Duplicate Content
This is easily among the top prevalent mistakes blogging that you can make and should be the first on the top 5 SEO tips and Mistakes. According to research conducted by SEMrush duplicate content is a problem which 50% of websites have to deal with. While there is no punishment in terms of duplicative content, the issue could be harmful or dangerous dependent on the nature, intensity and other elements.
The issue of duplicate contents is it can confuse search engines, making them uncertain which of two (or more) pages is “the right one” to provide authority to. In essence, the two pages will compete against each other to attract attention. They will also be competing for backlinks. This means that ranking and backlinks are distributed between two pages, instead of focusing solely on only one.
Dubious Duplicate Content Issues
A common cause of duplicate content problems is when the content has been copied and pasted from a different site. In addition, you could be facing copyright concerns. If this happens it is important to deal with the issue quickly, typically by taking the content off. However should someone steal your content, you must ensure that they remove it off the internet. Use plagiarism detector tool to check duplicate content.
Innocent Duplicate Content Issues
If you’re confronted to duplicate content concerns of a less serious variety, there are different ways to tackle it. For instance, many bloggers are able to create duplicate content issues on their own blogs because their “categorized” as well as their “uncategorized” section is practically identical because of the absence of categories in their blog posts. An easy fix is to include categories on your blog article. For instance, if writing about fashion, you can add categories such as “summer clothes”, “winter wear”, “beach clothing” and “suits”. Your blog’s page will appear distinct after just a few posts compared to the various categories sections, or non-categorized ones.
If your site is running with http://, the https ://, as well as www. non-www. simultaneously all at once, it can cause issues. It is recommended to give preference to one over the other. This can be solved with redirects to 301 or by using rel=canonical to inform search engines which one is the most authoritative. Although we covered more than we anticipated on duplicate content in the top 5 SEO tips and Mistakes however, it’s only an introduction. Moz is a precise and clear article that could help with specific issues related to duplicate content.
404 Error
In time, during the website’s existence, you’ll likely encounter a 404 page appear. This isn’t necessarily a negative thing however, it is crucial that it is displayed whenever it is appropriate. There are two kinds of pages that are 404-like: and Soft 404. Soft 404.
Soft 404
A soft 404 is when there’s an error code of 200 that is sent to the browser. However, the page’s content is thin content, or a customized content page for 404. What’s Google’s opinion on these?
“Returning a success code, rather than 404/410 (not found) or 301 (moved), is a bad practice.”
How to deal with how to resolve a Soft 404 page will depend on the situation. If you’ve taken down the content as it’s been outdated, you can use your CMS to remove the page. This will result in your URL returning a proper 404 code. However, if you do not intend to make use of this URL in the future, you may utilize a 410 code. It will inform the search engines that this page has been permanently deleted and they will not index it earlier than use a page that is 404.
However, there is another alternative if you’ve got a new content element that is like the content that was in the URL that is now no longer available. In such cases, you could utilize a 301 redirect to enhance user experience. If you’re getting lots of visitors to this page, or you have backlinks to it and redirect to 301 might be the right choice.
Regular 404
If it’s not an Soft 404, the fixes are typically quite similar. In this case, for instance, you may have created the 404 via a broken internal link, which sends bots and users alike to a URL that is not there. The most straightforward solution is to correct the link. If you have an external hyperlink which sends visitors and traffic to a page that is not there, you have two choices. Contact the website that is linking to you to change their link, or make redirects from the URL with the 404 to the desired page.
If you’ve removed the URL in question and it’s reporting the correct 404 code for the user, everything is fine. But, you can improve it by changing the number to an 410 which will increase the speed at which search engines detect the fact that this page is not a page that is worth listing and indexing.
We’ve included 404’s in the Best 5 SEO tips and errorsas it’s a frequent and common issue that can be encountered by a large percentage of websites. Because there are a myriad of factors that can affect the best method of dealing with and when to handle the 404 error, we recommend you to read this deep crawl error guide.
Orphan Page
This may be sad, but some pages have no parents. Some people are lucky enough to are orphaned accidentally, while others are fated to end up in that situation.
It could sound dramatized, however it’s precise. Similar to 404 errors, there are various kinds of abandoned pages that must be treated in a different way. While we’re trying to focus on solutions that are universal within the top 5 SEO tips and Mistakes This is a very common error that it was necessary to be included on the list.
If the page has been abandoned so by design that’s fine. In the end, there are numerous reasons pages are abandoned through design, such as special promotions or seasonal relevance of a product, or landing pages that are specific to sources, just to name several.
If your website has pages that are orphaned by accident, you need to act immediately. An orphaned site is one that has no internal links that lead to it. This results in the page becoming disconnected in relation to the other pages on your website. Although this isn’t necessarily a problem it is important to take action with the issue. You can either incorporate it into the overall design of your website by linking to it from within this page or just remove it.
If the page that has been abandoned is valuable, you should connect it! Allow your visitors to access it quickly. However in the event that your page is not useful, simply eliminate it. In the event that it is not removed, you’ll have pages that use crawl budget for something that you’re not investing in which is wasted. It’s best to have crawlers focus on pages that you want visitors to see.
Internal Linking
Internal links are your best friend They’ve definitely earned a spot on the Best 5 SEO Strategies and Mistakes. They help you direct your visitors to the pages that you believe they would most want to view as well as interact with. They also send signalling to engines about the pages of your site are most important. While you must make use of them to increase the reusability of your website but you must be cautious not to over-link your site and create a look like a spam site. Make sure to only use them if they are able to enhance the performance of your website, and when there’s an requirement for them.
For internal link issues the most important thing you should do is to utilize them as often as you can, keep an eye on regularly to ensure they’re not broken for a long time and then the third step is to) rectify them if you spot the broken links. While fixing internal links isn’t difficult however, it’s a frequent issue. This usually happens as a result of sites expanding and evolving naturally, but the necessary maintenance hasn’t been implemented for a while.
Do not ignore your site
Finally, on our Top 5 SEO Tips and Mistakes not paying attention to your website. It’s understandable why most people focus on having an “do-no-harm” policy for their small business site. But, the wrong “do-no-harm” policy can quickly result in opposite. It is essential to understand that neglecting your website after it’s launched is a certain method of reducing the value of your site over time for the vast majority of websites.
As you can see from the above, most of the common issues that arise are caused by lack of maintenance or failure to be up-to date with Google updates that are constantly changing the way sites are classified.