The top SEO mistakes most site owners make
Let’s face it; everyone makes mistakes. The problem with an SEO mistake is, it can cost you hundreds, if not thousands, of visitors every month. More importantly, you can lose out on a ton of customers if you make any of these mistakes. Here are the top five SEO mistakes that can cause your site not to rank as high as you’d like.
1. Slow web hosting
No matter how much care you take in your on-page optimization, having a website hosted on a slow web host can cause your site to load very slowly. Even if your page loads in a matter of seconds, that can be too long for someone who’s in a hurry. These impatient users will click off your page and move on to a competitor as they expect the same results from any site.
2. Not using catchy titles that result in clicks
If you’re still using bland titles such as “About Us,” “Portfolio,” and “Services” as your title tags, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity. Use titles that are newsworthy, catchy, or even funny. You’ll get more clicks and more people reading your posts.
3. Not using a sitemap
Especially if you’re new in the SEO game, you should make sure that a sitemap is submitted to all the big search engines. The sitemap lets them know about the pages on your site, which helps them index your website faster and with better accuracy.
4. Not using alt tags for images
The Google Image Search has been getting better and better over the years. Now, when someone goes to the image search, they’ll see your images and your page title. If you have a great image, you always want that title to appear when people view it. To accomplish this, use alt tags, which are attributes that are hidden from visitors but used by search engines.
5. Poorly-written content
One of the most frustrating things that can happen to a site owner is to have an optimized page with a great title and description and then have it stick at a two or three ranking. Don’t settle for anything other than the top spot. Chances are pretty good that you have content that isn’t even on the first page if you’re a new site owner, and any bump in the rankings will significantly improve your revenue.
When in doubt, seek a second opinion
If you’ve done everything you can and your site still isn’t ranking the way it should go, get a second opinion. Find someone on social media who will look at your site for free or pay a professional to tell you how to improve. Sometimes to improve your site, you need to get more info.
Always remember that search engine optimization doesn’t happen over night
It takes time for Google to rank pages. We’re talking months and not weeks. There is almost nothing you can do today that will impact your site tomorrow. The only thing that may have an immediate impact is if you upgrade your hosting to a provider that’s lightning fast. If there were one sure-fire SEO hack that can work right away, it would be making sure that you’re using the best hosting you can afford.
