. Brand reputation is how they see and feel about your website and business. Loyalty is how they stick and come back to your website and business. These shows how your website satisfies your visitors. A good UX and content can grow your brand image, power, and trust in your niche.
So, make your website attractive and easy to use. It should have a professional look with suitable colors, fonts, images and videos. Your website should also have a catchy and useful content, with simple and clear headlines, subheadings, paragraphs, and bullet points.
4. Bad Site Structure
Ever thought about how you arrange and connect your web pages? That’s your site structure! It is very important because it can affect your user experience and crawling. Here are some benefits of having a good site structure for your website:
- It makes your website easier to navigate and understand. A good site structure helps your visitors find what they need easily and quickly. It helps them find your website and discover more relevant and valuable content, it reduces your bounce rate and increases the time spent on your website.
- It makes your website easy to crawl and index. When your site is well-structured, search engines can find and read it easily. This makes your site more likely to show up in the search results.
With a good site structure, you fixed one of the common SEO mistake and give a boost to user experience, crawlability, and overall site maintenance!
5. Website Not Mobile Responsive
Mobile responsiveness is the ability of your website to adapt to different devices, screen sizes, and orientations. SEO loves mobile-friendly sites because, it affects your user experience and ranking. Here are some benefits of having a mobile responsive website for your website:
- Your visitors will love your mobile responsive website. It adapts to any device and lets them enjoy your content without hassle. No more zooming, panning, or scrolling that can ruin their mood. They will stay longer on your site and come back for more.
- More mobile users will visit and buy from your mobile responsive website. It makes up over half of the web traffic and meets their expectations of fast, easy, and accessible web browsing.
Your mobile responsive website boosts your SEO rank and visibility. Google always prioritize mobile friendly websites. It also attracts more clicks, as your website looks appealing and easy to use on mobile devices. It also avoids duplicate content, as you have one website for all devices.
6. Slow Site Speed
Site speed measures how quickly your website shows up on the browser. Site speed matters for SEO because it influences your user experience and your ranking. Here are some advantages of having a fast site speed for your website:
- It improves your user satisfaction and retention. A fast site speed provides a smooth and seamless browsing and interaction experience for your visitors, without making them wait or lose interest.
- If your site works fast it can increase your website performance and functionality and makes it more responsive and reliable.
- It also lowers your bounce rate and increases your dwell time
- It improves your ranking and visibility. A fast site speed is one of the Google SEO ranking factors, as Google uses page speed and core web vitals to evaluate your website. It can improve your click-through rate, as your website appears more relevant and user-friendly in the search results. It also prevents ranking penalties, as Google may demote or remove slow-loading websites from the search results.
A fast site speed for your website can save you from one of the most common SEO mistakes that can affect your ranking.
7. Ignoring Speed Optimization for Mobile
Speed optimization for mobile makes your website faster and better for mobile devices. It can help your SEO because it is making your user experience better. Here are some benefits of having a speed optimized website for mobile:
- Nowadays, mobile is the most popular way to access the internet. According to some survey, over 57.8% people using mobile globally to access the internet. That’s why you should improve your site speed for mobile also.
- A speed optimized website for mobile provides a fast and smooth browsing and interaction experience for your mobile visitors, without making them wait or lose interest.
- It also reduces your mobile bounce rate and increases your mobile dwell time.
- A speed optimized website for mobile enhances your website performance and functionality, making it more responsive and reliable.
By having a speed optimized website for mobile for your website, you can avoid one of the most common SEO mistakes that can hurt your ranking.
8. Not Optimizing Images
Images are the important content of a modern website it can improve site design, content visibility, and user experience. However, it can also hurt your SEO, if they are not optimized properly. Here are some benefits of optimizing your images for your website:
- If your image size is big then your website could load slowly. You have to compress your images so that it can load as much as fast. We recommend you should use WEBP format for all images. It makes your image very light weight without reducing your image quality.
- You can add an alt text, title and caption on an image. It will make your images relevance and help search engines to index your images.
- Adding images can improve the visual appeal of a website. People likes visual content then texts and it also increase engagement rates.
By optimizing website images, you can avoid one of the common SEO mistakes that can improve your site speed and ranking (Indirectly).
9. Ignoring 404 or Broken Links
404 or broken links are links that lead to pages that do not exist or are not accessible. It is bad for SEO because they affect both your user experience and your link authority. Here are some benefits of fixing your 404 or broken links for your website:
- It improves your user satisfaction and retention. Fixing the 404 or broken links can provide your visitors’ smooth and seamless browsing experience. It reduces bounce rate and increase dwell time.
- It improves your link authority and your ranking. Fixing your 404 or broken links preserves your link authority and your link juice, which are the values and the signals that your links pass to the search engines and the users.
You can avoid one of the most common SEO mistakes that can affect your ranking by fixing your 404 or broken links for your website.
