8 Common Local SEO Mistakes to Avoid
Heading into 2015, having a website for your company is crucial, but that website also needs to be adjusted for SEO. Give your business a boost by avoiding these 8 common SEO mistakes.
#1: Lack of a Sitemap
Every website needs to have a sitemap. Your XML sitemap gives vital information to the search engine spiders, making it easier for them to navigate your pages. Implementing a sitemap requires very little work and can certainly help your website.
#2: Having Multiple URLs Lead to the Same Page
It is not uncommon for a site to have two or more URLs that go to the same exact page. For example, www.corn.com/home.html and www.corn.com both lead to the same page. This will result in a failed canonical check for your domain. When this happens, each inbound link to that page would split equity among the two URLs. This hurts your inbound links, and as a result, your SEO campaign suffers. Incorporate 301 redirects and review your canonical check.
#3: Pages Take Too Long to Load
People hate it when the internet is slow. If you have slow site speeds and your pages take too long to load, then you are likely losing out on a lot of your audience. There are several tools you can use to analyze your website’s speeds, such as Pingdom and Google PageSpeed Insights. Typically, these tools will provide you with a breakdown of what needs to be done to make your website faster for both desktop users and mobile device users.
#4: Lack of H1 Tags
H1 tags are the main header tags. They are the large text found on a page headlining a particular section. It is important to have your H1 tags optimized properly for search engines to be able to categorize your content. Creating unique H1 tags with keywords relative to the page’s content will enhance your SEO campaign.
#5: Lack of Alt Tags
As smart as search engines are these days, they still cannot decipher images. As a result, it is crucial to include alt tags to describe images on your site. Optimize these alt tags by including keywords or phrases. Don’t be afraid to get specific with these keyword rich descriptions.
#6: Poorly Optimized Title Tags
The title tag of each page needs to be optimized. This is what the searcher clicks on to go to a site when they are at the search results page. Title tags need to be relevant to the content on the accompanying page and should fall between 50 and 65 characters. Optimize your title tags with keywords for best SEO practices.
#7: Over-use of Keywords
Keyword stuffing is blackhat SEO tactic that just doesn’t fly anymore. For copywriters, it is sometimes difficult to find the right balance between too many and not enough keywords. Too many keywords, and you will come off as spammy. Not enough keywords, and search engines will have a difficult time ranking your content. Make sure your content has enough keywords without sounding like spam.
#8: Low Quality Inbound Links
Inbound links are extremely important for enhancing your site’s ranking. Obtaining inbound links from highly authoritative sources is sure to boost your rankings, but low quality link sources won’t do you any good. Look to gain inbound links from industry leaders and other authoritative websites, though this may be a challenge.
