In SEO, on a website, there are many best practices to follow. These practices mainly enhance user experience and improve page rankings. However, where there are best practices, there are also bad practices. Indeed, there are actions that should never be taken on your website for fear of being penalized by search engines.
In this article, we will present the points that should never be implemented on a website regarding SEO.
1. Neglect the Basics of SEO
In this section, we will discuss a non-exhaustive list of important SEO criteria to consider.
Poor Title & Bad Meta Description
The Title and Meta Description are essentially the heart of a webpage for SEO. In addition to the page content, they will dictate which queries the page will rank for. However, it is often observed that these two elements are optimized on very few websites.
As a reminder, the Title is the title that appears on search result pages (SERPs). It should contain approximately 60 characters and the main keywords of your page. Many pages have a Title that is either too short (less than 40 characters) or too long (more than 70 characters). Some do not even contain keywords or simply do not exist.
The same mistake is made with the Meta Description, which is the short text below the Title on a SERP. It should also include keywords and be approximately 160 characters long. It can be considered unoptimized if it lacks keywords, is too short (less than 130 characters), too long (more than 180 characters), or simply does not exist.
Poor Heading Structure
Another common SEO issue, but one that needs to be addressed quickly, pertains to headings. As a reminder, headings represent the titles of your page. Naturally, your page should only contain one main title (H1). For the rest (H2, H3, H4, etc.), they must follow a logical order. You should structure your page like a presentation:
Title (H1)
Subtitle 1 (H2)
- Section 1 (H3)
- Section 2 (H3)
Subtitle 2 (H2)
Subtitle 3 (H2)
It is essential that your pages are coherent.
Slow Loading Times
We've also discussed this before, but a slow page drives users away. A high bounce rate negatively impacts your SEO. A slow page penalizes user experience. The causes are numerous: oversized media files (images) that are uncompressed and unoptimized, excessively large code (not minified), too many animations, etc.
Therefore, it is crucial to improve your webpage loading speed.
2. Create Low-Quality Content
It is often said that content is king. This is true, but in certain cases. Indeed, content is king only when it is of high quality. Poor content does not convert or attract.
The problem with this statement is that, for SEO, there is a tendency to write excessive content while neglecting the added value it provides. One might also be tempted to disregard the needs of users, focusing solely on optimizing the content. However, one should not go without the other.
Your content must meet a need AND be optimized for organic search. Thus, the emphasis should be on users first, then on optimization.
To optimize your content without impacting its quality, you can utilize the semantic field of your query and identify questions and points to address that will set you apart.
3. Compete with Yourself: Cannibalization
Another poor SEO practice that happens too often is competing with your own content. It can occur when writing content, especially for a blog, focusing on a very specific theme. This theme may involve creating content to attract certain queries.
However, it is possible for two or more of your articles to rank for the same query. Typically, Google will favor the content it finds most relevant, often leading the other piece to disappear. Content that is too similar across your pages can end up cannibalizing itself.
To avoid this, you can combine similar content or use a canonical tag. This tag tells Google that this page is the best answer to the user’s search query on your website.
P.S.: Duplicate content is also a practice to definitively avoid.
4. Lack of URL Structure
The URLs of a website are a landmark for search engines, but also for users. Your URLs should be clear, short, and contain the main keywords of your page. Failing to have a SEO-friendly structure is detrimental.
Additionally, each page should have a clearly identifiable URL structure. You can create folders to maintain clarity. For example: https://www.digidop.fr/ → https://www.digidop.fr/blog → https://www.digidop.fr/blog/create-ecommerce-site-architecture-miro
URLs help search engines understand the hierarchy and overall structure of your website.
5. Not Redirecting a Page After Changing its URL
Over time, it may happen that a URL needs to be changed. This is a completely normal process. However, what one should not do is change the URL without implementing a redirection.
Search engines use URLs to access the pages on your website. When a user clicks on your website in Google search results, it is the URL that directs them to your page. If you change a URL without notifying Google, the old URL may remain in the results for some time.
This means that anyone who clicks on that page in the results will be redirected to a URL that no longer exists, resulting in visitors encountering the infamous 404 page. This is not good for your SEO.
To resolve this common issue, you need to implement a 301 redirection. Generally, Webflow offers this automatically, while on WordPress, you will likely need to install a plugin.
6. Neglect Web Accessibility
This point is vital for us at Digidop. Too many websites are not accessible to everyone. Issues with visibility, readability, etc., are detrimental to your pages. There are simple techniques to enhance your site's accessibility, such as adding “alt text” tags to images, for instance.
To learn more about digital accessibility, you can check out our article on making your website inclusive.
7. Focus Solely on Backlinks
It is often said that backlinks are the backbone of SEO. This was true at one time (when there was only the PageRank search algorithm), but today, they are just one of many ranking criteria. To rank well on Google, you should not only focus on acquiring backlinks but also on creating quality content.
Agencies or websites that focus solely on backlink acquisition waste a lot of time and money.
Now you are aware of the common errors to avoid for SEO. To identify all these errors, you can conduct a complete SEO audit of your website.