10. Ignoring Keyword Research
Finding and analyzing the words and phrases that your target audience uses to search for your niche, topic, or product is called keyword research. It is important because it optimize your content with the phrases that people are searching. Here are some perks of doing keyword research for your website:
- You want to understand your audience and what they need. Keyword research is how you do it. It tells you what they search, how they search and why. It also shows you their pain points, objectives and motivations. With keyword research, you can build buyer personas and map out their journey.
- You need a content strategy and a content calendar. Keyword research is the key. You want to create content that your audience loves and craves. But how do you know what to write, when to write, and how to share it? When you research keywords you will get a great idea about what should you write.
- Think of keyword research as the foundation of your SEO strategy. It helps you find the right keywords for your niche, topic, or product that people are searching for, that are not too competitive, and that are relevant to what you offer. Then, you can use those keywords to make your website elements more appealing to the search engines, like your title, meta description, URL, headings, and content. This way, you can rank higher for the keywords that your audience wants, and avoid confusing the search engines with duplicate or irrelevant keywords.
By doing keyword research for your website, you can leverage the power of long-tail keywords and semantic search. You can target more specific and less competitive keywords that have higher conversion rates. You can also improve your relevance and trustworthiness by using natural language and synonyms.
11. Targeting The Wrong Keywords
Targeting the wrong keywords is one of the most common SEO mistakes that can hurt your rankings and your traffic. It means choosing the keywords that are not relevant, not specific, not popular, or not profitable for your niche, topic, or product. Here are some benefits of targeting the right keywords for your website:
- It helps you reach your target audience and their needs. Targeting the right keywords means choosing the keywords that match your target audience’s search intent and stage of awareness. It also helps you create a content that solves their pain points, challenges, and goals. It also helps you attract more qualified and interested visitors to your website.
- You want to rank higher and get more traffic. How? By finding the best keywords for your niche, topic, or product. Keywords that people search for a lot, but not many websites compete for. Keywords that match what you offer. Then, use those keywords in your website elements, like your title, URL, headings, and content. But don’t overdo it. Too many keywords can hurt your ranking. That’s how you do keyword research like a pro.
- It helps you increase your conversion rate and your revenue. Keywords are not just words. They are the key to your success. You need to pick the ones that match your audience’s intent, solve their problems, and make them buy from you. And you need to track and optimize how well your content is doing with those keywords. That’s how you win at SEO.
Picking the wrong keywords is a common SEO mistake that can ruin your SEO. You need to find the ones that match your customers’ pain points and goals. That way, you can show up where they are looking, attract them to your site, and convince them to buy from you. And you can track and optimize your performance with those keywords.
12. Poor Content Quality
Don’t make this common SEO mistake: creating low-quality content. You need to create content that wows your audience and the search engines. That way, you can keep them hooked, boost your ranking, and get more traffic. See why you should create good quality content below:
- High-quality content is a must for SEO. It gives your visitors what they want like value, relevance, and fun. It makes them engage with your content, like comment, share, or rate. It lowers your bounce rate and boosts your dwell time. That’s how you keep them coming back for more.
- A high-quality content persuades your visitors to take action and buy from you, without making them feel pressured or deceived. It also builds your trust, authority, and credibility in your niche, without making you sound arrogant or desperate.
It improves your ranking and visibility. A high-quality content matches your target audience’s search intent and stage of awareness, without making you irrelevant or outdated.
13. Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing is the practice of overusing or repeating your target keywords in your website, in an unnatural or excessive way. Keyword stuffing is bad for SEO because it affects both your content quality and your ranking. Here are some benefits of avoiding keyword stuffing for your website:
- It improves your content quality and readability. Avoiding keyword stuffing means writing a natural and engaging content that focuses on your topic and your audience, not on your keywords. It also means using your keywords in a relevant and appropriate way, without making them sound forced or awkward.
- It improves your user satisfaction and retention. Avoiding keyword stuffing means providing a valuable and relevant content that matches your user’s search intent and stage of awareness, not on your keyword density.
It improves your ranking and visibility. Avoiding keyword stuffing means following the Google SEO guidelines and best practices, not on your keyword optimization. It also means ignoring ranking penalties and filters, such as the Panda algorithm, that can remove your website from search results.
14. Duplicate Content
Duplicate content is the content that appears on more than one page or website, either within your own website or across different websites. Duplicate content is bad for SEO because it affects both your content quality and your ranking. Here are some benefits of avoiding duplicate content for your website:
- Duplicate content hurts your SEO and your credibility. You need to create original and useful content for your audience. Your content should offer something new and different that they can’t find anywhere else.
- It improves your user satisfaction and retention. Avoiding duplicate content means providing a relevant and useful content that matches your user’s search intent and stage of awareness, without making them confused or dissatisfied. It encourages your visitors to interact with your content, such as commenting, sharing or rating.
