For nearly every website owner, accidentally tripping yourself up over Google’s organic search algorithms can be a regular occurrence. When optimization, link building, architecture and structuring data all get thrown into one pot it’s easy to make a few mistakes. Some of these mistakes can, unbeknownst to the website owner, cause a loss in ranking or even manual penalties. Today I will be going over 3 simple but damaging SEO mistakes that you should be avoiding.
1: Structured Markup
Structured data penalties have been reinvigorated by Google’s latest quality update. They target pages that include invisible, misleading, or irrelevant content. Certain markups are rewarded but only when they aid in the navigation of the user. So to avoid these penalties you may have to give your web pages a rehaul and remove anything that isn’t helpful to the user.
2: Individual Page Value
Adding page after page to provide destinations for users can be perceived as low quality unless each page that’s listed has distinct value. Legitimate Page features such as coupon codes, maps and listings can all be penalised if they are overused to an extent where they make up a large portion of your website. A tip to avoid this pitfall would be to avoid using maps on every page and save it for the contact us or equivalent section.
3: Link Building
Link building is a potential minefield for any website owner. It’s important to remember that search engines will penalise you severely if you use them incorrectly. Take a look at your links and ask yourself these three questions; Is it worth leaving a link here? Will my target audience find my website if I leave a link here? Does this action violate the search engine guidelines? If you answered yes to any of these you need to remove the link.
There are countless ways you can stumble in SEO, but at least now you might have three less things to worry about.