Search engine optimization is not only about promotion. It is also about monitoring the results of all your actions. That’s why SEO audit is a routine task for many webmasters. This procedure allows you to find on-page SEO mistakes and solve them. For example, just a few technical SEO problems can lead to your site not being promoted in the rankings. And this is not the only mistake you can make so below you will learn about the most common technical SEO issues that can be real pitfalls and how to fix them.
Top 5 Technical SEO Mistakes to Avoid
In pursuit of the top place in the ranking, webmasters and site owners make a lot of efforts to promote the site. For example, they implement strategies for getting on and off-page backlinks, creating high-quality content, using the platform for guest posts and so on. However, just a few errors in the technical part of SEO can make all the above tactics ineffective.
Some technical SEO can cause a lot of problems that will negatively affect the enterprise or business. Since SEO is tricky and difficult, to get the result you need to make sure that everything is fine from the technical aspect. It is not enough to use plugins that help to make some SEO processes easy. There is a need to find all mistakes and fix them. By the way, you can learn more about plugins, and we, in the meanwhile, will go back to technical SEO and learn about the most common mistakes that you need to get rid of and avoid.
Lack of HTTPS Protocol
It is important to understand that HTTPS is a more secure alternative to HTTP. It provides encryption and security of user data. Some browsers may block following a link that is based on the HTTP protocol and displays a corresponding warning to the user.
Also, search engines also take into account the security of the connection when ranking the site. Therefore, this is the pain point that needs to be corrected. To solve the problem, you have to purchase the appropriate certificate and set up an automatic redirection from the HTTP version. After switching to the new protocol, it is also necessary to audit the site to make sure that everything is working correctly. It is necessary to replace all irrelevant URLs with internal links that contain HTTP.
Duplicate Content
The uniqueness of the content is an important factor that affects the ranking. It is obvious that copying text from other sources and even duplicating content within your site is unacceptable for proper promotion. This problem is especially relevant for e-commerce sites where there are many products with the same description. Duplicate content is something that is vital to fix without any doubt.
To solve this problem in a flash, set up a www-redirect and audit your site. Index pages with rel=” canonical” tag for non-canonical pages.
Slow Website Loading Speed
The speed of displaying pages is an important criterion both in the context of the convenience of the site and ranking. When content takes too long to load, the user may simply leave the site. The recommended download speed is 2.5 seconds. The same speed can be considered the maximum in modern realities.
Common factors that affect download speed include:
- the large images;
- uncompressed text content;
- the large weight of HTML code and files.
To fix this mistake, get started by analyzing the weight of your pages. It is recommended that it does not exceed 2 MB. Pay attention to site images and their optimization. Use Content-Encoding to make content load faster.
Absence of alt Text for Images
The <img> tag is responsible for the visual content in the HTML code. In addition to the link to the file, the tag can have alternative text describing the image and keywords. In the case when this tag is empty, it is difficult for search algorithms to determine the theme of the photo. All this affects the ranking of the site, so it is worth correcting the situation.
Create alt text for images on your site. Complete the alt attribute with a few words. However, you should not overload this attribute excessively with words. Two words will be enough.
No Mobile Version
When the site is not optimized for smartphone screens, the users will face many unpleasant moments in the performance and display of the website. Naturally, this will negatively affect both user experience and website ranking. This is a pain point when it comes to user experience and ranking.
If it is not possible to create a mobile version of the site, then responsive web design can be considered as an alternative. In this case, the size of all elements of the site will depend on the screen of a particular user, which will effectively solve the problem.
Wrapping Up
Technical errors negatively affect the perception of the site in the context of user experience and ranking. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct a timely audit of the site in order to identify all errors and eliminate them in time. Use these tips for your technical SEO optimization, and then, move to the creative part – creating top-notch content that will drive value to the users and organically promote your website in SERP.