- It improves your ranking and visibility. Avoiding duplicate content means following the Google SEO guidelines and best practices, not on your content optimization.
15. Not Optimizing Your Targeted Keywords
Optimizing your targeted keywords is the process of using your keywords in the right places and in the right way on your website. Optimizing your targeted keywords is important for SEO because it helps you rank for the keywords that matter the most for your business. Here are some benefits of optimizing your targeted keywords for your website:
- It improves your content relevance and quality. Optimizing your targeted keywords means using your keywords in a natural and appropriate way, without making them sound forced or awkward. It also means using synonyms, variations, and related keywords to enrich your content and avoid repetition.
- It improves your user satisfaction and retention. Optimizing your targeted keywords means using your keywords in a relevant and useful way, without making them confusing or misleading. It also means using your keywords in a way that matches your user’s search intent and stage of awareness.
- It improves your ranking and visibility. Optimizing your targeted keywords means using your keywords in a way that signals to the search engines and the users what your content is about.
Targeted keywords are like the compass of your website. They guide your visitors to the right destination. If you don’t optimize them properly, you’ll make one of the common SEO mistakes that can ruin your chances of ranking high. But if you do it right, you’ll boost your content’s relevance and quality, your audience’s satisfaction and loyalty, and your website’s ranking and visibility.
16. Not Fixing Canonicalization Issues
Canonicalization issues are the issues that arise when your website has more than one URL that leads to the same or similar content. Canonicalization issues are bad for SEO because they affect both your content quality and your ranking. Here are some benefits of fixing your canonicalization issues for your website:
- It improves your content quality and originality. Fixing your canonicalization issues means choosing one URL as the canonical or the preferred version of your content, and telling the search engines and the users to use that URL.
- It improves your user satisfaction and retention. Fixing your canonicalization issues means providing a consistent and optimal viewing and interaction experience for your visitors, without making them encounter errors or confusion.
- It improves your ranking and visibility. Fixing your canonicalization issues means following the Google SEO guidelines and best practices, not on your content optimization.
Canonicalization issues are like duplicate IDs for your website. They confuse the search engines and make them think you have multiple versions of the same page. This is one of the common SEO mistakes that can lower your ranking. But if you fix them, you’ll improve your content’s quality and originality, your audience’s satisfaction and retention, and your website’s ranking and visibility.
17. Ignoring User Intent
User intent is the goal or the purpose that your user has when they search for something on the web. User intent is important for SEO because it helps you optimize your website for the queries that your user actually wants to find. Here are some benefits of understanding and satisfying your user intent for your website:
- It improves your content relevance and quality. Understanding and satisfying your user intent means creating a content that answers your user’s questions, solves their problems, or fulfills their desires, without making them disappointed or frustrated. It also means using the right keywords, format, and tone for your content, depending on your user’s intent.
- User satisfaction and retention are like the rewards of your content. You need to create content that delivers value and utility to your user. Your content should match your user’s search intent and stage of awareness, without making them feel lost or unhappy.
- It improves your ranking and visibility. It means following the Google SEO guidelines and best practices, avoiding ranking penalties and filters, such as the BERT algorithm, that can remove your website from the search results.
User intent is like the heartbeat of your website. You need to create content that aligns with your user’s needs and wants. Your content should avoid one of the common SEO mistakes that can damage your ranking. It should also improve your content’s relevance and quality, your user’s satisfaction and retention, and your website’s ranking and visibility.
18. Forgetting About Headings and Meta Descriptions
Headings and meta descriptions are the elements that appear on the search results and on your website, to describe and summarize your content. These are important for SEO because they affect both your user experience and your rankings. Here are some benefits of optimizing your title and meta description for your website:
- It improves your user engagement and retention. Optimizing your headings and meta descriptions means using clear and catchy headlines, subheadings, and snippets that attract and retain your user’s attention, without making them bored or misled.
- Optimizing your headings and meta descriptions means using persuasive and compelling headlines, subheadings, and snippets that convince and motivate your user to take action and buy from you, without making them feel pressured or deceived.
- It improves your ranking and visibility. Optimizing your headings and meta descriptions means following the Google SEO guidelines and best practices, not on your content optimization.
Headings and meta descriptions are like the headlines and summaries of your website. You need to optimize them to catch your user’s attention and interest. Your headings and meta descriptions should avoid one of the common SEO mistakes that can harm your ranking.
19. Ineffective Internal Linking
Internal linking is the practice of linking your web pages to each other within your own website. Internal linking is important for SEO because it affects both your user experience and your crawlability. Here are some benefits of having an effective internal linking for your website:
- It improves your user satisfaction and retention. An effective internal linking provides a smooth and uninterrupted browsing and interaction experience for your visitors, without them encountering dead ends or irrelevant pages. It also motivates your visitors to explore more helpful contents on your website.
