Simply having a website that functions just doesn't cut it anymore. A website represents your company online, and therefore, it should be well designed and attractive. Otherwise, people are simply not going to take you seriously. This is why you will see many businesses dealing with a digital marketing company, like BoomCycle, to improve their websites and get more visitors.
Another way you can improve your website and get a higher number of visitors through search engines is through SEO. You will likely know of some SEO strategies as the internet is littered with all of them. But how many of these are actually effective?
How can you know if such a strategy is effective and won't backfire on you? You cannot take a risk with a strategy you are unsure about, especially in such a digitally crucial age with the advent of 2022. Therefore, this article will discuss 6 SEO mistakes you should avoid in 2022.
1. keyword stuffing
In the past, it used to be a good idea to repeat a keyword as much as possible, and a search engine would redirect users to those websites. However, the Google algorithms have improved significantly and become more intelligent through breakthroughs like semantic search. This means that keyword stuffing is not only useless but can actually harm your SEO. Google wants users to get valuable results that satisfy their intent, and keyword stuffing does not fulfill that. Therefore, you should keep your keyword usage to a minimum and use synonyms as an alternative.
2. not using h tags properly
Using H tags is crucial for SEO as they help increase readability to your content and represent sections of your content. You should use H1 tags for headings, H2 tags for subheadings, and H3 for smaller sections. They help readers comprehend the content better and tell search engines what the content is about so they can show search results accordingly. Therefore, H tags are crucial and are no longer an optional extra feature you can include on your site.
3. not fixing broken links
If you have a blog post or article that consists of several links, then the chances are that eventually, you may end up with a broken link. This can occur for several reasons. Usually, this happens if the website you link to has changed its URL or the company it represents has gone out of business. This is why it is essential to review your articles, especially high-performing ones, so that you can update broken links. Broken links show that your website has poor maintenance, and if you have too many, you may drop down in the search rankings. Consider manually rechecking articles or using a software tool that can check broken links for you automatically.
4. not having a mobile compatible website
This is probably one of the biggest mistakes you can make regarding SEO. This is because many users visit websites and use search engines on their mobile phones. This is why Google prioritizes mobile-friendly websites. Failure to optimize for mobile hurts your search engine rankings and hurts your chances of potentially gaining many visitors. You can optimize for mobile phones using tools like AMPs. Additionally, you can use Google Search Console to check if your website is mobile-friendly.
5. having a slow website
Having a slow website in this day and age can be very harmful to your SEO. This is because most users want their answers as fast as possible. If they click on your website and it fails to load within a few seconds, then they are likely not going to stay around for long. Google understands this and considers speed as one of the ranking factors for a website. They can easily detect this through crawlers who sift through your website. If your website loads slow, search engine crawlers will take more time to scan through it. You can make your site faster in various ways, like minimizing HTML and CSS code and reducing image sizes.
6. using duplicate website content
Using duplicate and plagiarized content can seriously hurt your SEO as search engines can detect if you are doing so. Most websites continue to make this mistake because they do not want to invest resources in creating high-quality content. However, creating great content is the only way to beat your competitors. A great alternative is to take inspiration from competitors' content but improve it. In this way, you avoid plagiarism and get the upper hand over your competition.
in conclusion
SEO is crucial in this day and age. However, websites continue to make mistakes and integrate them into their strategy. This severely hurts their search engine optimisation and results in them dropping down in search rankings. Lower search rankings mean fewer visitors, as your website will not be as visible. This can severely hurt your sales and even cause you to go out of business. By understanding the mistakes listed in this article, we are confident you can improve your SEO strategy, which can help grow your business.