9 Website Content Mistakes That Could be Harming Your SEO

Your website content plays a significant role in determining where your website ranks on search engines.

If your site has great content, it leads to high rankings, more clicks and more conversions.

On the other hand, poor-quality website content will cause you to fall behind your competitors.

Even with the best intentions, website content mistakes can add up to big problems. You may think you’ve done your best to optimise your content for SEO, but errors can quietly sabotage your rankings, even without you knowing it.

So how can content be fixed so that websites perform better in search engines and with conversions?

This blog explores 9 common SEO content mistakes people make and how to fix them. For personalised SEO strategies for your business, contact our team at SGD today.

Why Avoiding SEO Mistakes is Crucial

User expectations, search engines, and the internet in general continue to evolve – seemingly by the minute.

Where long pages with keywords in headings previously equalled quality content, today these factors are only the tip of the SEO iceberg.

Search engines are now smarter than ever before, and can prioritise the user experience just as much as the user themselves does.

This means that simple errors like overusing keywords and overlooking mobile optimisation can hurt your website’s rankings and even lead to potential penalties, pushing your site down even further in the search results.

SEO mistakes in your content don’t just hurt your rankings but can also impact your credibility. Sites with poor content tend to have higher bounce rates, lower engagement, and missed opportunities to convert visitors into customers.

When you want to attract and convert more of your ideal audience through your website, take stock of your website content and ensure you aren’t making these common mistakes.

Mistake #1. Keyword Stuffing

It might be tempting to load your content up with keywords. After all, keywords are what get your website noticed.

It may sound like it makes sense, but overusing your keywords – or ‘keyword stuffing’ – is one of the biggest mistakes you can make when it comes to your SEO.

Keyword stuffing makes your content feel clunky and unnatural, turning off readers and raising red flags with search engines.

Instead, focus on using your keywords organically, in a way that flows and reads naturally.

However, if you need to use a specific keyword a couple more times to meet your goal and there’s nowhere else to put it, you can leave it be.

Website visitors and search engines prefer valuable, reader-friendly content over 100% optimised content, so use your best judgment.

Mistake #2. Publishing Thin or Low-Quality Content

Search engines prefer quality over quantity, much like many people do.

It’s all about striking a balance – you don’t want novel-length content that eyes will skim past, but you also don’t want it to be threadbare.

If you’re putting out thin or low-quality content just for the purpose of filling out your blog, it’s time to reconsider your strategy.

Thin entries might be easier to create in high quantities but, if they’re not useful, search engines will notice and not rank your site.

Ensure you’re publishing high-quality content that offers value to your target audience, as this shows search engines that you’re focused on meeting their needs.

Post in-depth, helpful content that addresses your target audience’s pain points and provides real value.

This content publishing strategy puts your business in an ideal position to earn the attention of search engines and attract those you want to do business with.

Mistake #3. Failing to Use Proper Headings

Headings do more than just structure the content on a page to make it easier to read.

Using H1s, H2s, H3s and so on helps search engines understand your content’s hierarchy, showing which parts are most important and how different sections relate to each other.

Think of them like a book: the H1 is the title, the H2s are the chapters and the H3s are the sections within those chapters.

Search engines then read the structure of your page like the contents of a book, and gain a full understanding of what it’s about so it can rank your content accurately.

Not using headings properly, or even skipping them altogether, puts you at an immediate disadvantage and limits your SEO performance.

Improperly used headings confuse search engines, making it harder for them to rank your content.

To avoid this create clear heading structures (H1 for the title, H2s for main sections, and so on) to improve readability and SEO.

Mistake #4. Not Optimising Images With Alt-Text

Images are a great way to break up sections of text, keep readers engaged and provide relevant context for your content

However, using any image and placing it anywhere on your site, won’t have the best results.

Images, as well as videos and other media, need to be optimised for SEO too.

