Whether you’re building out your on-page optimization strategy or revising it, it’s easy to make the wrong choices and end up wasting a lot of time and money in the process. There are so many sites that get it wrong and you are not alone by any stretch of the imagination. Here are five common on-page optimization mistakes to avoid:
1. Not Using Tags and Headers The Right Way
It’s very common for websites to use too many or not enough H1 and H2 tags on their landing pages. Some sites ignore using them entirely, which is a huge mistake. People and search engines will not be able to know what the site offers period unless tags and headers are used in the correct way.
Others forego the H2 headers entirely but perhaps use H6 and H1s the correct way, which is also a mistake. H2 headers are very important in terms of breaking up text and search engines crawl them to find out what your site is capable of delivering to visitors.
2. Not Installing A Social Sharing App
Most templates for websites, especially on WordPress, have options to add buttons next to blog posts or on landing pages linking to your social networks as well as making it easier for visitors to share your content on their social channels. Take advantage of them. Even if you need to download a separate app, most are very easy to use.
3. Not Optimizing Your Images
Many websites will spend lots of time and money on content, layout, and SEO, and then cut corners on images. It’s very important to make sure the images you use are appropriate, high quality, and tagged correctly using ALT tags. It’s important for branding as well. Don’t be lazy with images on your site.
4. Not Having A Sitemap
It’s amazing how many websites forego having a sitemap and consider it an optional aspect of good on-page site optimization. Why make it more difficult for search engines to find you? Give Google a map to find you. They’ll get to you faster and reward your site in the rankings. It’s a simple and fundamental step. XML-Sitemaps.com is an easy and free way to create and submit a sitemap for your site.
5. Sloppy Linking
Broken links and off-target hyperlinking on your website send the wrong message to search engines and visitors alike. It’s incredibly important to link up your site the correct way and check it often. If you’re sending people to pages that no longer exist or sites that don’t quite give them the information they’re looking for, it makes it look like you don’t care about your site and it confuses visitors. Linking is just as important as keyword strategy when it comes to on-page optimization.
One of the most underutilized strategies for on-page optimization is using strong anchor text in your copy. Linking within your site and outside your site to valuable resources using solid keywords is incredibly powerful in terms of successful strategy.
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