Have you ever felt like you are putting your best work out there, but the SEO results you are expecting to generate just don’t come through? Relax! It doesn’t matter how many years you have been around the digital marketing space and the broad spectrum of search engine optimization; you can make a mistake even though you are an SEO expert Kochi. By being in 2024, here are some very common SEO mistakes to avoid in 2024 and thus save yourself countless hours, energy, and monetary waste. It is far from just adding keywords and looking for the best; it is an overarching strategy that encompasses not only the user experience, and technical optimization but also being up-to-date with upgrades from Google.
So, what are the most common SEO mistakes that may be holding your website back? Let’s go ahead and explore the top 10 SEO mistakes to avoid this year to make your website a standout presence and ranking better. Are you ready to take it up a notch with SEO?
1. Ignorance of Search Intent
Understand the intent of users. The people who own websites often target high-volume words without aligning any content to the intent of the user. Imagine you searching for “best running shoes 2024.” You may require recommendations and not the history of running shoes. If your content does not match the intent of the search, you will witness high bounce rates and low conversions.
Search engines are so cleverly intuitive in their understanding of intent in 2024. They deploy their ever-so-complex algorithms to decipher the real truth about precisely what users are looking for. It means you’re producing content that speaks to the questions, pain points, and needs of your target audience. To be on top, therefore, do not forget to wear your audience’s shoes as you create your content strategy.
- Be able to analyze users’ behavior by leveraging tools such as Google Search Console. Knowing which queries to expect and how they occur can help align your content with the audience’s needs.
2. Keyword Stuffing
If you ever thought that stuffing keywords would get you a rank as high as that, then you are still living decades back. Keyword stuffing is actually pretty outdated and can get you penalized. The best strategy in 2024 is to use semantic keywords and concentrate on quality content.
Instead of pushing “best SEO tools” into each other’s sentence, use some of the natural variants, such as “top SEO software” or “search engine optimization tools.” And Google AI algorithms care much more about the context rather than the occurrence of a certain keyword word.
3. Lack of Technical SEO
Most businesses are only concerned with their content and backlinks, while a bad technical base makes the car without wheels. So, missing meta tags, broken links, low page speed, or a very poorly optimized mobile site will severely damage your ranking.
Most particularly, landing on a post beautifully written but never finished loading is simply painful. That’s why page speed optimization and fixing 404 errors should be a part of your priorities. But how do you catch the issues early? Run technical SEO audits regularly, using Ahrefs or SEMrush to pick out these issues.
4. Not Optimized for Mobile
You may probably know that over 60% of searches are done with mobile devices. However, most sites are very far from being mobile-friendly. Today, Google indexes content on a mobile-first indexing basis where the ranking and indexing of your website rely mainly on the mobile version.
If your site doesn’t load fast on mobile or has a confusing structure, you are missing a large chunk of traffic. Ensure that the experience is seamless for users on both desktop and mobile to keep up.
5. Using Duplicate Content
One big no in the world of SEO is duplicate content. When searches find similar content spread across multiple URLs, they really don’t know which version to rank, and their best bet is to drop their ranking. So, make sure you write unique and valuable content and use canonical tags where necessary.
When you have a similar post to one you already published, update the old one. Instead of duplicating a highly similar post to an older one, you can update the older one. Updating old content is less cumbersome than writing a new one, besides proving to Google that your site is indeed active and up-to-date.
- Use tools such as Copyscape to find if there is anything that resembles duplicate content on your website and correct it immediately.
6. Evading Content Updates
It is great publishing new content, but what about the articles you wrote two years ago? Outdated content drags down your website because it no longer fits with the prevailing trends, or somebody else published newer, better resources.
Update old content with new data, pictures, and internal links to give an old piece a fresh kick in the pants to help enhance your overall site authority. Think about it: it’s much easier to polish and improve an existing asset than create an entirely new one from scratch.
Tip: Add a “Last Updated” date to your posts to indicate to users and Google that your content is current and credible.
7. Ignoring Local SEO
You should never ignore local SEO if you are targeting customers locally. If you ignore local SEO keywords, not to mention neglecting your Google My Business presence and inconsistent NAP information, it can really hurt your business by not reaching your targeted audience and failing to get expected profit.
Do not forget to check on your Google My Business listing, reviews, and include local-specific keywords in your website. The strategy is particularly useful for companies offering SEO services in Kochi since the competition is stringent and local visibility is very much important in the targeted region.
A tip: Make sure that your NAP data is uniform wherever you have been listed so that you can enhance local SEO ranking.