- An effective internal linking increases the effectiveness and efficiency of your website, making it more responsive and reliable.
- Internal linking is like the map of your website. An effective internal linking helps the search engines access and understand your website. It also helps them spot the most valuable and related pages on your website.
20. Generic or Naked Anchor Text
Anchor text is the visible and clickable text that links to another page or website. Anchor text is important for SEO because it affects both your user experience and your link authority. Here are some benefits of using a descriptive and relevant anchor text for your website:
- It improves your user satisfaction and retention. A descriptive and relevant anchor text provides a clear and useful information for your visitors, without making them guess or wonder what the link is about.
- It improves your conversion rate and your revenue. A descriptive and relevant anchor text persuades your visitors to take action and buy from you, without making them feel pressured or deceived. It also builds your trust, authority, and credibility in your niche, without making you sound arrogant or desperate.
- It improves your link authority and your ranking. A descriptive and relevant anchor text signals to the search engines and the users what your link is about and how it relates to your content.
Anchor text is like the label of your link. You need to use a descriptive and relevant anchor text that tells your user what to expect when they click on your link. Your anchor text should avoid one of the common SEO mistakes that can lower your ranking. It should also increase your user’s satisfaction and retention, your link authority and your ranking.
21. Not Doing External Linking
External linking is the practice of linking your web pages to other websites that are relevant and authoritative in your niche, topic or product. External linking is important for SEO because it affects both your user experience and your link authority. Here are some benefits of doing external linking for your website:
- It improves your user satisfaction and retention. It means providing a valuable and useful resource for your visitors, without having them leave your website. It also means using a clear and descriptive anchor text and link title, without making them misleading or confusing. This improves your user satisfaction and retention, as it makes your content more interesting and useful.
- Doing external linking means building a trust, authority, and credibility in your niche, without making you sound arrogant or desperate. It also means using a relevant and appropriate link destination and purpose, without making you feel pressured or deceived.
- It improves your link authority and your ranking. Doing external linking means signaling to the search engines and the users that your website is relevant and trustworthy, without making you over-optimized or under-optimized. It also means using a high-quality and authoritative link source and target, without making you spammy or low-quality.
External linking is like the network of your website. You need to do external linking that connects your website with other reputable and relevant websites. Your external linking should avoid one of the common SEO mistakes that can hurt your ranking. It should also improve your user’s satisfaction and retention, your revenue, your link authority and your ranking.
22. Ignoring Link Building
Link building is like the endorsement of your website. You need to get links from other websites that vouch for your website. Link building is essential for SEO because it affects both your user experience and your link authority. Here’s how link building can boost your website ranking:
- It is like getting references from other websites. The more references you have, the higher your site ranks in search engines. But not all references are equal. Some references are more valuable than others, depending on the authority and relevance of the site that links to you.
- It is a form of content marketing. You need to make good content that makes your customers interested and happy. Then you need to promote it to the right people who can link to it or share it with their followers. This can boost your traffic, conversions, and brand awareness.
- When you outreach with other webmasters for link building you can make a relationship with them. It can help you earn their trust and respect. This could be an opportunity for new collaboration, brand awareness and referrals.
23. Not Optimizing for Voice Search
Nowadays voice searching is a new way of searching information online. It’s faster, easier, and more natural than typing. See how voice search can help you in SEO:
- Voice search helps you to reach out a potential market who use voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant etc. It’s users increasing rapidly especially young mobile users. This is not a small market; you should target this market also.
- This helps you rank higher for natural language questions that are more conversational and specific than typed questions. Its users tend to ask longer and more detailed questions, which means they are looking for more relevant and personalized answers. By optimizing your content for voice search, you can match their intent and provide better solutions.
- Voice search is totally a user friendly way to search something on internet. Its users are more likely to trust the results they hear from their voice assistants, as they perceive them as more human and reliable.
Conclusion of 23 Common SEO Mistakes
Today, you have learned the 23 common SEO mistakes that many people make. These SEO mistakes can damage your ranking, traffic, and conversion. But you don’t need to be afraid, you can fix them by following the good practices and advice that we gave you in this article.
SEO is not simple, but it is not very hard either. You just need to be persistent, calm, and smart. And the most important thing, you need to give value to your customers. That is the secret of SEO success.
But we understand that SEO can be stressful and time-consuming. That is why we are here to support you. We have helped hundreds of companies to increase their online visibility and income with SEO.
If you need SEO services, you can reach us anytime. We will be glad to check your website, make a custom SEO plan, and execute it for you. No matter if you need on-page SEO, off-page SEO, technical SEO, or content marketing, we can do everything for you.
Just complete this form and our experts will contact you as soon as possible. Don’t lose this chance to improve your website with SEO. Contact us now and let’s work together to reach your online goals.