What Are Common SEO Writing Mistakes?

What are common SEO Writing Mistakes? How can you avoid SEO mistakes? If you want to get answers to these two questions, you have turned to the right page. So, stay tuned to get enlightened about the two concepts.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most powerful tools you can use to boost traffic to your websites. SEO is very important, especially in digital marketing, where more content is published on a daily basis, which means that competition is insanely high.

The only way you can have a stand and compete in the digital market is if you have an outstanding and working SEO strategy that will boost the visibility of your content online.

That said, in the process of using SEO in digital marketing, many SEO writing mistakes are made, which end up affecting your website negatively.

SEO writing mistakes can do the following to your websites:

·        negatively affect your traffic.

·        Reduce your website conversion rate.

·        Decline (ROI) return on investment. Etc.

However, we have compiled a list of 10 SEO writing mistakes and how to avoid them. This will show you what to watch out for to avoid silly SEO mistakes that are derailing your website performance.

What is SEO?

If you are just about to start your writing career and don't know what the heck is SEO, don't worry; we got you covered.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a useful tool that helps to improve the visibility of your website whenever people search for specific things related to your content in Google, Firefox, or any other search engine.

Well, SEO-optimized content will rank highly on Google and will always appear among the top search results. Therefore, it is important that you optimize your content efficiently for it to be visible to as many people as possible.

Now that we know what SEO is and its importance let's dig right in and find the SEO writing mistakes and how to fix them.

10 SEO writing mistakes & how to avoid them

Here are some of the common SEO mistakes. If you find that your websites have these mistakes, you would want to correct them so that they can perform in a better way than they are actually doing.

You will find out that some of these SEO mistakes are related to article writing mistakes.

Let's begin!

Mistake 1| Your site speed is slow

The one thing that can deter page visitors from visiting your site is if it takes a lot of time for a page to load, let alone open up.

Think of it this way, have you ever tried to access some content online, and for some reason, a web page was taking forever to load? If your connection is strong, the only reason that will make you leave that page is that you will be convinced the website is as slow as a baby taking its first steps.

That feeling of disappointment is exactly what website visitors feel whenever they try to access your site if its speed is slow. Over time, slow speed will cost you traffics, and your site will not be converting as it should be.

How can I know if my site is slow?

Well, use the following metrics to gauge whether your website is performing great.

Page Load Time; this is the time taken for a browser to access your page from the time they sent a request to your server. Page load time can be measured using the following factors:

Ø FCP (First Contentful Paint); FCP is a Google tool that measures the time taken (in seconds) by a user to access a web page content. FCP uses a lighthouse to determine the time taken.

Ø TTI (Time to interactive); TTI is a useful metric that measures the page load speed of a website. TTI collects the scores based on the HTTP archive data.

Ø TTFB (Time to First Byte); this is the time taken since a request to access a page is sent to a server and when the browser gets its first byte of data.

How to fix this SEO mistake?

To fix the slow speed of your site, you can start by using Google PageSpeed Insights to see how your page is performing. This will help you to know and understand better the aspect of your website's speed.

Also, look out for the following factors that affect your site speed:

Ø The image size and format; use image editing tools and image formats like WebP or JPEG XR to help reduce the image bandwidth. Also, set all your images to size 72 dpi.

Ø JavaScript/CSS; use names that are short for your variables to compress the CSS codes and JavaScript. This will decline the size and boost your page's loading time.

Ø Redirects; fixing redirects can increase the speed of your pages.

Mistake 2| Failure to add anchor text to your Internal links

SEO writing is all about optimizing the text in your content, even if it involves using internal links. Have you seen internal links with texts like "Click here" or "Follow this link" in a post? This is absolutely a waste of SEO article writing.

Not using anchor text reduces the chance that readers will want to click an internal link to see what you are talking about.

What is the importance of adding anchor text?

·        It helps to convince web visitors to click on an internal link.

·        Boost the rankings of specific keywords.

·        Helps in SEO optimization.

How do you avoid these SEO mistakes?

Ensure that you use anchor text to support your internal links.

For example, if you are writing about a topic on how to auction a product, use relevant keywords to support your links. You can say something like, "click here to check out useful tips on how to auction a product."

Mistake 3| Negative Google Reviews

This SEO mistake is usually based on an individual ability to deal with negative feedback and use the negative reviews as positive criticism.

About the reviews that you get about a product or a service, you can either get positive reviews or negative ones. With time, the total review number that your business gets can affect your overall ranking on Google.

Having more negative reviews will obviously reduce your ranking. When many customers express their disappointment about your services, this can drive away traffic from your website.

On the other side, positive reviews can become a huge booster in your SEO ranking. Getting positive reviews will increase the credibility of your website. However, when you only have positive feedback on your reviews, your website may appear to be suspicious.

The probable fix to this problem?

·        You can't get mad because some of your customers leave bad reviews on your website. That's inevitable. What you can do instead is try and build a good relationship with your customers using those negative reviews.

·        Try to understand your customers and see if you can come up with a solution to meet their demands.

·        In addition, you can boost your SEO ranking by encouraging people to leave reviews about the products or services offered on your website.

·        Acknowledge the response you get and listen to the opinions of your customers. This will make you look genuine and willing to help the community. In the long run, your SEO ranking will be boosted.

Mistake 4| Using broken images and failure to use alternative tags/text

An alternative tag has the alternative text to be used in describing a certain image on a web page.

If you don't use alt tags to help describe the images you have used in your content, there is a good chance your SEO optimization will not be good enough.

Here are some reasons why alt tags are important to optimize SEO writing

·        Alt tags describe images and help the person who is seeing them understand them better.

·        SEO optimization can be improved if the correct alternative texts are used with keywords.

·        Using correct alt tags makes your content look more appealing to the eyes.

