Web Site Design

3 Website Mistakes That Could Be Sabotaging Your Search Engine Rankings

by
Mark Burlinson
March 15, 2023
Avoid Common Website Mistakes to Improve Search Engine Rankings: Poorly Written Content, Lack of Internal Linking, Poor Quality Design
Getting better rankings for your pages is one of the main goals of SEO. Why? Because it usually results in getting more organic traffic to your website.
To put it simply: Better rankings = more visitors.

Source

3 Common Website Mistakes That Are Negatively Impacting Your Site's Search Engine Rankings

When it comes to optimizing your website for search engines, there are a few key things to consider. Unfortunately, many businesses make mistakes that can negatively impact their website's search engine rankings. In this post, we'll explore three common website mistakes that could be keeping your site from reaching its full potential. At Interface, we specialize in web development and can help you achieve your SEO goals.

Shady Grove Innovation District

With Boston Properties, Interface developed the brandy identity and website for Shady Grove Innovation District. With up-to-date design, high quality content, and and improved user-experience, the Shady Grove website checks all the boxes.

Mistake 1: Poorly Written Content

Content is a crucial component of any website, and it's important to make sure that your content is well-written, relevant, and engaging. If your content is poorly written and filled with spelling and grammar mistakes, it's unlikely to be picked up by search engines. Additionally, if your content is not relevant to the topic at hand, it won't be seen as useful to your visitors. This can lead to lower search engine rankings, as well as a decrease in website traffic.

Here are 5 great tools to start using today:

Grammarly is an online writing tool that helps you improve your writing by checking for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. It also provides suggestions for improving your sentence structure and style.

https://www.grammarly.com/

The Hemingway Editor is an online writing tool that analyzes your text and highlights sentences that are difficult to read, as well as words and phrases that can be replaced with simpler alternatives. It also provides feedback on sentence structure and word choice.

https://hemingwayapp.com/

ProWritingAid is an online writing tool that checks your writing for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors, as well as providing suggestions for improving your sentence structure and style. It also has features for checking your work for consistency, readability, and plagiarism.

https://prowritingaid.com/

Yoast SEO is a WordPress plugin that helps you optimize your content for search engines. It provides feedback on keyword usage, meta descriptions, and readability, as well as offering suggestions for improving your content's SEO.

https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/

Google Docs is a cloud-based word processor that allows you to collaborate on documents with others in real-time. It also provides features for formatting text, inserting images and links, and tracking changes made by collaborators.

https://www.google.com/docs/about/

However, one of the best tools out there today is ChatGPT. ( https://chat.openai.com/ ) ChatGPT can significantly enhance your writing by offering idea generation, vocabulary improvement, grammar and spelling corrections, sentence restructuring, and guidance on organization and coherence. Additionally, it can adapt your writing style to different contexts and assist with editing and revising, making it a comprehensive tool for refining your work and helping you become a more effective writer.

Mistake 2: Lack of Internal & External Linking

Backlinking, also known as inbound linking, is an important factor in search engine optimization (SEO) because search engines like Google consider it as a measure of a website's authority, popularity and relevance. Backlinks are links from other websites that direct users to your site. When reputable websites link to your site, search engines interpret it as a signal of your site's credibility and importance in your industry. Therefore, the more high-quality backlinks a website has, the more likely it is to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Backlinks can also drive referral traffic to your website. When users click on a link to your site from another site, it can increase the number of visitors to your site, which can in turn boost your site's visibility and reputation. Additionally, backlinks help search engines to crawl and index your site more effectively. When search engines discover multiple links pointing to your site, it indicates to them that your site is valuable and relevant, and they are more likely to include it in their search results. Therefore, building high-quality backlinks is an essential aspect of SEO and can significantly improve your website's visibility, credibility and traffic.

Make sure you look at a Backlink Audit to find the good links and bad ones.

Mistake 3: Poor Quality Design

The design of your website plays a large role in how well it performs in search engine rankings. A poorly designed website will be difficult to navigate and may even turn away potential visitors. Additionally, if your website's design is not optimized for mobile devices, it could be missing out on a large portion of potential visitors. Poorly designed websites are often overlooked by search engines, which can result in lower rankings.

Capitol Hill History

Working with the Capitol Hill Community Foundation, Interface developed a complete website with a searchable database to digitally catalog the oral histories of Capitol Hill residents for the Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project. With an improved user interface and new digital archiving tools, this website is set up for success.

Final Thoughts

Search engine optimization is an important part of any website. By avoiding the common website mistakes discussed above, you can ensure that your website is optimized for search engines and your rankings will improve. The key is to make sure that your content is well-written and relevant, that you have internal links to help search engines understand your website structure, and that your design is optimized for mobile devices. With these steps in place, your website can reach its full potential and you can start to see more website traffic and better search engine rankings.

You have a story to tell, an experience to create, an audience to reach. We have the tools, the talent, and the expertise to help. Let’s work together.

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