For any online business, being able to rank as high in the search results as possible is crucial. The higher you are on the list of results, the more likely it is that you will be visited by a larger number of people who just typed a certain term into Google/Bing. However, this can only happen if your website is properly optimized for Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. In this article I will talk about the top 5 mistakes that online businesses make when it comes to their SEO and how they can fix them in order to get better results.

5 SEO Mistakes To Avoid At All Costs

1. Your hosting plan

Your hosting is the server on which your site is built. When you are starting a digital strategy for the first time, it’s pretty common to try to choose among the most affordable hosting options out there – or even go for a free hosting. You should not attempt to choose free hosting because it can jeopardize your website. You’d want people to be able to access your site 24/7, and often, free hosting plans are unreliable and uncustomizable.

You have to understand what each hosting company offers and it is important to know if your chosen plan will be able to handle the growth of your website. Look not only at the price, but also at the features.

If you are not sure how to choose a hosting plan for your business, consider contacting a specialist. There are quite a few, believe it or not.

2. Poorly designed urls

The URLs of your website pages should give people a heads up about what information they can find within your site. Poorly designed URL is one in which there are no keywords, but instead, random numbers within a category. For example: /category-53739.

If you include your keyword in your URL, it makes more sense than if you only use numbers and parameters.

Although Google periodically updates its algorithm to better evaluate the content of the pages, if you want to get traffic to your website and make it to the relevant results section, do not use a CMS that prevents you from modifying your URLs manually.

3. Misuse of canonical tags

Canonical tags are used to tell search engines that instead of the current page, there is a master page that has similar content. The purpose of canonical tags is to avoid duplicate content – which is one of the things that Google hates.

Google and other search engines rank content based on how helpful they are to the readers. Your site will rank high on SERP if you write your website’s content in an easy to understand manner, and if you provide the solutions that people are looking for. It is important to know what “search intent” is and what people are trying to achieve whenever they enter keywords or phrases in the search bar.

Are users searching for products or services they want to buy? Or are they looking to get more information about certain products before making a purchase?

To achieve the best SEO results, I recommend that you use the right keywords and tailor fit your content based on the intent behind those keywords. Make sure that your content satisfies the intent of the searchers.

4. Quality content

If what you have is a blog, or you’ve added one as part of an e-commerce business or professional website, let me get this clear:

Search engines do not read the text of your article. They read the HTML code, which is the source of your content. So they will detect if you copy and paste content from another website, or if you’ve plagiarized any of the words

If that happens, Google would catch you and throw you to the bottom of the queue. Be very careful with that.

What makes content valuable and useful to readers is the information, and the more original it is, the better.

Similarly, Google used to rank better for pages that contain between 500 and 800 words, but lately, Google has been rating pages with at least 1,000 words.

Don’t let your website get out of control. Keep it organized and well-structured  by using relevant tags, images, and links.

If you doubt something, do your research first. There are many articles that explain how to rank well on Google, so don’t be afraid of spending some time learning about it.

5. Optimized images

Google wants to offer users the easiest and fastest way to find information. It is crucial to have optimized, quick-loading images within your website. You don’t need to spend a lot of money for professional photoshoots if you’re just starting your business. The Internet offers royalty free images of banks, cafes, hair salon, or whatever business or products you’re offering.

For better SEO, the photos that accompany your texts should be sized according to your template. If an image is too heavy, it will slow down the page load, especially on mobiles. Therefore, you should optimize them before uploading them, either by cropping them or reducing the file size.

Conclusion

One of the reasons why SEO is so crucial these days is that it helps potential clients find your business on the Internet. That’s why you have to take into account these 5 mistakes if you want to be well positioned in search engines.

There are simple and inexpensive solutions to these common SEO mistakes, and they will help you with your digital presence.

Of course, there will be problems on your website that only a professional can solve. But from now on, I invite you to analyze these aspects of your website and start solving them step-by-step.

Always remember: Having an online business and not using SEO, it’s the same as not having one.