There can be a lot of various reasons why your SEO efforts might just not work as good as it should. Most of them likely come down to some very common SEO mistakes. Don’t panic. 

Even SEO optimization Malaysia experts who have been doing SEO for years can make mistakes. That is why I’m going to tell you something about the top SEO mistakes and how you can fix them. Continue reading to learn more.

1. Not Writing Custom Title & Meta Descriptions

One huge mistake is not writing custom title tags and meta descriptions. Title tags and meta descriptions help search engines and people know what each page of your website is about. 

If you’re vague when you write them, they are not going to help your SEO, and people won’t click. 

You should always write title tags and meta descriptions with your core keyword in mind. Suppose you are a jewelry designer and have created one page for targeting the keyword term “gold necklaces” and another for “silver necklaces.” 

The jewelry for both gold and silver is obviously different, so you most definitely would want each page to appear in the results for its respective metal, by using keywords in the title tags and meta descriptions. 

Imagine if every page of your website had a title tag of “designer jewelry.” Against that, there would be no context in which people searching for any specific product would ever find them.

Related: Watchout for these SEO newbie mistakes!

2. Lack of Title On Title & Headings

Another very common SEO mistake in design involves a lack of keywords within the content and the headings. This mistake has an easy fix. Much like with title tags and meta descriptions, keywords should be used throughout your pages strategically. 

Keywords help search engines determine the context of your page and aid in ranking. Before creating content, use a keyword research tool to understand what people are searching for and write content that answers their query. 

You’re going to want to choose a core keyword and related keywords to give your content context. For example, if your topic is how to clean jewelry, study the terms “how to clean your jewelry” in tools such as Ahrefs or SEMrush to learn what volume and competition it faces. 

You might also notice that even in the very top result, there is a video available; hence, designing your content to reflect just that would do justice. Just remember not to stuff keywords all over the place, but use them naturally.

More: If you’re not using these best internal linking practices, you’re missing out.

3. Not Earning Links

A very important mistake many people make is not trying to earn links to their website. Links are a huge part of SEO and can have a huge effect on rankings. 

When another site links to your website, that site is essentially sharing some of their value with you. This is called a backlink. If a huge jewelry store linked to your page about how to clean rings, then your site is going to get a boost from that link. 

Backlinks are a signal to Google that people trust your site, and that helps your rankings. But getting backlinks is often difficult-you have to search for linking opportunities on other relevant blogs and sites and then outreach and share the value of your content.

4. Wrong Redirect Used

One other quite basic SEO issue people overlook is using the wrong type of redirect. If you want to make sure the search engines know you’re permanently redirecting someone from an old or deleted page to the new one, make sure to always use a 301 redirect

These redirects pass link equity from the old page onto the new page, which is going to really help preserve the value of your site. If you use a temporary 302 redirect instead, you lose that link equity-so just make sure you’re using the right type of redirect.

5. Not Submitting Sitemap

One SEO mistake that happens less often is failing to tell the search engines which of your pages you want crawled. Yes, internal linking does help the search spiders crawl and index your pages, but you really need to have an XML sitemap with links to all the pages you want to be in search results. 

Make sure you include only those pages that you want to get indexed and throw those pages which you do not want to appear in the results into a robots.txt file. You can then use a sitemap generator or a plugin to create and submit your sitemap to Google.

6. Accidental Block In Robots.txt

Websites sometimes accidentally block search engines from crawling important content. A robots.txt file is blocking crawlers to certain pages on your website. 

This error can be fixed by checking the robots.txt file by typing in your website’s URL and adding “/robots.txt” to it, then check to make sure you are not blocking pages that you want crawled by search engines. 

If you have accidentally set your file to block all crawlers, fix this now unless you do not want your site to come up in search engines.

7. Not Optimizing For Mobile

Not optimizing for mobile-first approaches is another SEO mistake. The most effortless way of ensuring that the functioning of your website on mobile gadgets is a responsive design to adapt all the elements of the site to an array of screen sizes. 

Ensure that multimedia elements, like images and videos, also come responsively. AMP-integration can also be something one can consider, which will help with mobile speed and performance.

8. Not Using HTTPS

A secure site is very important in regard to SEO. If your URL starts with HTTP, it is not secure, and that will be a reason for visitors to avoid your website, together with a leak of personal data. 

In case your URL starts with HTTPS, then that means your website is secure and has earned an SSL certificate, where personal information such as emails and credit card numbers will be encrypted. 

Also, Google uses whether a site is secure as a ranking factor; make sure your site is protected with an SSL certificate.

9. Impatient

Lastly, one of the most common SEO mistakes is not giving SEO time to work. It is true that SEO takes time. Sometimes it may take any time from a few weeks up to six months before you can see the changes after you have updated your site. 

As compared to PPC campaigns, which show results so fast, SEO is always going to be a long-term campaign. If you have made changes and you don’t see an immediate improvement, then do not give up because, all you have to do is be patient and give the process some time.

Now that some of the most common SEO mistakes have been listed above, it’s time to try and avoid them. Want to know more about how to check on your SEO? Check out our blog posts about SEO checks, and for further readings. 

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