Missing alt tags and broken images are the common SEO writing mistakes and blog writing mistakes that most writers make. If you are using broken images or incorrect alternative text, this isn't going to do your SEO writing any good.

Check out our solution to this mistake.

How to avoid this mistake?

·        Use alternative tags and alt text which use keywords to boost your SEO writing.

·        Use WordPress to add images to your blogs or articles to avoid broken images.

Mistake 5| You are not optimizing SEO for the local audience around you

This is one of the many SEO writing mistakes that writers make when doing SEO writing. Many website owners, especially new ones, tend to overlook the customers around them and opt to target the ones from international borders.

Well, expanding your business to other countries is not bad, but have you considered fully optimizing SEO content that will benefit the locals before spreading out your wings? Local SEO might be your angel in disguise that you need to use to boost your SEO writing and attract more audience.

I have seen a lot of businesses targeting an audience that's out of reach—at the same time, overlooking the potential buyers who are just at their disposal, who, if targeted correctly, can lead to a successful business.

Here is what you have to do to make good use of SEO for your locals:

How to avoid this mistake?

·        Start by doing research and knowing who are the people around you and what they may need so that you can create a business that provides them with what they need.

·        Start including specific keywords in your content that targets a certain region around you.

·        Use social media networks to link up with customers around your place.

·        You can optimize your SEO writing by including voice searches that are based on keywords and phrases that the people around you can use. This can help people who speak your native language to browse your content easily in a language they can understand.

Mistake 6| You are not addressing the pain points of your target audience

Let's start by asking this question, why do you visit a web page? There could be many reasons, maybe you just landed on a page and found it interesting to read, or you got redirected by a link.          However, we mostly visit a website because we are trying to look for an answer to something.

The same reason goes for SEO writing. When creating content for your websites, always address the pain points of your audience and try to give them a way out of a certain problem.

This is what readers look for whenever they visit a page:

·        An explanation of something they want clarity on.

·        A solution to a specific problem.

·        New ideas, tips, or useful life hacks.

·        A very specific detail/information about something.

Are you writing content that meets these pain points? If not, your SEO writing will not get many clicks as you hoped for.

Here is what you need to do instead.

How to avoid this mistake?

·        When creating content for your websites, make sure you use keywords that address the pain points of your audience.

·        Provide clear steps and guides that will give a solution to your audience.

·        Write relevant content that will be useful to readers instead of tricking them to click on your website using an eye-catching headline only for you to talk about something completely different.

Mistake 7| You are not optimizing SEO content for mobile

As much as you are creating content from your personal computer, don't make an assumption that every person who visits your website will use a computer to access your content.

If you want to see your website SEO performance improve and rank more highly than before, then ensure that all of your websites perform very well and fast, even on mobile devices also.

When you don't optimize your websites for mobile devices, search engines will notice that your web pages are not friendly on mobile devices. This is bad for your website's credibility and can affect your SEO rankings.

How to avoid this problem?

·        When creating content for your websites, use a design that will be responsive to mobile devices.

·        Increase the page load time speed of your websites. (We talked about this in the beginning).

·        Develop a great mobile experience for your sites.

Mistake 8| You are not creating read-worthy content

This is one of the common SEO mistakes where writers become very sloppy at their jobs and fail to create valuable information that can add meaning to people's lives.

Have you ever wondered why some websites never fail to perform? Or a certain business will not be badly affected even in harsh economic situations? Well, you will come to realize that one thing that goes along with building a successful business is building a name for yourself.

To build a name for yourself in SEO writing, you simply have to provide valuable and useful information that readers cannot shy away from. They will find you reliable and credible with time, and this way, your SEO performance will always improve greatly.

How to avoid this mistake?

Create content that meets the following criteria:

·        It should be highly informative.

·        Contain reliable data, statistics, and facts that will make your content accurate.

·        Your content should cover the most desired(hot) topics.

·        Use credible sources for information.

If you create content that is useful and valuable, it will get many shares and more feedback which will improve your SEO search. At this point, you will become a trusted source to many.

Mistake 9| You are not making good use of on-page SEO optimization

This is among the common SEO mistakes and article writing mistakes that most armature writers make. If you effectively use on-page SEO optimization, this is a great step towards achieving a good SEO ranking. Failure to do so, you are taking a step in the opposite direction.

How to fix this mistake?

To avoid this SEO mistake, use on-page SEO on the following in your content:

·        Title tags.

·        On the heading keywords of your topics.

·        Image tags.

·        And on meta descriptions.

Mistake 10| Using the wrong internal links

This is one of the SEO mistakes whereby a writer uses the wrong hyperlinks in the text. What is the purpose of using links in your content? There are two main reasons for using internal links;

·        The number one goal should be to direct readers to a website that has some useful information about what you are talking about on your page.

·        Also, internal links help to link a web page to your other web pages for the purpose of gaining more traffic to your website.

Stuffing the wrong internal links to your content is not an ideal practice and will end up damaging the quality of the content you post.

How to avoid this mistake

·        Use links that are from websites with a good reputation.

·        Always confirm that the links are relevant to the content on your pages.

·        Use links that will be a valuable source of information for your audience.

·        If you have a webpage that provides useful information about a certain topic, make sure to link your other web pages. This will boost your SEO.

Conclusion

These are just but a few of the many SEO mistakes you can make if you are not keen enough. To make sure that you avoid SEO writing mistakes and related article writing mistakes, set your priorities right.

In addition, this article has shared some insights about the 10 SEO writing mistakes and how to avoid them. Make sure you use these guidelines as a reference whenever you are making SEO writing content.

Use these tips shared in this post to boost your SEO optimization, and you will not be a victim of these SEO writing mistakes.

You can check out the writing services that we offer.