On-Site SEO Errors You Must Avoid
SEO has massive overlap, and it has a technical aspect that gets neglected. Let’s tackle those SEO issues, because it’s more than likely that you’re making these SEO errors you must avoid.
Use a nofollow tag to own URLs
You may wish to keep some pages hidden to thin content pages or hide archives. Although it’s an innocent mistake, never use the “nofollow” tag for those purposes. The said tag doesn’t prevent the search engines from indexing those pages. Rather, it ruins the PageRank flow of your site. In other words, this tag can throw away your PageRank.
Ignore canonicalization
The rel=canonical tag tells the search engines to index an individual page, rather than a current page. Its purpose is to prevent search engines from indexing duplicate posts. A canonical tag can pass PageRank to the canonical page. Thus, you don’t have to worry about losing the PageRank from a non-canonical page.
Misuse of outbound links
External links can dilute authority. If you don’t use them well, they can look like spam. The situation can get worse if those links utilize anchor text. That said, make sure that you’re using quality outbound links. Keep in mind that Google penalizes sites that use bad links. It can push down your ranking through its anti-spam algorithms. It’s also a mistake if you don’t have sufficient outbound links.
In some studies, they showed that sites with outbound links have better rankings than those site without them. In fact, Matt Cutts mentioned it in his past interviews that parts of Google algorithms are to encourage links to authority sites. It did confirm that outbound links are vital. Even though John Mueller stated that those links aren’t a part of a ranking factor, they can still add value to content, thereby, making it relevant for the audience. That said, by including citations can boost content’s confidence. Thus, don’t forget to include related links. They have indirect effects, but they can positively affect rankings.
Insufficient internal link structure
Google states in its guidelines that a site must have a logical link structure. It means that one static text link can reach another page of the site. Some CMS programs handle it automatically. However, the functionality can get broken. To remedy it, make sure to canonicalize a single page containing an entire post. Do so by reaching out to our SEO expert at (213) 322-0770. It’s also true for archives and other similar pages. Without a definite hierarchy, search engines can’t parse pages on your site that are vital. Having a definite hierarchy can help the search engines to understand your site, which is key in ranking better.
