Common WordPress SEO mistakes to avoid

If you own a WordPress website and want to improve its rankings and drive more organic traffic then you should avoid the common SEO mistakes. These mistakes happen unknowingly and you should solve them. When you address these SEO mistakes it will help to improve your visibility and rankings. To make your WordPress website rank higher you need to implement SEO. You can hire a WordPress SEO company to find and solve all the SEO mistakes. In this article, you will learn about the common SEO mistakes to avoid with WordPress websites and how to solve them. 

Common WordPress SEO mistakes to avoid

The following are the common SEO mistakes to avoid with WordPress websites:

1. You should find the right keywords to target as it is essential for SEO success. Neglecting keyword research can result in targeting low-traffic and irrelevant keywords. It will lead to a waste of time and effort.
   
   
2. An XML sitemap is a map of your website in the XML format. If you have not created your sitemap then you should do so.
   
   
3. If you get an internal server error then it is the 500 internal service WordPress error. You may have to buy more memory to solve this problem.
   
   
4. You are getting a WordPress 404 error, this is due to the permalink settings. You should fix this by reconfiguring your permalinks or rewriting them.
   
   
5. Not setting your time zone when you want to publish your content. This will lead to your content not being shared when you want.
   
   
6. You are not publishing content regularly. The more content you publish the more keywords you are trying to rank for in the search results. If you post content regularly then you may get quality traffic. The WordPress SEO company will help you out with content creation.
   
   
7. You are not updating or refreshing old content.  When you update old content you get yesterday’s news again. A blog has an average life span of two years and by that time it will reach 99% of its engagement. You should add refreshing old content to your strategy.
   
   
8. Meta descriptions provide a summary of the web page’s content and are not optimised well. You should create unique and compelling meta descriptions and include keywords in them.
   
   
9. Your database connection is not established and this gives an error. You need to contact your WordPress hosting provider, open the wp-config-php file and correct it. You should also check that you have not been hacked.
   
   
10.  Your permalinks are wrong and not named correctly. Just changing your permalink name to reflect the title will help to increase your click-through rate.
    
    
11. You are not making use of the footer space on your website. To keep people browsing your website for a longer time you should add links from important landing pages in the footer of your website to the Homepage. This will also help to improve internal linking.
    
    
12. You did not set destination goals in Google Analytics which is ‘Conversions’. You need to set this as this tool helps you measure how much of your traffic leads to conversions. The WordPress SEO company can help you set up your account.
    
    
13. You get an error that your connection has timed out. This could be because your memory limit has been exhausted and you should increase it. You will have to deactivate all your plugins and check them one by one.
    
    
14. You have broken links on your website which will lead to a poor user experience. You should fix all your broken links.
    
    
15. You failed to backup your WordPress website. It is better to save what you have currently.
    
    
16. Other mistakes include thin or duplicate content, not using Schema Markup, not checking your Core Web Vitals, not optimising for speed, inadequate internal linking structure, not optimising for mobile and not optimising your images. 

Some useful strategies to avoid SEO mistakes

• In WordPress you need to first check if the search engine visibility settings are unchecked otherwise your pages will not get crawled and indexed.
  
  
• The hosting provider you choose should offer the latest versions of PHP, MySQL, Maria DB and HTTPS support.
  
  
• Do thorough keyword research and find the right keywords to target. You can use SEO tools to find your relevant keywords.
  
  
• Google considers domain.com and www,domain.com as separate websites therefore you should set up your preferred domain. If you are using both versions then use the one with more backlinks.
  
  
• Select the right permalink format and use short and SEO-friendly URLs. Create unique titles and meta descriptions and include keywords in them.
  
  
• Use headings to structure your content so that it is readable. You should optimise your images and use Alt-text. Create the correct video transcripts. Use Schema markup to tell the search engines more about your content.
  
  
• You should make sure that you create a Sitemap of your website. You can use a plug-in if required. You should optimise your website structure and use categories and subcategories to organize it. Add internal links as they help to keep the visitors on the site and boost page authority.
  

• Research what your target audience wants and create content for the users. Use relevant keywords in your posts and keep your content refreshed and up-to-date. 
  
  
• You should optimise your website for mobile and use a responsive web design. You should optimise your website for speed. 
  
  
• You should promote your website and encourage user engagement. Allow your users to share your content, leave comments and take action.
  
  
• Use Google Analytics to analyze your website and get the user data. You can use this information to improve the performance of your website.
  

Conclusion

SEO is a must if you want to rank higher in the search results and drive more traffic. You should avoid SEO mistakes as they can affect your rankings negatively. While doing SEO you can follow the right strategies so that you do not make mistakes. You can hire a WordPress SEO company to implement SEO techniques for your website.