Top 10 SEO Mistakes And How to Avoid Them?

SEO stands for search engine optimisation, which is the process of improving your website’s visibility and relevance for search engines and users. SEO can help you attract more organic traffic, generate more leads, and increase your conversions.

However, SEO is not a one-time thing. It requires constant research, analysis, and updates to keep up with the changing algorithms and user behavior. If you make some common SEO mistakes, you may end up hurting your rankings and losing potential customers.

In this blog post, we will share with you the top 10 SEO mistakes and how to avoid them. These are:

1. Not knowing your audience
2. Not having an SEO plan and roadmap
3. Not doing keyword research
4. Not matching search intent
5. Targeting keywords that are too difficult
6. Not building enough backlinks
7. Breaking Google’s Terms of Service when building links
8. Missing internal link opportunities
9. Not letting Google crawl and index your content
10. Not optimising images for SEO

Let’s dive into each of these mistakes and see how you can fix them.

 

1. Not knowing your audience

One of the fundamental principles of SEO is to understand your target audience. That means knowing your audience at the most minute and granular level.

SEO is the customer’s voice. While many marketers think they know their audience, they often fall into the trap of not understanding how consumers behave in their market and then at a granular level.

At the same time, as consumers expect instant responses and results to their queries, they often want this in real time. While historical data still gives SEO great insights into seasonal trends, marketers’ methods to understand their customers have to be holistic.

One of the most common mistakes in selecting keywords is neglecting the preference of search engines and users for long-tail keywords. It’s important to understand the words that your potential customers may refer to as you may have different ways of defining your products and services.

How to avoid this SEO mistake

Align your content with your audience by analyzing the market in which your consumers buy – what are the macro trends? Utilize both historical and real-time data to understand how behavior is changing.

Map what you find about consumer intent to your keyword selections and strategy. Make use of Google keyword planning tools or other popular tools such as Ahrefs or Semrush in the market. 

 

2. Not having an SEO plan and roadmap

There is no point in knowing all about your audience and then taking little or random action to maximise opportunity from that knowledge.

Many organizations struggle to either build or execute on strategy from large enterprises to small and medium-sized businesses. Did you know only 36% of SMEs last year had an SEO strategy? 

Building an SEO strategy and roadmap is critical for success. Building a sustainable and efficient SEO strategy is tough and relies on multiple stakeholders – website, PR, content, product, IT, and engineering which leads to failure at times. 

How to avoid this SEO mistake

Create a clear and realistic SEO plan and roadmap that aligns with your business goals and resources. Define your target keywords, competitors, audience segments, content gaps, technical issues, link opportunities, and performance metrics.

Communicate your plan with all the relevant stakeholders and get their buy-in and support. Assign roles and responsibilities for each task and set deadlines and milestones.

Monitor your progress and results regularly and adjust your plan as needed based on data and feedback.

 

3. Not doing SEO keyword research

Keyword research is the foundation of any successful SEO campaign. It helps you identify what topics your audience is searching for, how popular they are, how competitive they are, and how they relate to each other.

Without keyword research, you are basically shooting in the dark. You may create content that nobody wants or needs, or that is too difficult to rank for.

Keyword research also helps you optimize your content for search intent, which is the why behind a search query. For example, if someone searches for “best rice cooker”, they are not looking to buy one immediately but are more likely to compare different options. 

How to avoid this SEO mistake

Make sure you thoroughly research your keywords using tools like Ahrefs,  Google Keyword Planner, or Semrush. 

These tools can help you find relevant keywords with search traffic potential, analyse their difficulty and competition level, discover related keywords and questions, and group them into topics or clusters.

You should also analyse the current top-ranking pages for each keyword to understand the search intent behind them. Look at the content type (e.g., blog post, product page), content format (e.g., listicle, how-to guide), and content angle (e.g., low prices, easy recipes) of these pages. Then create content that matches or exceeds the quality and relevance of these pages.

 

4. Not matching SEO search intent

Google’s goal is to provide users with the most relevant result for every query. So, if you want to rank high on Google, you need to get the most relevant result.

This means matching search intent, the why behind a search query. For example, if we search for “best rice cooker”, we’ll see the results are mostly blog posts:

Google knows that searchers are looking to compare, not buy. So if you’re an e-commerce store that sells rice cookers, Google will likely not rank your category page for this query—simply because it’s not what users want.

How to avoid this SEO mistake

Align your content with search intent by analyzing the current top-ranking results for the three Cs:

• Content type – Are they blog posts, product pages, landing pages, or something else?
• Content format – Are they tutorials, listicles, how-to guides, recipes, free tools, or something else?
• Content angle – Is there a dominant selling point, like low prices or how easy it is?

