10 WordPress SEO Mistakes that Most User Commit

WordPress is an SEO powered platform that helps users set up their websites and blogs. Its many SEO plugins offer features that let beginners take on their website optimization journey with the least of the hassles. Yet, many users fail to comply with the best SEO practices and commit the most common mistakes.

These common WordPress SEO mistakes are made by a large number of average WordPress users, and they reflect the need for having sound SEO knowledge before these users begin optimizing their content for better search engine rankings and higher visibility.

So, if you want to avoid making the same mistakes as others, here is our drop-down of the top 10 WordPress SEO mistakes that WordPress users commonly commit.

1. Not investing time and money in good content

If you are just starting your blogging career, you need to understand that delivering good content for your blog or site's audience is a necessity. You can never make an arrangement to skip that and yet expect to drive an insane amount of traffic to your WordPress blog or site.

‘Good Content is the King’, and all website owners must abide by that to supercharge their website’s SEO efforts. Some of the SEO related content mistakes committed by WordPress users are:

• Relying on Duplicate/Spun content in an attempt to fool the search engines that your site/blog is publishing unique content. It is always a better idea to hire an expert content creator who is SEO-savvy, rather than trying to save a few bucks on the requirement.
• A lot of new WordPress site owners end up creating a blog/site due to the sheer excitement of having one; they later post content irregularly ,and well, that’s a buzz killer. If you are a serious WordPress blogger/site owner, you must post content regularly so that your audience is aware of the days they can expect to see a new blog post.
• Keep updating your site’s existing content to let the search engines keep mapping your content for fresh SEO.

2. Working with the wrong keyword practices

If you have just started as a new WordPress user, you must have figured out that the A-Z of a great SEO strategy is the power of keywords. It is acceptable to initially struggle with choosing the right keyword, but if that persists, all your SEO efforts will go downhill.

• Never go for the High competition Keywords that might appear to best suit the context of your business. Always choose a low-competition keyword that relates to your business, yet is something that a large number of people will use to find a business or service like yours.
• Also, Keywords function in a specific manner. Overstuffing them in your site’s content will not increase the visibility anyhow. Instead, it will lower your site’s SEO score, which is not at all favored by search engines.
• If you have just begun working on your site’s new SEO strategy, you will be committing a blunder if you don’t tap into the Local search. It will help you launch your business website for enhanced visibility once you start appearing in local search engine results. It is essential to add your address and a local phone number to your site pages.

Note: You can always rely on WordPress SEO plugins such as the Yoast SEO and the All-in-One SEO Pack to guide you through other complex SEO attributes.

3. Underestimating the prowess of  an apt Meta Description

Many website owners overlook their posts’ Meta Description, thinking it's not very important or that it won't do any good. They are basically your way of selling your site’s content to search engines for them to assess and crawl. Hence, there needs to be a separate meta description for each of your site pages and posts.

This description must include the strategized keyword to enhance visibility and let your audience know what to expect from the content before they click on the search engine result.

4. Poor quality backlinks

It still amazes us to see many websites committing this widespread WordPress SEO mistake. They are in the habit of stuffing their content with poor-quality backlinks, which they have either purchased at a low price or obtained through a barter arrangement. Regardless of the arrangement, these backlinks kill your site’s SEO steadily or once and for all.

Recommended: An Actionable Guide To Analyzing Competitor Backlinks And Building A Backlink Strategy

5. Broken Links

Your site’s audience is there to have a look at the end result of all the hard work and patience that you have put into your WordPress site. If they come across a broken link or a page that displays an error, it would affect the traffic and your site’s SEO due to a poor user experience.

A lot of website owners don’t bother to locate such links or fix them. You should use WordPress plugins such as the Broken Link Checker to eliminate these broken links.

6. Ignoring your site’s speed issues

Your site’s loading time is a huge determinant of how your visitors look at your site’s and business’s credibility. If you are committing the mistake of not making any efforts to fix this, your site is done for good and we mean it.

This is because if your website takes more than 2-3 seconds to load, your visitors will likely abandon the site, regardless of its quality. Always take the time to review the web hosting services of several providers before making your final choice.

7. Ignoring image optimization

Most website owners focus solely on optimizing their site’s content, overlooking the impact of image optimization. If you are one such user, you can mitigate the damage by optimizing the images you post on your site. You can learn more about image optimization here.

Just ensure that you compress the images well and add alt text to the image descriptions. Alternatively, WordPress plugins such as the Smush Image Compression plugin can do the work for you.

8. Not implementing site Caching

Website caching optimizes your site’s performance by improving the loading time of your website. Also, Search engines consider your site’s loading speed as a crucial determinant for considering the rankings. If you don’t focus on measures that enhance your site’s speed and overall User experience, your site might even get penalized by search engines.

9. Non-Responsive website

Not having a responsive and mobile-ready website is probably the biggest threat to your site’s entire SEO strategy. Many WordPress website owners have adopted responsive design in their site’s architecture, but that’s not an exaggeration; a significant number are still falling behind.

10. Failure to track the Analytics

If you are not aware of what’s happening with all your SEO efforts and if they are really working, you are aiming for the target in the dark. It is crucial to be aware of key facts, such as where your visitors are coming from, the probable reason for low SEO scores, why visitors are abandoning your website, and the overall problem areas.

With tools like Google Analytics, Google PageSpeed Insights, and Moz Pro, you will be able to drive the complexity out of SEO and get your website ranking well.

Conclusion:

Like we said, WordPress is an SEO enabler. The platform makes it easy for new WordPress users to understand the technical aspects of the Search Engine Optimization process. With its SEO plugins, the work gets even easier. Just ensure that you avoid the common SEO mistakes listed in this blog post, and your SEO strategy will be on point.

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