Top 10 Common SEO Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Around 80% of users don’t click past the first five organic search results on Google. This means that the further down the page you are on Google, the less likely it is that someone will click through to your site. Let’s be honest: how often do people make it past the first page of search results, or even the first few results? Common SEO Mistakes that are often overlooked could be preventing you from reaching those top spots- luckily we are here to prevent that. 

Our team of experts have hand picked the top 10 most common mistakes in SEO with effective solutions on how to avoid them. Whether you’re a small business owner or part of a larger corporation, this blog will guide you in steering clear of pitfalls that could negatively impact your SEO efforts.

1. Keyword stuffing 

Keyword stuffing is the first in our list of common SEO Mistakes. It occurs when a webpage is crammed with too many keywords or phrases to try and trick Google into ranking it higher. This can make the content hard to read and gives users a poor experience. It’s a bit like if we tried to cram the keyword ‘Common SEO mistakes’ across this entire page to trick Google without thinking about how it would appear to the user. 

Solution

A really simple way to avoid keyword stuffing is to make sure they appear naturally throughout your content. If your target keyword feels forced, consider using some variations to improve the article’s flow and readability. Some other important places you should incorporate your keyword are- 

• Opening paragraph
• Alt tags
• Headers (H1, H2, H3 etc)
• Meta description

2. Ignoring Mobile Optimization

In today’s society people are constantly on the go, we live in a mobile first world and Google now prioritises mobile over desktop. Neglecting to optimise your website for mobile devices is an SEO mistake that should not be overlooked.

Solution

Make sure your website features a responsive design that adjusts to various screen sizes and orientations. Look at the layout of your site and how users interact with it. Is your site easy to navigate on desktop and on mobile? Consider simplifying the navigation and avoid intrusive pop-ups. Make sure that your pages don’t look too cluttered and overwhelming, with key information readily accessible. Users who have to scroll down their phone for a while to find what they need are likely to leave your page. Google actually scrapped their mobile friendly testing tool late last year, but sites like Semrush have tools that allow you to identify any mobile issues within your site audit. 

3. Under-Optimised Images 

Optimising images for SEO is essential for improving your search engine rankings. Tools like Screaming Frog and Google’s Pagespeed insights give you information on issues with your images. These issues can vary from large image files which slow down page speed, missing alt text which negatively impacts your accessibility and broken images which indicate low quality, outdated content.  All of these problems tell Google that your site provides a poor user experience, so addressing them is vital if you wish to maintain or improve your search rankings. 

Solution 

To address these issues, consider using tools like TinyPNG or Photoshop to compress images without losing quality, and opt for modern formats like WebP or AVIF for better efficiency. Make sure that each image has a clear, descriptive alt text that includes relevant keywords and make sure that all image URLs are correct and up to date. Conducting routine audits to address and fix image errors on your site will ensure your site performs well and offers a positive user experience.

4. Duplicate Content 

Creating similar or identical content targeting the same user intent is a common SEO mistake as it confuses search engines like Google. Their primary goal is to deliver the most relevant and unique content to users. When multiple URLs contain the same or very similar content, search engines struggle to determine which version is the original or most authoritative. This confusion can lead to indexing issues and poor rankings. 

Solution

To address duplicate content issues, use canonical tags to specify the preferred version of a page when similar content appears on multiple pages, preventing Google from selecting an unintended version to display in search results. Implementing 301 redirects can also help by permanently directing duplicate content URLs to the preferred version. 

You should also avoid content scraping. This is when you copy material from one website and republish it onto yours without permission or giving credit to the original author. For example, we took inspiration from Page One Power and Cloudflare when researching further into scraped content and its potential impact on search rankings. 

5. Slow Page Speed 

One of the most common SEO mistakes we find (that many people ignore) is slow page speed. When a page loads slowly, users are more likely to abandon it and look elsewhere. These increased bounce rates and lower engagement metrics highlight to Google that your pages are poor in quality and fail to meet the needs of users. 

Solution 

To check your page speed you can use Google’s page speed insights which gives you an overview of your website’s performance and where improvements need to be made. Some of these improvements may include image optimisation, enabling browser caching, and minifying CSS, JavaScript, and HTML. 

Browser caching stores resources on a user’s device, allowing their browser to load these files from the cache on subsequent visits instead of downloading them again. This reduces server requests and speeds up page loading. Minifying on the other hand, involves removing unnecessary characters from your website’s code—such as spaces, comments, and line breaks—without affecting functionality. This process reduces file sizes, making pages faster to transfer from the server to the user’s browser. 

6. Neglecting Keyword Research

To rank well on Google you need to make sure that you are optimising your content for the right keywords. Often, site owners neglect keyword research and write content without keywords in mind, harming their SEO efforts. By targeting specific keywords that align with what users are searching for, you increase the likelihood of your content being matched with relevant search queries. This alignment improves your site’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs), driving more targeted traffic to your site. Another common SEO mistake is not targeting the right keywords for your content. For instance, if you’re a local estate agent aiming to rank for the keyword ‘estate agents,’ you might be competing against large, established firms nationwide and will most likely struggle to rank. 

