Learning how to grow your blog traffic and performing SEO can become very exhausting, because the information you learn today may become out-of-date tomorrow. There are lots of SEO mistakes to avoid.
I know a number of bloggers who write blog posts just for the purpose of spreading out content and then stuff keywords in order to get their posts to rank higher in the Search Engine.
It may look like a good idea at first, but Google ain’t that stupid hon. Google’s Algorithms are continuously developing and improving to become more smart and intuitive.
They filter out lots of spammers and copycats on a daily basis. And they are constantly evolving, so don’t even think of trying to outsmart this search Engine.
However, if you know what SEO error you can avoid, your posts will automatically rank higher. By not making these mistakes. Google will start taking your blog seriously!
And that’s specifically what you should be aiming for.
But Before I get into all the SEO mistakes you should avoid, let me instruct you with how search engines work.
How does Google Actually Work?
Google sends itsy bitsy spiders to crawl pages on the internet. One the page is crawled by Google’s spiders; it’s combined to the search engine index.
So, when you search for any team, say “Website Design Templates”, you are seeing all the pages in Google’s index.
But how are those pages ranked?
Google has over the 200+ ranking factors. If you are constantly writing great content but are still not ranking on Google, then you are probably making a few SEO mistakes.
But the good news is that once you know the major SEO mistakes to avoid, you can connect them and start ranking higher almost immediately!
1. Not Optimizing Your Blog’s Speed
A slow website is an awful website. Remember, We live in a day where almost anything can be taken by a click of a button.
So, optimize your website’s speed. Your users will thank you and this will keep your bounce rate low.
2. Poor Quality Content
There is no cost of SEO that can save low-quality content. You need to target for evergreen content that’s very helpful, well-formatted and thorough. Let me explain why.
Google is regularly focusing on whether you are providing the search users what they are asking for.
Imagine you are ranking on the first page as the second result on Google search for a particular long-tail keyword.
Let’s pretend someone searches for that keyword you are currently ranking for and clicks on the first results.
The first post does not really answer their question, so they go after and click on the next result which is yours! Your post is really helpful. And they end up reading that post and multiple posts in your blog that you have linked to.
Google Understands that people are spending more time on your Blogs so it would mean that your blog post is much better than the first post. It will change the first result with your post. Basically, you will start outranking everyone else!
However, the same thing can follow if you were the first result and your quality is not up to the mark. If Google finds that different posts are better than yours, your ranking can go down.
3. Not Focusing On Backlinks
Link building is a very powerful technique in order to rank higher. When alternative websites with high domain authority link to you, you accordingly go up in Google’s eyes. Because this tells Google that your blog is very informative.
Only Focusing on good quality links will improve your search ranking.
In the beginning, it can not be easy to focus on getting backlinks, but there are many ways to do this without going crazy.
- Focus on writing extremely valuable and meaningful Content
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- People will understand that you are an expert. If they love your stuff, they are going to link to it without you having to ask for it.
- Offers to guest post for websites with high domain authority in your niche
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- It’s a really good way to get quality backlinks without asking for it. Just make sure you do your research about that website, before asking to guest post on their website.
- Write round-up posts
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- A roundup post is a post where you ask lots of Other Bloggers in your niche to add a few words to your post.
- For example, if you run a blog regarding SEO, you should ask every person who has knowledge of SEO and getting information about SEO and you write a blog.
- And once you are done, you notify everyone that have been included in the article. It will help you to get backlinks and social shares. It is a time-consuming process but it is really good and also it helps build network connection too.
- Manually ask for backlinks
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- It is also called the Skyscraper Technique. Which was founded by Brian Dean. Fundamentally, you look for extremely popular post ideas.
- Once you find that this type of post is famous, you go ahead and write a post that knocks the competition through and through.
- If you find every post on Google talking about 10 ways to teach a child manner, you go ahead and write a post on 20 ways to teach a kid how to behave.
- Make sure that your content is more understandable, more up-to-date and extremely well structured. Yes, its looks matter too.
- Once you are done, I hope you have some backline finder tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush and find out all the backlinks to the particular pieces of content you want to beat them.
- Then, manually send emails to every single website that’s linking to that piece of content letting them know that your post is more detailed and up-to-date and ask for a backlink.
- Not every person is going to reply and that’s completely okay. Even if 5 people out of 40 links to your content, you are pretty much nailed.
4. Not leveraging the power of anchor text
Now, when you are internally linking to another post, please don’t use “Click Here” or “See this” or “Check this Out”
It’s not the correct way to use anchor text. For example, if I have a Web Design related blog. So I wouldn’t use this anchor text like Check this web design blog, instead, I’d use “You can read my web design blog here”.
Do you see the difference? There is an important keyword used in another example. This helps to Google understand that you are a web design blogger and you are constantly linking to other articles in your blog.
Your website becomes easier to crawl because your posts are linked to regularly. It’s a good way to boost your SEO and this always decreases your bounce rate because using internal links helps readers on your website’s for longer.
5. Not Focusing On Image SEO
Okay, so here’s the deal you. Google cannot really see your images. It doesn’t have eyes.
Which means that you need to explain to Google what your images are exactly. This can be done by writing a very smart and actual description in the alt tag of your image.
Make sure that even the title of your image is too relevant. You can break words with hyphens (-) here. This really helps raise your SEO.
6. Not Choosing a Website Theme that is SEO friendly
As beautiful as the words “Free WordPress Themes” sound, don’t go for it. Seriously.
Please note that they are Free for some reason. Selecting a free WordPress theme for ecommerce is one of the biggest SEO mistakes to avoid.
2 out of 3 people prefer elegantly designed content so you are trying your SEO and losing more than half of your blog traffic if you do not pay attention to your website theme.
Select your website theme from Webibazaar ecommerce themestore.
So, concentrate on finding a paid theme that:-
- Has Good customer support
- Extremely easy to work with
- Search Engine Crawl pages and posts easily
- Customizable Design
- User-friendly and helps to boost your brand
7. Not Optimizing for Mobile
More than 58% of your traffic will come from mobiles and tablets. So you are getting a huge blogging mistake if you are not optimizing your blog for mobiles.
The simplest way to do this is to get a theme that is mobile friendly.
Make sure that
- All your web pages and posts are displaying properly on your phone
- Your widget is functioning how they are supposed to your phone as well
- Pop-up forms and welcome mates work on your phone
Aim for extremely high-end user experience on phones. Remember, everything looks tiny and congested on devices like mobile and tablets, so you must focus on making your content more readable and engaging, otherwise, people will leave your website quickly and this will lead to high bounce rate.
8. Not Fixing Broken Links
As you continue to blog, you will start to add broken links over time. And when Search Engines run into broken links on your websites, they will lower your ranking because they will assume that your website is not up to date.
Remember Google doesn’t want to provide a bad user experience to its users. So, they will always choose a website with zero broken links.
This is super easy to avoid. Just install Broken Link checker on your blog right now and use it to make sure that you get rid of this pesky problem.
9. Not Paying Attention to your Analytics
Except you know what is doing well and what isn’t, it is almost difficult to grow as a Blogger.
By this, I don’t mean watching your Google Analytics page views, but keeping a weekly track on important statistics like your famous posts and behavior flow.
Once you know where readers are coming off, you can add more engaging content or internal links to these pages to improve them on your website for longer! Overall, once you know what keywords you are ranking for and what posts are doing particularly well, you can start writing-related posts to increase your website traffic and rank higher in Search Engines.