For example, let’s analyze the SERPs for “rice cooker”:

• Content type – They’re mostly blog posts.
• Content format – They’re mostly how-to guides.
• Content angle – They’re mostly focused on the benefits and techniques of rice cooker swings.

Based on this analysis, you should create a blog post that teaches people how to use rice cookers properly and why they should use them.

 

5. Targeting SEO keywords that are too difficult

Another common SEO mistake is targeting keywords that are too difficult to rank for. These are usually keywords with high search volume, high competition, and high authority domains in the top results.

While it’s tempting to go after these keywords, you may end up wasting your time and resources if you don’t have the necessary authority and relevance to compete with them.

For example, if you’re a new website that sells coffee beans, ranking for “coffee” is probably not realistic. This keyword has over 1.8 billion results and the top 10 results are dominated by Wikipedia, Starbucks, and other well-known brands.

How to avoid this SEO mistake

Target keywords that are within your reach and have a reasonable chance of ranking. You can use tools like Ahrefs’ Keyword Difficulty score or Moz’s Domain Authority score to estimate how hard it is to rank for a keyword.

A general rule of thumb is to target keywords with a difficulty score lower than your website’s authority score. For example, if your website has a Domain Authority of 30, you should aim for keywords with a difficulty score of 30 or lower.

You can also look for long-tail keywords that are more specific and less competitive than broad keywords. For example, instead of targeting “coffee”, you can target “best organic coffee beans” or “how to brew coffee at home”.

These keywords may have lower search volume, but they also have higher conversion rates and lower competition.

 

6. Not building enough backlinks

Backlinks are links from other websites to your website. They are one of the most important ranking factors for Google and other search engines.

Backlinks help search engines understand what your website is about, how authoritative and trustworthy it is, and how popular and relevant it is for your target keywords.

However, many website owners neglect backlink building or rely on outdated or spammy methods that can harm their rankings.

For example, some website owners may buy backlinks from low-quality websites or directories, exchange backlinks with unrelated websites, or use automated tools to create backlinks in bulk.

These practices can get you penalized by Google and damage your reputation and credibility.

How to avoid this SEO mistake

Build backlinks organically and naturally by creating valuable and shareable content that attracts links from relevant and authoritative websites.

You can also use outreach strategies to promote your content to potential linkers and influencers in your niche. For example, you can:

• Guest post on reputable websites and link back to your website.
• Create original research or data and pitch it to journalists or bloggers.
• Create infographics or videos and offer them as embeddable content.
• Mention or quote other experts or brands in your content and let them know.
• Find broken links on other websites and suggest your content as a replacement.

You can use tools like Ahrefs’ Site Explorer or Moz’s Link Explorer to find link opportunities and analyze your competitors’ backlink profiles.

 

7. Breaking Google’s Terms of Service when building links

While building backlinks is essential for SEO, it’s also important to follow Google’s Terms of Service when doing so. Google has strict guidelines on what constitutes a good or bad link and what practices are acceptable or unacceptable when acquiring links.

According to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site’s ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

 

7. Breaking Google’s Terms of Service when building links

While building backlinks is essential for SEO, it’s also important to follow Google’s Terms of Service when doing so. Google has strict guidelines on what constitutes a good or bad link and what practices are acceptable or unacceptable when acquiring links.

According to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines,  any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site’s ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

Some examples of link schemes are:

• Buying or selling links that pass PageRank.
• Exchanging money, goods, or services for links.
• Sending someone a free product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link.
• Excessive link exchanges or partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking.
• Using automated programs or services to create links to your site.
• Creating low-quality or spammy websites with the sole purpose of linking to your site.
• Using doorway pages that redirect users to a different page than what they clicked on.

These practices can get you penalized by Google and damage your reputation and credibility.

How to avoid this SEO mistake

Build backlinks organically and naturally by creating valuable and shareable content that attracts links from relevant and authoritative websites.

You should also follow the best practices for link building, such as:

• Using descriptive and relevant anchor text that matches the content of the linked page.
• Varying your anchor text and avoiding over-optimizing it with exact-match keywords.
• Linking to pages that provide useful and relevant information to your users.
• Avoid linking to pages that are unrelated, low-quality, or spammy.
• Checking your backlink profile regularly and removing or disavowing any bad links.

You can use tools like Ahrefs’ Site Explorer or Moz’s Link Explorer to find link opportunities and analyze your competitors’ backlink profiles.

 

8. Missing internal link opportunities

Internal links are links from one page on your website to another page on your website. They help users navigate your website, establish a hierarchy of information, and distribute authority and ranking power among your pages.