Solution

Targeting more specific, localised keywords relevant to your area can increase your chances of ranking higher and reaching the right audience. For instance, adding geographic modifiers like city or town names can help attract users who are looking for services in a specific location. Targeting long-tail keywords or phrases, especially in competitive niches, can also help achieve results as these keywords are more specific and less competitive. By refining your keyword strategy to include both localised and long-tail keywords, you can improve your visibility and attract a more engaged audience.

7. Low quality content

Search engines are constantly on the lookout for the best content to deliver to its users. The Helpful Content Update, released by Google in August 2022 was rolled out with one goal in mind. The goal of the update was to improve the quality of organic search results by prioritising user-focused content and penalising material that lacks originality. This includes content that might be generated by AI or otherwise fails to offer genuine value to users. We all know an AI piece of content when we see one… which is obviously why we changed the beginning of this article from ‘in the realm of’. Out of all the common SEO mistakes in our list, this is probably the one that will frustrate people the most, as we all know how easy it is to get AI to write our content for us. 

Solution 

The basic, and most straightforward answer here is to just write high quality, original content but we thought we’d provide a little more detail on what we mean. 

Before you start writing, think about who you’re writing for and what you’re trying to achieve. Understand your audience’s needs, preferences, and pain points by creating a detailed persona. Tailor your content to address their interests and challenges, and define a clear objective—whether to inform, entertain, persuade, or educate—to guide your writing and achieve your goals.

Always make sure that the information you provide is factually correct. Before writing, conduct research and dive into various resources to collect information. By providing relevant and accurate information you are building trust with your audience and establishing yourself as a knowledgeable authority in your field. 

To make your content truly stand out, why not offer unique insights on a topic to set yourself apart from the competition. Instead of rehashing widely available information, dig deeper into your niche and uncover aspects that aren’t commonly discussed. Consider also adding visuals to your content to make it more engaging and easier to digest. 

8. Unoptimised Metadata 

Metadata is information embedded in a web page’s HTML that provides details about the page’s content. By not optimising elements such as meta titles, and meta descriptions you are missing out on an opportunity to improve your rankings. A meta title specifies the title of a web page in search results and a meta description is the snippet of information that appears below the meta title in search results and impacts click through rates. 

Solution 

According to Moz the ideal length for a meta description is between 50 and 160 characters. They have also recommended that the best format for writing a meta title is: Primary Keyword | Secondary Keyword | Brand Name. Google also has some guidelines on best practices for creating quality meta descriptions, which emphasises the importance of creating unique descriptions for each page. These should include relevant information and target keywords to increase their effectiveness.

9. Ignoring User Experience

Don’t underestimate the power of good user experience on your website. This common SEO mistake often goes unnoticed because people assume that if their audits come back clean, everything is fine. A poor user experience can hurt your rankings by causing high bounce rates, less conversions and frustrated users may even leave negative reviews. A good website should keep users engaged by offering easy navigation, fast loading times, and a clean, user-friendly design. 

Solution 

For a user friendly website, start by designing a clean and streamlined navigation system that allows users to quickly find the information they need. The navigation menu should be responsive, seamlessly adapting to various devices such as desktops, tablets, and smartphones. To keep users engaged on your site, it is also important to implement a well thought out internal linking strategy. Internal linking not only helps users discover relevant content but also aids search engines in indexing your site, providing an added SEO benefit. Once users are navigating your site, a compelling Call to Action (CTA) will guide them towards taking the desired action, whether it’s signing up for a newsletter, submitting a contact form, or making a purchase.

10. Crawlability Issues 

Our tenth and final common SEO mistake we often stumble across is related to website crawlability issues. Many assume that their website is automatically being crawled and indexed by Google, but there may be underlying issues that need attention. If Google bots can’t crawl your pages, they won’t be indexed and they won’t show up in search results. There are many reasons why pages may not getting crawled by Google, including: 

• Misconfigured robots.txt files
• No-index tags
• Broken links
• Duplicate content 
• Server errors 
• Redirect loops 

Solution

To fix crawlability issues and confirm that your website is being properly crawled and indexed by search engines, you should start by checking your robots.txt file. Check that it isn’t blocking any important pages through no-index tags. It is also important to complete regular site audits using SEO tools such as Screaming Frog and Semrush to scan and fix for any errors that may be harming your crawlability. By addressing duplicate content issues, enhancing your site structure, and removing low-quality content, you can optimise your crawl budget. This ensures that search engines focus on crawling and indexing your most important pages effectively Finally, maintaining an accurate and up-to-date sitemap helps search engines efficiently discover and index your content.

We hope you have found this blog helpful, and it has given you the tools you need to avoid some of the most common SEO mistakes. From keyword stuffing and ignoring mobile optimisation to fixing duplicate content and slow page speeds, each can impact the performance of your website. SEO is continually evolving and it often feels like we’ve just about adjusted to one algorithm update before another one is introduced. We must constantly adapt and stay up to date with new opportunities and challenges to improve SEO and performance. 

Ready to take your SEO to the next level? If you’re serious about boosting your website’s visibility, our team of SEO experts are here to help. 

Contact us today to learn more about our comprehensive SEO services and how we can tailor a strategy to meet your specific needs.