10 SEO Mistakes that should be avoided in WordPress

Search Engine Optimization can help you get higher ranks on search engine pages and builds your online presence to a great extent. But going about it the wrong way can be a lot worse than doing nothing at all.

SEO Mistakes that should be avoided in WordPress

There are few mistakes that WordPress users make quite often; they are listed below so that you can ensure that you don’t fall into the same trap.

Don’t provide XML sitemap

A sitemap is an XML file, which has the lists of URLs for sites. With their help, webmasters can make it easier for search engines to crawl websites more efficiently and easily. But there are many webmasters who don’t understand the importance of XML sitemaps, which can lead to search engines ignoring pages from the site. And that naturally means the visibility of your website will be greatly reduced. As your web pages don’t get indexed by all and mighty search engines, your online visibility is bound to suffer.

Not setting up Google Authorship

Google authorship is an important element of search friendly websites today; no two ways about it. It makes a world of difference to your brand promotion because your users can see a picture next to your articles. In fact your content, irrespective of the platform, will stay connected to your name. There are many who haven’t woken up to the importance of Google Authorship and don’t set it up, which is something you need to avoid at all costs.

Not optimizing URLs for SEO

If your URL has a smart title, it can help you with search engine ranks; no two ways about it. Running a website the traditional way can make it difficult, but when you are using a CMS platform like WordPress things are made a lot easier. You can make the most out of the tools offered by the platform and have creative titles for blogs, articles to gain good results. Letting go of this opportunity is a huge mistake you cannot afford.

Improper Categorization and Tagging

If you want to keep users engaged and boost traffic to your site, you can use categorization and tagging to your advantage. Using the right categories and tags in blogs and articles will encourage readers to go through the entire website. You can overlook this opportunity at your own peril as many already have. Having your web posts without tags and categories could mean that you are losing your ranks with search engines.

Irrelevant External Links

They are as important as internal links and should be relevant, keeping your site in context. Search engines will pay attention to the links you have to other sites and compare the thematic content to ensure that there is a match. Hence it’s important to look at external links before posting because they should define you according to your vision.

Poor Quality Backlinks

Their importance cannot be overemphasized as search engines consider them closely while judging a website’s popularity and importance. It’s been seen that some bloggers use ways like buying backlinks from farms or sites that have been put up with the sole purpose of selling links. These backlinks are often of poor quality and will give a similar impression about your site to search engines. On the other hand few backlinks from authoritative websites are worth their weight in gold.

Not updating WordPress

Your whole WordPress website will have to be updated at certain times and you can benefit from features like enhanced security, fixes etc. It’s incredible to see many not updating their sites and thus running the risk of being vulnerable or stuck with a website that doesn’t function optimally. It’s criminal to let that happen, especially since a single click of a button is all it takes to update your website.

Not installing any WordPress SEO plugin

Surprisingly, this is another common mistake that is made by many WordPress users. There are several plugins like Inbound Writer, Scribe, WordPress SEO by Yoast, All in One SEO, which have their tremendous advantages for your site’s optimization. Each of these plugins however performs differently, and thus has to be chosen wisely based on your requirements.

Poor On Page SEO

If you don’t organize your page or post around a certain keyword so that it’s spotted by search, then it can be a huge mistake. According to many, it is one of the major factors of WordPress SEO. If you make a mistake here, chances are that all your other good work will come undone. Thankfully there are plugins you can choose to help you with this element.

Keyword Stuffing

Importance of keywords for search engine optimization is now well understood. But you also need to understand that keyword stuffing is considered to be an unethical search engine optimization practise. It could lead to a temporary or a permanent ban on your website.

If you wish to rank for a certain category of keywords then you can create a separate page for it and then optimize it. You can also avoid duplicating keywords and create pages with them built in as a part of the content instead. You will benefit from that immensely because having high quality and relevant content on your website is quite good for the ranking of your website. However make sure you stay away from keyword stuffing at any cost because it will only hurt your chances with search engines.

These are some of the common WordPress SEO mistakes that you can easily avoid and ensure that you are getting maximum benefits for your website.