However, many website owners overlook internal link opportunities or use them ineffectively. For example, some website owners may:

• Use generic or vague anchor text, such as “click here” or “read more”.
• Use too many or too few internal links on a page.
• Link to irrelevant or low-value pages.
• Use broken or outdated links that lead to 404 errors.

These mistakes can hurt your user experience, SEO performance, and conversion rates.

How to avoid this SEO mistake

Optimize your internal links by following these tips:

• Use descriptive and relevant anchor text that tells users what the linked page is about.
• Use keywords in your anchor text, but don’t overdo it or stuff them unnaturally.
• Link to pages that are relevant and valuable to your users and support your main topic or goal.
• Use a reasonable number of internal links on a page, depending on the length and complexity of the content. A good rule of thumb is to have at least 2-3 internal links per page. 
• Check your internal links regularly and fix any broken or outdated ones.

You can use tools like Ahrefs’ Site Audit to crawl your website and find internal link issues.

 

9. Not letting Google crawl and index your content

If you want your content to rank on Google, you need to make sure that Google can find, crawl, and index it. This means that you need to allow Googlebot, Google’s web crawler, to access your website and follow the links on your pages.

However, some website owners may accidentally or intentionally block Googlebot from crawling and indexing their content. For example, some website owners may:

• Use robots.txt files or meta tags to disallow the crawling or indexing of certain pages or directories.
• Use nofollow attributes on internal links to prevent passing authority or ranking power.
• Use JavaScript or other dynamic elements that prevent Googlebot from rendering the content properly.
• Use canonical tags incorrectly or inconsistently to indicate the preferred version of a page.

These mistakes can prevent your content from appearing in Google’s search results or cause ranking issues.

How to avoid this SEO mistake

Make sure that Google can crawl and index your content by following these steps:

• Use robots.txt files and meta tags correctly and selectively to control which pages you want Googlebot to crawl and index. You can use Google’s robots.txt Tester tool to check if your robots.txt file is blocking any important pages.
• Use nofollow attributes only on external links that you don’t trust or endorse, such as paid links or user-generated content. Don’t use them on internal links unless you have a good reason to do so.
• Use JavaScript and other dynamic elements sparingly and ensure that they don’t interfere with Googlebot’s ability to render the content. You can use Google’s URL Inspection tool to see how Googlebot sees your page.
• Use canonical tags correctly and consistently to tell Google which version of a page you want to rank, especially if you have duplicate or similar content. You can use Google’s URL Inspection tool to check if your canonical tags are working properly.

10. Not optimizing images for SEO

Images are an important part of any website, as they can enhance visual appeal, convey information, and increase engagement. However, many website owners neglect to optimize their images for SEO, which can result in missed opportunities and poor performance.

Some common image optimization mistakes are:

• Using large or uncompressed images that slow down the page loading speed.
• Using irrelevant or low-quality images that don’t match the content or purpose of the page.
• Using generic or duplicate file names that don’t describe the image or the page.
• Missing or poorly written alt text that doesn’t explain the image or the page to search engines and users.
• Missing or poorly written title text that doesn’t provide additional information or context about the image.
• Missing or poorly written captions that don’t complement the image or the page.

These mistakes can hurt your user experience, SEO performance, and conversion rates.

How to avoid this SEO mistake

Optimize your images for SEO by following these tips:

• Use appropriate image formats, such as JPEG for photos, PNG for graphics, and SVG for icons and logos.
• Compress your images to reduce their file size and improve their loading speed. You can use tools like TinyPNG or ImageOptim to compress your images without losing quality.
• Use relevant and high-quality images that match the content and purpose of the page. You can use tools like Unsplash or Pixabay to find free and royalty-free images for your website.
• Use descriptive and unique file names that include keywords and describe the image and the page. For example, instead of using “IMG_1234.jpg”, use “best-rice-cooker.jpg”.
• Use descriptive and unique alt text that explains the image and the page to search engines and users. Alt text is also important for accessibility, as it helps screen readers and visually impaired users understand the image. For example, instead of using a “rice cooker”, use an “electronic rice cooker”.
• Use descriptive and unique title text that provides additional information or context about the image. Title text is also important for usability, as it appears when users hover over the image. For example, instead of using “rice cooker”, use “This rice cooker is one of our best sellers”.
• Use descriptive and unique captions that complement the image and the page. Captions are also important for engagement, as they can capture users’ attention and encourage them to read more. For example, instead of using “rice cooker”, use “This rice cooker can help you cook delicious meals in minutes”.

We hope this blog post has helped you learn about the top 10 SEO mistakes and how to avoid them. If you have any questions or feedback, please leave a comment below or contact us!