Failing to include descriptive text, also known as alt-text, for your images means missing out on a valuable SEO opportunity.

Search engines can’t ‘see’ images, but they can ‘read’ them with alt-text, so they rely on this to understand what the image shows.

As well as improving your chances of appearing in search results, alt-text is also important for accessibility, such as with people who use E-readers.

The easiest way to create valuable alt-text is to create a simple and concise description of what’s in the image and include a relevant keyword.

For example, if your content is about cyber security consulting and you have a picture of someone on your team talking to a client, you might use alt-text such as, ‘cyber security consultant talking with a business owner on a laptop’.

By incorporating alt-text, you’re doing a favour for yourself and your SEO, and opening your website up to more potential customers.

Mistake #5. Neglecting Internal Linking

Internal links are links on your website that lead to its other pages.

These links serve multiple purposes: they help guide visitors to relevant content, show search engines how your pages are connected, and help them understand how your content should be prioritised

Typically, pages with more internal links are prioritised higher and are seen as more important than pages with less internal links.

If you’re not taking advantage of internal linking, you’re missing out on a valuable SEO opportunity.

Make sure to link to relevant pages in your content wherever relevant, and search engines and visitors alike will take notice.

Mistake #6. Using Duplicate Content

It might be tempting to copy and paste what you’ve used before, but this can do more harm than good.

Duplicate content can confuse search engines and even lead to penalties, especially if you’re copying content across many pages.

Even if it involves more effort, it’s always better to aim for unique content that provides unique value.

If you need to use similar content for more than one page, consider canonical tags (tags that tell search engines which version of a page is the primary one) or redirects (which automatically send website visitors from one URL to another) to avoid SEO penalties.

Mistake #7. Focusing Only on Search Engines, Not User Experience

Don’t forget your number one goal for your website: to attract and convert visitors who want to do business with you.

It can be easy to get caught up in writing content purely for search engines, where there are specific goals to meet and scores to beat.

However, neglecting your target audience’s experience on your site will only hurt you in the long run.

If your content is too hard to read, too long-winded, overly complex, or irrelevant, visitors won’t stay.

While it’s important to consider search engines, always prioritise the user experience first, as engaged users lead to better SEO performance.

Mistake #8. Overlooking Meta Descriptions and Title Tags

Meta titles are the words that appear in the tab in your web browser and also on the Google search results. Meta descriptions are the words that appear below the title in the search results.

Meta descriptions and title tags may seem like a small detail, but they are a powerful and often overlooked aspect of SEO – which means an opportunity for you to get an edge over your competitors who aren’t doing this.

These are your audience’s first insights into your website and your business as a whole, so neglecting them can mean lost traffic.

Take the time to optimise them with compelling wording and accurate meta information, and reap the benefits of their SEO and user appeal.

Relevance and specificity are the two most important factors to consider when optimising your title tags and meta descriptions.

Mistake #9. Failing to Proofread AI-Written Content

AI can be a great tool for assisting with the content creation process, but that’s all it should be – an assistant.

It’s not perfect, it gets things wrong. It makes up facts, and when you’ve read enough of it, AI-generated content looks the same.

Using AI to help structure, draft or proofread your content is a useful approach. A personalised touch goes a long way, and people (and even search engines) appreciate it.

If you use AI content for your website, make sure you proofread it for relevance and accuracy.

Not doing so means you could publish irrelevant content, grammatical errors, awkward phrasing, or even incorrect information that could damage your reputation.

Even if forgoing proofreading saves you time, it could harm your SEO, your credibility, and possibly even your business. Always review AI content to ensure it fits your needs and meets the quality standards you adhere to when you write your content yourself.

Looking for Serious SEO Success?

SEO success can be a lot more intricate than it appears. Thankfully, there are many ways to optimise your content for success. It all starts with avoiding the common mistakes, and then you can sit back and watch your site climb the rankings.

Need some help in taking your SEO to the next level? Get started with SGD today.

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