SEO can help you to position your content on the InternetThis will make your page appear in the first results of the Google results page, improving the visibility of the brand and, therefore, obtaining new customers who will find the page when they are looking for a solution to one of their problems.
However, it is very important to understand well how SEO works, since a bad strategy can also cause a loss of positions in the search engine or even the disappearance of the same, if Google believes that bad practices are being performed or detects any practice of Black Hat SEO.
Main SEO mistakes
To help those users who want to avoid losing positions in Google, these are the top 3 SEO mistakes that are made and that make pages lose positions:
Bad keyword research
Although changes in Google’s algorithm have been downplaying the importance of keywords, they are still a relevant positioning factor.
The study of keywords is a vital part of any SEO strategy, since this study will build the web page, its contents and will also be responsible for directing the public to the page. If the chosen words are not the right ones, the page may not be positioned or may attract the wrong audience.
A good keyword study is not limited to choosing the keywords with the highest traffic volume. It is necessary to understand how they work and which is the most appropriate at each stage of the user’s purchasing decision process. Generic keywords can be used in information pages about companies or services, but when creating sales content, other keywords should be used to accompany the sales intent.
Forget about tags and meta descriptions.
The goal of SEO is that your site and its contents appear as high as possible in the search results pages. Many professionals focus their efforts on content creation, with good keyword research and the creation of content calendars that cover all stations of the sales funnel, but they forget to optimize Title tags and meta descriptions.
The meta description provides a summary of everything the reader will encounter when they click on your content, while the title will contain the keywords and be engaging. When both are optimized, they improve the click-through rate, driving more visitors to your page.
The meta description should be no longer than 160 characters and should give a clear description of your content and your company. Contrary to what some people think, the meta description should be written for your target audience and not for Google’s robot, since in a couple of lines it should convince a potential customer to click on the link.
Too many 404 errors
Let’s take as an example a user who is searching in Google: “cheap gaming computers”, after spending a long time reviewing the results of the first page, he finds a meta description that fits what he is looking for. He clicks on it and, a 404 error appears and the content has been removed.
These kinds of experiences are very frustrating, especially nowadays when the Internet is full of content, so no website can afford to have 404 errors. These errors have a negative impact on the positioning of the page and the more of these errors it contains, the worse the positioning will be.
A page with a lot of 404 errors is sending signals to Google that they do not review the content, nor update it. In short, they are telling the search engine that the web page is abandoned, so Google will stop taking it into account when displaying messages.
These errors are common, when updating or deleting old or irrelevant content. However, it is always a good idea to review these errors and perform redirects to keep the navigation “clean”. If there are 404 errors that cannot be redirected, at least create a custom 404 page, including a call-to-action that redirects readers to other content.
Other errors could be not taking speed into account in SEO, or word count. It has also been confirmed that Wikipedia links do not affect SEO. Check out these 12 Chrome extensions that help SEO.
