5 of the Most Common SEO Mistakes (And How to Fix Them)

Sometimes, SEO is like exercise.

You can build a plan, dedicate yourself to sticking to it, and be very busy... yet see little to no results.

Just like losing weight or building muscle, SEO (search engine optimization) isn't about doing as many exercises as you possibly can, but doing the right exercises.

I have worked with many clients who understand the importance of content marketing and committed themselves to publishing content regularly, yet see no results from it.

There are often many reasons for this, but one of the most common is that they aren't following some basic SEO best-practices when it comes to their website health.

It's not impossible to drive organic traffic if your website has issues like duplicate content, broken links, and slow load speed... but it's MUCH harder in those cases. All things being equal, if a search engine has to choose between prioritizing content from a healthy website and one with a myriad of technical issues, it's going to choose the healthy one.

Here's a list of 5 of the most common SEO mistakes I've seen and how you can fix them—or avoid them altogether.

1. Duplicate Content, Title Tags, and Meta Descriptions

I can't tell you how many SEO Audits I've conducted in which my client had issues with duplicate content. Almost all of them, in fact.

Why does this issue come up so often?

There are multiple reasons for this, but the primary one is when people "clone" or "duplicate" a page. Anyone that publishes content or works with a CMS knows exactly what I'm talking about.

Cloning a page is an easy and efficient way to give yourself a page that's already configured the way you need it to be—it just needs the content to be update to whatever your new topic is going to be.

The problem comes when people forget to update all of the metadata for the page. This happens ALL THE TIME when people are working to quickly publish content and don't slow down to make sure everything is set up correctly.

For example, if I was going to clone this blog post, HubSpot would automatically set the page up like this (WordPress, SquareSpace, Wix, and other common CMS platforms follow similar practices):

Note the two areas I highlighted in red:

1. The blog title starting with "Copy of" 
2. The "-1" at the end of the URL

These are two classic telltale signs that this blog probably has duplicate title tags and meta descriptions as the original post from which it was cloned.

To avoid this, make sure that you're thoroughly checking all of content and metadata for duplicates and that you've updated the page title, meta description, featured image, URL, etc. if you've cloned the page.

2. Not Using Keywords in <H2> and <H3> Sub-headers

Earlier in my career, I learned a rule about writing headers for an article or webpage. Basically, it emphasizes of the importance of the headers telling the story of what's on the page. The reader should be able to skim the headers and have an idea not only of what the topic is, but what's being said about that topic.

For example, here are two examples of how an article about learning how to ride a bike might be broken into sections:

Reading through these, it's very apparent to the reader what the article is about and what will be covered within.

This applies to SEO-writing more than ever.

<H2> and <H3> headers should be descriptive, helpful, and using keywords wherever possible. Too often, I see vague headers that don't tell a story and miss important opportunities to utilize a great search term that has a change of helping the page rank.

Re-writing your headers is a powerful way of writing in a more descriptive style, targeting more keywords with your content, and showcase to search engines that you're creating valuable content that helps it's readers solve a problem.

All that said, don't inject keywords solely for the sake of plugging them in wherever possible. Algorithms can see right through that type of content creation and you risk confusing both readers and search engines if you add extra words unnecessarily.

As the saying goes, "Choose clarity over cleverness!"

3. Missing Alt Tags

Like with the duplicate content issues we outlined in first section, missing alt tags almost always seems to be a function of busy marketers not taking the time to thoroughly make sure that every SEO "box" has been checked before publishing. 

So, what are alt tags, also known as "alt texts" and "alt descriptions"?

Here's HubSpot's definition:

Also called alt tags and alt descriptions, alt text is the written copy that appears in place of an image on a webpage if the image fails to load on a user's screen. This text helps screen-reading tools describe images to visually impaired readers and allows search engines to better crawl and rank your website. Source

Search engines can't see what's in an image (will that change with AI?) so they rely on alt tags to understand what the image is and its relevance to the user. 

Being descriptive with alt tags helps increase your ranking ability, both for image itself and the page overall. It's also essential for accessibility for people with visual impairments, low vision, different learning abilities, and for people who cannot otherwise view an image online.

Whichever CMS you're using, alt tags are easy to update and are worth taking the time to update.

4. No Creating Evergreen URLs

One of the SEO practices that has become more and more important as the algorithms get more sophisticated is to continually optimize and re-publish your content. However, one of these common missteps I see from content marketers is not creating URLs that allow them to do this well.

For example, the title of this blog post is 5 of the Most Common SEO Mistakes (And How to Fix Them). If I come back to this post in a year to make some optimizations, I may decide that I want to add two more mistakes. 

So, instead of making the URL ending with something super-specific like /the-5-most-common-seo-mistakes-and-how-to-fix-them, I have published the URL without the number. That allows me the flexibility to change the number of mistakes — or even the nature of the blog as a whole — without having to make any URL changes or set up redirects.

Here's another example: I once had a client who was a financial advisor. He was spending a ton of his time writing blog content talking about the different changes in the financial market, global economics, and politics that were happening each week.

What's the problem with that?

Simply put, his content had a very short shelf life. If it's September, how helpful is a blog post about what the Dow did in July? 

The balance we must strike as content marketers is to write content that's relevant, useful, and timely, but also has the long-term relevance to support your SEO goals and drive organic traffic over time.

5. Not Un-Publishing Old Pages

One of the steps of helping a client through an SEO audit is to show them a list of the indexed pages on their website. This helps us identify any crawlability issues and make sure we have a clear grasp on which pages are visible to search engines.

I can't even tell you how many times I've seen clients be mortified at how many old, defunct (dare I say, ugly?) pages are still being indexed by search engines.

They think because they take one of their pages off their navigation and replace it with a new one, that the old page just "disappears." But of course, it doesn't — until you actually un-publish the page.

This is a really simple one to fix, and infinitely worthwhile. If you haven't done so in a while, use a tool like SEMRush or ahrefs and run an audit on your website.

SEO is Changing... How Should You Change With It?

"The search engine algorithms are always changing and it feels impossible to keep up!"

"Every month that I don't prioritize SEO, I feel like you're falling behind!"

Do these sound like you?

You're not alone. Many business owners and even savvy marketing leaders feel overwhelmed with SEO and don't know where to start. That's why it's important to work with knowledgable SEO experts who can transform these complex topics into a simple, easy-to-understand content plan for your website.