5 SEO Mistakes To Avoid in 2021 (Must Read For Beginners)

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the backbone on this entire Google ranking game. In this detailed post we are going to discuss about few Top SEO Mistakes to avoid as a beginner. It is better not to apply SEO techniques, until and unless you are not 100% sure what to be done and that’s where many beginner do mistakes.

I will also mention the possible solutions for each of those problems so that you can be safe and secure with SEO and continue to be start and be successful in blogging and as an online entrepreneur. Without further ado let’s get started guys,

SEO mistakes to avoid to be successful in 2021 & beyond.

1. Ignoring mobile SEO.
2. Ignoring proper internal linking structure.
3. Creating bad content.
4. Keyword cannibalization.
5. Following old age SEO practices.

Now let’s learn all the mistakes step by step and I will also address what is the possible solution for that mistake.

1. Ignoring mobile SEO.

It does not matter what or which SEO techniques you use or change you make,If you continue ignoring the mobile SEO of your website, Hands down, It is the biggest mistake you could ever make to your website regarding SEO in 2021 and beyond.

If you are proactive with the changing SEO trends and practices and have properly implemented mobile SEO on your website, Kudos to you, But, For those of you who are unaware of mobile SEO, Here is a quick stat to open your eyes,

52.2% of all website traffic worldwide comes from mobile phones. 

And the trend of mobile usage is growing rapidly and going to increase more and more in the future. Okay, You know people are using mobile phones a lot more than desktops to access websites and other purposes these days. What can you do about it?

Focusing on mobile SEO more than ever now, As matter of fact, Google announced that in May 2021, core web vitals which is a Google update which largely focuses on the loading speed of websites both on mobile and desktop is going to be the important ranking factor in search engines.

Solution:

In mobile SEO, There are three important things that you need to look after,

Mobile-friendly website.

Make sure that your website is mobile-friendly, Users should not have to load the desktop version of your website every time they visit your website on mobile. You can either hire a web developer to make your website mobile-friendly or try a different theme if your website isn’t mobile-friendly.

Mobile speed Optimization.

Make sure that your website loads fast on mobile because website loading speed is key in Google core web vitals update which is a huge and important ranking factor, You can test your website in tools like Google page speed insights and improve your website speed based on the recommendations you get in the tool.

Mobile user experience.

Improve the UX of your website on the mobile version. You can do this by making a few tweaks on your website like,

• Easy website navigation.
• Users can get information within a couple of clicks on your mobile version(include search option) of your website.
• No aggressive popups and ad placement on mobile.
• Easy for users to click buttons and scroll the website or blog.
• Use a good font size ideal of 17PX to make your website content easily readable.

Now let’s learn the next mistake.

2. Ignoring proper internal linking structure.

Internal links are links to a web page within a website that are connected with each other under a single domain name. Here are 3 important benefits of using a good interlinking structure,

• Internal links help search engines to understand your website and crawl pages better.
• Interlinks help in passing the link juice and page rank from highly linked pages to pages that acquire no backlinks and thereby boosting ranking search engines.
• Good interlinking structure helps the audience stay on your website longer and read more information and you can boost your overall website authority in Google.

If you are either ignoring or not properly utilizing this strategy on your website then you are doing one of the biggest SEO mistakes in 2021.

Solution:

Internal links help boost authority and google rankings high of a blog. In such a case, you must utilize the strategy at its best to get the most out of it. There are a few things you can do about it like,

• Implementing Silo structure in your website navigation.
• Interlinking between pages that received lots of backlinks to pages that received none and passing the link juice and page rank.
• Using Keyword rich anchor text while internal linking lets Google know the importance of the page and index and rank it fast on Google.

Now let’s move on to the next mistake.

3. Creating bad content.

When I am referring to bad content, I am pointing my fingers at 3 types of content-specific. They are these,

Creating spam and low quality or duplicate/plagiarized content.

It is like a low-quality 500 words keyword-stuffed or copied blog post which is a terrible thing you can do to your website in 2021.

Creating content that does not match or fulfill search intent properly.

It is like content with good word count but it does not match the search intent properly. Here is an example, If you are targeting a keyword something like, “Best web hosting” where the searcher is looking for the best web hosting companies list, and if you write a blog post explaining what is web hosting and the types and benefits of web hosting.

Even if you rank on google with lots of backlinks, You won’t stay on top of Google for a long time because your blog is not relevant and doesn’t match the search intent of the keyword. It is as simple as that.

Not optimizing content for UX.

Okay, You have created original content with no spam or Keyword stuffing or no duplicate or plagiarized content. You have also matched the search intent properly in your blog post, But there is one important thing we are missing, Optimizing content for UX. UX like CTR and dwell time is a huge and important ranking factor in Google, If you forget that, You are making an important SEO mistake and you will have to pay a big price in the future.

To avoid such circumstances, let’s see what you can do about it.

Solution:

It is a simple and straightforward answer,

• Avoid creating spammy, Keyword stuffed, plagiarized content like stop copying and spinning content from other websites, either create a new piece of content or hire someone to do so.
• To match the search intent of the keyword, firstly search the Keyword in Google to see what type of pages are ranking, if the majority of them are informational ones you should do the same, vice versa.
• And last but not least, optimize your blog post for UX, format your blog post with lots of bullet points, numbered lists, and subheadings, most importantly use short paras including lots of videos and images.

