On-Page SEO: 21 Things To Avoid, Fix And Monitor

Here is a fact: Bad on page SEO practices can hurt your rankings and trust ratings even if you follow good SEO practices. We compiled a quick list of what avoid when building a new site; fix if you already have a site and what to regularly monitor:

• Duplicating instead of repurposing/updating throughout your site
• Reposting, copying and distributing content verbatim from other sites to yours
• Using the same copy when distributing your content on external sites and blogs
• Writing for search engines by neglecting content that valuable and relevant to your target audience content needs. Keywords stuffing is a perfect example.
• Thinking you can buy your way to the top of any search engine
• Not researching your audience and the search behaviour
• Badly structured website links’
• Not having social sharing options for web posts
• Ignoring multimedia content – infographics, videos, photo stories, etc.
• Having a site that takes too long to load – long meaning more than 5 seconds!
• Not scanning and fixing spelling errors and broken website links
• Posting thin content by only providing information that in overly saturated areas, generic, and does not go beyond the surface, essentially offering no real value
• Ignoring long form posts
• Ignoring social media integration and engagement especially when your audience/s are active on these channels.
• Not optimising content for local SEO that targets potential customers around your geographic area
• No having unique content – rehashing a lot of the sameness that exists on topics without offering new insights or perspectives
• Having too many website ads
• Not using Google Webmaster Tools to keep track and fix of possible threats and technical issues with your site
• Having too many external links that usher visitors away from your site.
• Low mobile experience – having a site that is not mobile friendly and ready
• Not having properly formatted HTML posts