A 2019 release by the Office for National Statistics showed that the rate of adults in the UK using the internet was 91%. If you haven't incorporated digital marketing into your small business, you're missing out on prospective customers. In this age of online shopping, a well-customized site should be a priority.
With the changing nature of SEO, marketers need to understand the optimization techniques shaping eCommerce. A wrong SEO strategy can produce undesirable impacts. Yet, marketers tend to make some SEO mistakes that have a likelihood of affecting their business.
If you’re new to SEO, you might be prone to mistakes. Here are some of the common SEO mistakes of 2020 that you need to avoid.
Having a Cluttered Landing Page
A poorly designed landing page is one of the common SEO mistakes leading to increased bounce rates. If a user clicks on your page, the offers and instructions should be clear enough. Your website is your brand, and it should have an appealing design.
A visitor should spend considerable time on your site. Distracting links or images can make your landing page unattractive. The primary aim of your page should be conversion, which is possible when a visitor navigates through the site easily.
Abusing Keywords
If you’ve been wondering how to make your website popular, one of the tips you’ll come across is the use of keywords. In the past, search engines couldn’t determine the site to rank first. The rating relied heavily on the use of keywords.
In 2020, overstuffing keywords in your site can work against your optimization efforts. Gone are the days where sites were creating unnatural content just to have the keywords for better ranking. Search engines are now keen on the content and can detect a site that has abused keywords.
Your SEO performance can get negative ranking because of the wrong use of keyword phrases. Focus on writing great content with natural keywords, and the search engines will reward you with a deserving rank.
Failure to Pay Attention to Your Site Speed
Search engines prioritize a faster site. You can analyse your site speed through the Google PageSpeed Insights to know areas that you need to improve for your page’s speed. A website that takes too long to load can be a turnoff to visitors.
Large images are the main culprit in slowing site speed. It would help to optimize your site’s images. Resizing the images can increase the speed, which would help with your SEO.
Enabling gzip compression and browser caching can speed up the site. Browser caching ensures faster loading for returning clients, while gzip compression helps in static file compression. With these approaches, visitors can gather useful information within seconds of clicking on your site.
Poor Content
Amongst the SEO mistakes that you should avoid in 2020 is writing poor content for your site. Some sites hardly pay attention to their blogs’ content. The only way to prove expertise in a particular field is by coming up with valuable content.
Your write-up should have your visitors' best interests. Once you have quality content, Google will match your site with the search query effortlessly. Ensure that your blog content is at least 300 words, as a few sentences wouldn't give you many results.
More importantly, your content ought to be original. Duplicating text from another site will affect your SEO. Google can detect cases of plagiarism, which would make your site rank lower.
Not Auditing Your Website Regularly
One of the best local SEO tips to boost your business includes generating online reviews. Through the online reviews, you can understand the client's experience with your site. Auditing your website allows you to gauge its performance from the search engine and the client's view.
If you don't audit your site regularly, you might never know it's user-friendliness and the ease of finding information. Examining the site closely will give you great insights on improvement. During auditing, check the content quality, loading speed, optimization, and checkout process, among other functionalities.
Ignoring Meta Descriptions and Title Tags
Skipping meta descriptions and titles is amongst the SEO pitfalls common in most websites. Meta descriptions and titles are optimizing factors that you need to consider for your SEO strategy. Google uses page titles to understand what your page is all about.
Meta descriptions summarize the content of your page, which benefits search engines and users. The 160 characters allowed for meta description can set you apart from competitors. Ensure that your meta description incorporates relevant keywords and valuable information.
While at it, remember to include image tags, which content marketers often forget. Your visuals’ alt tags are a critical part of targeting as search bots can’t miss the alt tags in your pages.
Site Not Optimized for Mobile
Four out of five adults in the UK use a smartphone. With such high figures, failing to make your site mobile-friendly is a major flop. Besides, Google considers mobile-friendliness when ranking websites, and failing to optimize for mobile devices can have adverse impacts on your ranking.
Most potential customers are likely to prioritize a site that is easily accessible through a mobile device. A mobile-friendly website will increase search traffic and improve the conversion rate. You can use the Testmysite tool or the Google Mobile-Friendly Test to check the extent of your site's responsiveness.
Failure to Include a Call-to-Action
Keeping visitors on a site ought to be a primary goal for digital marketers. It is vital to encourage your visitors to click through your website. A call-to-action is a button that allows you to encourage your visitors to take the necessary step, such as signing up, buying, or asking for a quote.
Each page ought to have a clear CTA to guide the site visitors. The CTA should be visible; you can use a different colour and font. Having multiple buttons within a page can confuse prospective customers from visiting your page.
Some Common SEO Mistakes Can Deter the Effectiveness of Your Content Marketing
In 2020, SEO is getting better as it continues to gain traction in all industries. Yet, there are some SEO mistakes you need to avoid for your strategy to work. Once you’ve addressed these SEO pitfalls, you’ll experience significant site traffic.
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