5 SEO Mistakes that Are Hurting Your Website
If your site isn’t getting enough visitors or is somewhat lost in the Google sea of sites, we have some bad news: It might actually be your fault.
Here are some common SEO mistakes that might be affecting your site’s visibility and what you can do to fix those issues.
Using the Wrong Vocabulary
When choosing keywords for an article or webpage, always go with the normal words the average consumer will use. For example, most potential buyers will search for “appliances” rather than “consumer electrical equipment” – so if you go with the second option, chances are your site won’t rank very well and won’t be seen by the right people.
Loading Your Site with Too Many Ads
AdSense ad units can be a great source of added income but put too many on a page and your site might end up classified as “spammy” by Google. You can get in even worse trouble if you are using a free hosted blog and adding sites, which are technically against the rules.
In fact, any free subdomain that’s full of ads will probably get penalized by Google. So do yourself a favor and buy your own premium domain (which sell for as little as $10/year) and then use advertising smartly: pick only relevant ads, place them well and make sure they don’t overwhelm the page or distract from the content.
Ignoring Internal Links
If you’re not linking to other pages from your own main page, you’re missing out. Your main page should include a well placed, very visible menu with links to your other pages. If you can include additional links to those same pages (or to specific areas/articles on your site) within the text, even better.
Just a word of caution: don’t overwhelm the text with links and don’t add links to pages that have nothing to do with the content of your main page. Not only does it look unprofessional, but readers might find it overwhelming and end up leaving.
Ignoring the Need for a 404 Status
Google will actually penalize you – sometimes heavily – if your site doesn’t return a 404 error when the requested URL doesn’t exist. You will also get penalized if your site returns a 200 or 301 status code instead.
The moral of the story? Don’t ignore the small SEO details to avoid unpleasant surprises down the road.