These are the best things you can do to create good quality content. If you have a blog on WordPress you can check the top seo plugins on wordpress. Let’s see the next mistake.

4. Keyword cannibalization.

It is a practice of targeting and optimizing multiple blog posts for similar or same terms. Here is a perfect example, If you have multiple posts related to a single topic like this,

• Advantages and disadvantages of SEO.
• Pros and cons of SEO.
• Benefits and drawbacks of SEO.

Although the words used in the 3 Keywords are different the meaning and intent are very same. All these 3 things are very much the same thing,

In such a case you should only optimize your blog post for a single term but if you have optimized three different blog posts for these three different terms hoping for more organic traffic and higher rankings, sorry you are mistaken.

You just made a Keyword cannibalization mistake. Back in the day mainly in the 2010’s Google would rank 3 different terms on the search and drive You traffic to your website and it was not a problem back then, Today in 2021 and beyond with the advanced technology and algorithms of Google, it is a huge problem. Google understands the intent behind the keyword or query search rather than just ranking exact match terms in Google due to major updates and algorithmic changes like rank brain. Here is why it is a bad thing and harm your website quite a lot,

• Your own pages will fight with each other for higher rankings in Google for that topic.
• Your conversion rates will suffer.
• It will hurt your overall authority of the website for both users and Google.

So, because it has a direct impact on your conversions and authority of the website which will impact your revenue and prevention is better than cure, so. Here is what you can do about it then,

Solution:

Don’t obsess and emphasize much on keywords, Whenever you are writing a blog post, target topics not specific terms or Keywords. So the important thing to keep in mind regarding Keyword cannibalization is,

• Don’t focus on keywords, focus on topics.

If you already have done keyword cannibalization in your previous posts. Here is what you can do about it.

• Firstly identify the posts with the issue mainly duplicate content through running content audits.
• Check the performance of the blog post from factors like rankings in Google, the traffic it gets, backlinks it has got, conversions it produces, etc.
• Merge, delete and redirect other posts that aren’t performing well into a single blog that is performing well and good, make it a longer in-depth version of the post, and publish it.

Note: if you don’t want to delete and redirect other posts you can use canonical tags. With that said let’s see the next mistake.

5. Following old age SEO practices.

If we were blogging back in 2010, SEO was completely different and easy. It was not a big problem back then to do SEO, but the most common element in SEO is changing. Change is always constant in Google which is why we see regular updates in its algorithms all the time. Today what seems to be very common practice a few years ago is now a huge SEO mistake you can make to destroy your SEO efforts completely. I am referring to things mainly like these,

• Focusing on backlinks quantity over quality.
• Focusing only on text-based content.
• Not setting the right SEO strategies and goals.
• Not updating content.
• Not converting traffic into leads.

The mistakes are so big that they can actually destroy your entire SEO efforts without reaping fruits at all. Here is what you can do, explained step by step.

Solution:

Back in the early days of SEO, QUANTITY of backlinks was on rising, Build a bunch of backlinks on places like,

• Forums.
• PBNs.
• Low-quality websites.
• Blog commenting sites.
• Profile backlinks.

Just point a bunch of links towards your blog and you will shoot to the top of Google. Today, Due to the advanced tech and algorithms of Google, The trend has shifted from a QUANTITY to a QUALITY-based approach. And when it comes to building backlinks,

• Relevance and authority are huge factors in backlinks.
• Your anchor text of the backlinks also matters A Lot.
• Content quality from where you are getting backlinks also matters.

The lesson to be learned is, FOCUS ON QUALITY OVER QUANTITY while building backlinks. Another thing is, Use lots of visuals, videos, and images instead of just text in your blog posts to increase engagement and serve all types of audiences.

As a matter of fact,

• Video content drives 50x more traffic than text.

The lesson to be learned is, Repurpose your existing blog posts into videos, infographics, and audios. Coming back to updating content, it is another huge factor in SEO, You should focus on updating your existing blog posts for SEO because,

• It is easy to drive more traffic than creating a new post altogether.
• It helps you maintain rankings in Google and fight the competition.
• It builds trust and authority in the website.

Now the lesson to be learned is, Frequently update your old blog post with the latest facts and information. And the last thing you shall do is, Having an SEO strategy in place and converting traffic into leads and regular visitors.

It was very easy to rank on search engines back in the early days but now it takes a lot of time and effort in driving traffic from search engines. So it is highly important to have a good SEO strategy and goals in place so you won’t go out of the direction and fight the competition and win at SEO.

Also, use email marketing and push notifications to turn your traffic on your website to regular visitors and leads of your website. It is very important today to be successful in SEO.

Conclusion:

There you go, These are all the SEO mistakes majority of people are committing in SEO in 2021 and beyond.

Avoid these mistakes and continue being successful in this constantly changing and evolving landscape of SEO. If you like the post or found it helpful and valuable, share it with your family and friends. Do comment down what you think about the SEO mistakes in the comments section below.