Search engine optimization (SEO) is an inbound marketing strategy that brings consumers to your website, but it shouldn’t be any customer, it should be the right target audience. This is done with a number of different strategies, and for many who implement SEO into their strategy, it is done without the proper training and fully-encompassing knowledge of the industry and what is needed. 

These are the four most basic on-page SEO mistakes that are hurting your SEO ranking. 

1. Duplicate content

A SemRush study shows that 50 percent of on-page SEO mistakes are due to duplicate content. Duplicate content is content that is the same across several areas of a website, and it is not limited to the written content of the site. Duplicate content refers to title tags, and other areas of a site that shows up more than once on the internet. 

A great example of this is franchise companies who have their locations on the website but did not write new content for each location, instead, they simply took the content that was already existing and copy and pasted it. 

Done! That was easy, why would that SEO Dallas TX expert say we couldn’t do that? That is because this hurts your ranking in Google over time. At one point in time, this was okay to do on websites, but since the release of the Hummingbird update on Google, duplicate content is one of the silliest and easiest ways to hurt your ranking! Always put an emphasis on content, even if it takes longer to produce, it will help in the long run. 

2. Broken links

A broken link defines itself, but this is a link that sends a user to a website or page that is no longer functioning. This is because this page was redirected without a link telling search engines and users alike that this has moved. 

Cleaning up these links helps to improve the overall UX design for search engines and users alike because this keyword is taking them directly to the necessary link. 

3. Not knowing your audience

As of the biggest on-page SEO mistakes, even at the smallest level of marketing, is a company and its agency not having an understanding of its target audience. Because the whole thing about SEO is finding that target audience in search engines to bring in more website traffic and leads organically. 

Many companies and marketers often fall into the trap of believing that they understand their target audience, which they absolutely could, but if there isn’t a full understanding it can cause more website traffic but no users are converting. 

4. Creating and publishing poor quality content

Our SEO Dallas TX experts will say this time and time again, do not simply create content to put something out there. One way of this happening is hiring outsourced writers who will write the content or use software that takes an article and “rewrites” it for your website. 

At Dallas Media Group, all of our writers are in house and work in conjunction with our clients to accurately create SEO rich content.

These are the four on-page SEO mistakes that Dallas Media Group suggests that all companies start switching now to ensure a successful digital year. 

For help with content marketing, on-page and off-page SEO, contact our experts today!