Understanding and implementing effective on page SEO is essential to enhance your website’s visibility and performance on search engines. This means that your goal is to get your business ranking among the top results on Google search pages.
While many digital marketers focus on various aspects of SEO, avoiding common SEO mistakes is crucial to ensure sustainable success. So, what is the role of on page SEO? To ensure that more targeted traffic reaches your website.
This comprehensive guide will cover specific on page SEO mistakes and provide practical insights on how to avoid them.
Duplicate Content
One of the most common on page SEO mistakes is duplicate content. It refers to significantly similar or exactly the same content appearing on other websites, either within the same site or across different domains. It is worth remembering that Google’s crawlers cannot distinguish between the original and the duplicate content.
Search engines aim to deliver diverse and valuable results to users, so they penalize websites with duplicate content. This is why it’s wise to identify whether you have such content on your website and replace it with original and high-quality one.
How to Avoid Duplicate Content
- Regularly conduct content audits to identify and fix duplicate content.
- Use canonical tags to specify the preferred version of a page for search engines.
- Use specialized tools to identify and address duplicate content issues.
Missing Alt Tags and Broken Images
Search engines may be intelligent, but when it comes to images, they simply cannot see them. This is why they depend on alt tags to get information about what the image depicts. Alternative text provides descriptions for images, enhancing accessibility and helping search engines understand the visual content.
With 45% of websites missing alt tags and another 10% with broken images, it’s no wonder search engines rank sites lower. Broken images or missing alt tags can also result in a poor user experience, impact SEO negatively, and become an indicator of a poor-quality website.
How to Avoid Missing Alt Tags and Broken Images
- Always include descriptive alt text for images, incorporating relevant and targeted keywords when appropriate.
- Regularly check for broken images using tools like Screaming Frog or Google Search Console.
- Compress images for optimal page loading speed without compromising quality.
Title Tags
Title tags are crucial on page SEO elements, directly influencing click-through rates and search engine rankings. Search engines use them to determine what the websites are about and help users decide whether they want to visit your website. As one of the most essential SEO elements, issues like missing or poorly optimized title tags can slow down a website’s performance.
It is not rare that website owners want to hide content from certain agents. This is usually done when they want to prevent duplicate content issues or if they want to hide a customers-only page. However, if not done correctly, it can become a problem.
Ways to Prevent Title Tag Issues
- Create unique and compelling title tags for each page, keeping them within the recommended character limit.
- Include primary keywords towards the beginning of the title for better visibility.
- Review and update title tags regularly to align with content changes or the SEO strategy.
Meta Descriptions
We use title tags and meta description to summarize page content in search engine results concisely. This helps web users decide whether they wish to visit your website. Well-structured meta descriptions can significantly impact click-through rates and user engagement.
About a third of the websites have duplicate or no meta description, so paying attention and fixing them is important.
Avoiding Meta Description Difficulties
- Create unique and catchy meta descriptions for each page, highlighting key information.
- Keep meta description within the recommended character limit to ensure it displays correctly in search results.
- Include a call-to-action or relevant information to tempt users to click.
Poor Internal and External Link Structure
One of the most significant on page SEO problems is broken links. One or two broken links when updating your resources while growing your site may not be a problem, but a larger number may be.
Effective internal links enhance user navigation and establish the relevance of a page to search engines. So, it is understandable why poor link structures can lead to a less favorable SEO outcome. Users will see your website as a low-quality one while, at the same time, you’ll be wasting your crawling budget.
Ways to Improve a Poor Link Structure
- Ensure a logical and organized structure of internal links, allowing users to navigate seamlessly.
- Use descriptive anchor texts for both internal and external links to provide context.
- Regularly audit and update broken or outdated links.
Low Text to HTML Ratio
The text-to-HTML ratio measures the proportion of text content to HTML code on a page. A low ratio can negatively impact SEO, indicating excessive code and insufficient text. This means your website contains less text people can read and more back-end HTML.
