The Biggest SEO Mistakes Businesses Make (And How to Avoid Them)

How to fix it:

Ensure your images are optimised by compressing them without losing quality. WebP is a good choice where you can create a low file size, while still maintaining the same high quality. The lower file size will help speed up your site. 

Add alt text, which describes your image in plain text with keywords carefully incorporated, helping search engines understand the context of your image.

Meta Descriptions

It's not uncommon for businesses to upload great content and high quality images, but they don't make use of meta descriptions. Meta descriptions provides an opportunity to resonate with your audience, encouraging them to click on the link to your website.

How to fix it:

Add meta titles and meta descriptions to each page – they must be concise, eye catching, and encourage clicks

Adding All Services to One Web Page

While you may think it practical to add all the serves you provide to one web page, it can be a SEO killer. It's important to remember Google ranks web pages based on specific search terms. If your website is targeting SEO, web design, social media, content creation, and online reputation management, for example, do not add them to each page, create a unique page for each service, helping search engines crawl, index, and rank your pages accurately.

How to fix it:

• Create a dedicated web page for each service with clear H1 tags, meta descriptions, and relevant keywords.
• Add internal links to link your services pages together.
• The more web pages you have, the more chances you have to be visible in front of your audience

Ignoring Research and Analysis

SEO strategies all rely on comprehensive research and analysis. You can't add content you assume your audience is looking for. Guesswork does not guarantee success. 

How to fix it:

• Identify what your audience is searching for 
• Identify keywords your competitors are ranking for
• Identify gaps in your industry

Only Focus on On-Page SEO

Yes, on-page SEO is essential to your online success, but there is so much more to a good SEO strategy. Off-page SEO plays a big role in your visibility. Off-page SEO includes acquiring backlinks that boost authority, relevance, value, and trust.

How to fix it:

• Guest blogging
• Create online publications
• Create valuable and useful content that other sites will want to link to, such as case studies, and guides

Conclusion

If you have read through this blog and ticked a number of SEO biggest mistakes, then don't worry, you are not alone. Many businesses are making at least one or more of these SEO mistakes. The great news is that it can be fixed, but it is a long-term and complex process. If you need help with your SEO strategy, get in touch with the talented SEO team at Genie Crawl today.