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Predicting Google and its SEO is like predicting the weather forecast; sometimes we get it right, and sometimes we don’t. The methods we used to rank websites yesterday won’t work today. SEO is a continuous process; Google changes its search engine algorithm on a regular basis, and the metrics they consider to rank are kind of secret to us. We can’t really depend on anything, but we can avoid some basic SEO mistakes that can save our website/blog from getting penalized by Google.
Many newbies who are new to blogging and SEO will make some basic mistakes; I did too. So today I’m going to explain some of the basic SEO mistakes that you should avoid.
If you want to build a long-term business through your website/blog, then make sure to read these below points carefully.
So what are those basic SEO mistakes to avoid in order to survive long in blogging?
Below are the things that you should not do in order to avoid getting penalized by Google.
Aggressive Link-Building
Since people found out that building backlinks are the main thing that helps them to get more PageRank and good search engine rankings, they started to build backlinks aggressively. The fact is, it is against Google’s policy. Even though Google doesn’t say you shouldn’t build links, when you try to build links aggressively, you’ll definitely get hit by Google algorithms like Penguin.
For those who don’t know, Google Penguin is an algorithm that penalizes websites that involve black-hat link-building methods.
As you can read on the Google Webmaster blog, it suggests building links naturally and never trying to manipulate their algorithm. But many people don’t listen and build backlinks as much as possible aggressively. The result? – Their sites got affected.
Google algorithms are smart enough to identify the difference between natural links and unnatural links. I made this kind of mistake before; one of my sports websites disappeared from Google within a couple of months. I applied for a reconsideration request to Google; they didn’t give me the exact reason. They only said, ” Your site might have been hit by one of our algorithms.
Once you get a Google penalty, it is difficult to recover; it might take some weeks or months to recover. I decided to expel that sports site.
Apart from Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird, Google has some other small algorithms that operate on a daily basis. So never try to manipulate Google by building links aggressively or unnaturally.
And don’t make the mistake of commenting only on dofollow-enabled Commentluv sites. Imagine if people remove the CommentLuv plugin; you’ll suddenly lose lots of backlinks, and that is not good for SEO.
Buying, Selling or Exchanging links
You might escape from charges after murdering a person in real life, but you can’t escape from Google’s eyes for very long doing black-hat link building stuff.
Many people do this black-hat link building stuff; they buy links to rank websites. Of course, paid links might help you to boost your rankings for some time, but your site will definitely get penalized by Google in the long run. So never try to buy links for your site, and also never try to do link exchanges with your friends and other web masters. Also, building links from a non-related niche might hurt your site, so avoid it.
Only use white-hat link building techniques: easy and effective ways to build links are by guest-posting, you get a quality backlink and relevance authority as well.
Running behind PageRank
Another major mistake people make is running behind PageRank; they try all the stuff in the world to get good PageRank. Earlier, there was an assumption that links from many good sites alone could give you a high PageRank. However, in a recent PR update, Google gavea shock to many people who ran behind PageRank. I think this time Google considered other factors like social presence, domain age, relevance of links, etc.
After I got hit by a Google penalty for my sports site, I built this site slowly and naturally; I just wrote 5 guest posts so far (one on ShoutMeLoud ) and barely commented on 300 blogs, but still got PR:1 easily. Even though it’s not that great, I’m happy. So the lesson is simple: build websites naturally and do not run behind PageRank.
Not Optimizing Your Website
This is another mistake that can affect your site. Just pick out some websites from the top search engine results, and examine their sites, and you’ll see a lot of difference between them and low-ranked sites. These top sites are all well optimized for search engines.
There are two types of SEO Optimization
- On-Page Optimization
- Off-Page Optimization
On-Page Optimization
On-Page Optimization happens within the site, like speeding up your website, adding decent title tags, alt tags, anchor text, submitting sitemaps in Webmaster Tools using Google Authorship, adding breadcrumbs, etc.
Speed is a very important factor in on-page optimization; if a website is slower than 3 seconds, it is very likely to rank low because Google loses some percentage of audience with each second delay. So make sure to speed up your site for better rankings while optimizing. There are many methods to speed up your site, like adding a CDN (Content Delivery Network), adding cache plugins, optimizing images, better hosting, etc.
Adding Meta descriptions and Title tags is very important; also, other text plays a major role in keyword rankings. Be careful not to overuse anchor text; otherwise, your site will be penalized for over-optimization. I usethe Premium On-page SEO plugin SEOPressor to optimize my site.
So you should manage these things carefully while optimizing.
Off-Page Optimization
Off-Page Optimization includes building links naturally, social media presence, guest blogging, etc. As I mentioned above, build links naturally by writing guest posts or commenting on blogs; you don’t have to write 15-20 guest posts. A couple of guest posts on top-quality sites can provide good relevance links and reputation. Make sure not to build links from different niches that are not related to your site; Google might consider it a paid link.
Writing Low-Quality or Duplicate Content
If you’re writing low-quality or duplicate content on your blog, there is a high chance of getting penalized by Google. According to Google, low-quality content is thin content that adds no extra value to the audience. Earlier, writing 300- 400-word articles was enough, but not anymore; now Google values and ranks in-depth articles- articles that provide complete information, articles that are very helpful for readers. So try to write well-researched articles and build a website that helps the audience.
And talking about duplicate content, never publish a duplicate article on your blog; Google bots are smart enough to identify it. One more thing is, try to avoid internal duplication; when you add lots of tags and categories, sometimes Google sees it as multiple pages, and this might not be good for SEO wise, so it’s better to add a nofollow attribute to tags and categories. Also, make sure to exclude unnecessary pages from indexing.
Internal duplicate pages
There are some occasions where internal duplication can occur due to errors, unknowingly. For example; http and https errors; sometimes Google indexes multiple URLs of the same page. For example, “https://theblogmetrics.com/about” and “https://theblogmetrics.com/about/” are the same pages, but Google indexes them as multiple pages because of a small error. These types of errors can lower your site rankings unknowingly, so often check for these errors. To find internal duplicate content, you can use online tools like SiteLiner.
If you’re a WordPress user, I highly recommend you to use SEO plugin by Yoast. With this plugin, you can control everything related to SEO,O from adding nofollow attributes to creating sitemaps.
Most of the time Google will warn you through search console tools about internal structure errors. However, it is wise to check for these errors manually.
Conclusion
No matter how smart you are, making these basic SEO mistakes will definitely drown your site, so make sure to avoid these silly SEO mistakes to survive long in blogging. Optimize your site for SEO the right way and avoid dhese seo mistakes; you’ll get great results.