This ratio is also a warning sign that your website is experiencing other ranking and on page SEO issues that should be addressed. It includes a slow site, hidden text, or poorly coded websites.
How to Enhance Text to HTML Ratio
- Reduce page size by removing unnecessary tags or spaces.
- Prioritize concise and informative content, ensuring a healthy text-to-HTML ratio.
- Optimize multimedia elements to reduce code bloat and improve loading times.
H1 Tag Issues
H1 tags, also known as header tags, represent the main heading of a page and contribute to the overall structure and hierarchy. They are considered a big and important part of SEO because they create a valuable hierarchy for web users and search engines. This is why missing or multiple H1 tags can confuse search engines and affect rankings.
How to Address H1 Tag Issues
- Include a single H1 tag per page, representing the main topic or focus.
- Use descriptive and targeted keywords within H1 tags for improved SEO.
- Ensure H1 tags align with the overall content of the page.
Low Word Count
Search engines generally favor comprehensive and informative content. It’s no wonder pages with low word counts may be perceived as lacking substance, affecting their visibility on SERPs.
Google does not condition the page’s minimum word count, but it does use free-of-fluff and in-depth topic content when ranking the page.
How to Increase Word Count Effectively
- Provide in-depth and valuable information relevant to the page’s topic.
- Aim for a word count that adequately covers the subject without unnecessary fluff.
- Incorporate multimedia elements to enhance content while maintaining relevance.
Neglecting LSI Keywords
SEO is more than just using the main targeted keywords. It’s about considering searching intent or, more specifically, different words that the searcher uses to find you. This is where LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) words come in.
LSI keywords are terms related to the main keyword, providing context and relevance to search engines. These words help search engines to understand your target audience and content. Google will better rank your site if you help solve searchers’ needs. LSI keywords will help you with this.
Integrating LSI Keywords on Your Page
- Conduct keyword research to identify relevant LSI keywords for your content.
- Avoid keyword stuffing by incorporating LSI keywords naturally throughout the content to enhance its semantic relevance.
- Use tools like LSIGraph to identify potential LSI keywords related to your primary focus.
Temporary Redirects
Redirects are usually used to inform search engines that a page has moved and no longer exists at the requested URL. This way, your page will not lose any authority. There are two types of redirects in terms of SEO: 301 and 302 redirects.
The 301 redirect is the so-called permanent redirect, which tells search engines that the page has been moved permanently, meaning a year or longer.
Temporary or 302 redirects are used for temporary situations and are usually used when updating or redesigning your website.
How to Manage Temporary Redirects
- Use 301 redirects for content that has permanently moved.
- Implement temporary redirects only for short-term changes, ensuring they are updated promptly.
- Regularly audit redirects to avoid unintended SEO consequences.
Slow Page Loading Speed
You surely know that fast-loading pages contribute to a positive user experience and are favored by search engines. On the other hand, slow-loading pages can result in higher bounce rates and lower search rankings.
Many statistics show that 16% of user satisfaction is reduced with every second delay. At the same time, one in four visitors leave sites that take longer than 4 seconds to load.
Improving Page Loading Speed
- Compress images and optimize multimedia elements.
- Use browser caching to reduce loading times for returning visitors.
- Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to identify and address speed-related issues.
Final Thoughts
Avoiding the most common on page SEO mistakes is essential for achieving sustained success. By addressing the above on page SEO issues, website owners can significantly enhance their SEO performance. Regular audits, strategic planning, and using the best on page SEO tools contribute to a strong and effective on page SEO strategy, ensuring that websites thrive in the competitive digital ecosystem.
Remember, on page SEO benefits extend beyond search engine rankings, positively impacting user experience, brand credibility, and overall online visibility. Stay informed, stay proactive, and watch your website climb the ranks and attract the right audience.
FAQs
Slow site speed is a common SEO mistake companies make. Clients expect fast loading speeds and are impatient, so a slow site speed will cost your company SEO traffic.
Yes, content is a key player in SEO and surely affects it. Always use high-quality content optimized for search engines and relevant to your target audience to improve your site’s visibility and rankings.
