Top On page SEO mistakes for beginners

The SEO On page are all those actions that are carried out within a web page, and that directly affect the positioning of the same. All these on page factors are the ones we try to use when carrying out a web positioning strategy, since they help optimization and, consequently, favor the appearance of our page in the first positions of the search results. However, there are some very common mistakes that people often make that penalize the whole strategy. We tell you all about it in this article, read on!

Duplicate content

We often say that content is king, or rather, SEO-oriented content is king. This statement could not be more true, so having duplicate content is one of the factors that will penalize your website the most in the eyes of Google. Duplicate content is defined as identical or very similar text fragments that coincide between two or more web domains.

The reason why duplicating content is considered malpractice is obvious. On the one hand, if the different URLs of our page present the same information, the search engines will not know how to differentiate between them and, as a consequence, cannibalization will occur, that is to say, a competition between them to position themselves in the results of the search engines.

Another obvious reason is that the content not only affects the on page level, but also the user experience, so we must try to offer information of value and interest to it, and thus achieve loyalty and differentiate ourselves from the competition.

In order to avoid falling into this problem, we recommend that you take into account the following steps:

• • Merges and/or deletes pages with the same content
  • Indicates with the “rel=canonical” tag which is the original page.
  • Make use of the “noindex” tag or apply
    301 redirects
    to indicate to search engines which pages you do not want to index.
  • Be creative, original and avoid plagiarism.

Alt attribute on images

Another conditioning factor is the SEO images, since the lack of alt attribute in the web images. The purpose of naming images correctly is to facilitate the work of search engines, since they use descriptive information to understand the visual content and categorize it. At this point it is important to keep in mind that the alternative tags must include keywords that contribute to the positioning.

This factor also affects content marketing and user experience by helping visually impaired people navigate a site through screen readers that describe the information provided by these tags. An image that does not have an alt attribute does not provide value to the user and may even generate a high bounce rate.

Title and metadescription

Undoubtedly, we can say that the title (or title) and metadescription (metadescription) of each URL that makes up a website, is one of the elements that most affect the SEO on page, as they contribute to web positioning and improve the user experience, as it is the first thing they see in the results of search engines.

The most common errors are the following:

• Duplicate titles and metadescriptions: if having duplicate content is not good, duplicating titles and metadescriptions is not good either, since we will be confusing search engines and negatively affecting the user’s experience.
• Inadequate length: falling short and going overboard in terms of characters is another common mistake that can penalize you. Make your titles no longer than 70 characters and your meta descriptions no longer than 160 characters. In addition, it is important that the title includes the keyword for which we want to position a URL, and that the description is as striking and attractive as possible for the user.
• Lack of titles and meta-descriptions: the last case that commonly occurs is the lack of titles and meta-descriptions. These pages do not allow search engines to perceive the importance of the contents and make it impossible for users to know what they are going to find within each URL.

There are numerous plugins for WordPress, as well as tools and extensions that can help you detect problems such as duplicity and lack of titles and metadecriptions.

Broken links

Both user experience and navigability within a site are two of the most important factors to take into account to avoid a high bounce rate and loss of visits. If a user who is browsing ends up on a 404 page, he will leave with a bad image of the site and will probably not come back.

We recommend that you have a fixed control over the internal and external links of your web page to avoid that Google robots catalog them as broken links, since, if this happens, they will not revisit the content on those pages.

H1 tags

Headings are another essential element of on page SEO, since they function as a description of the most important information on a page. The most important tag is the one known as H1, which must include the keyword for which we want to position the URL in question. It is important that only a single H1 heading appears on each of the pages, followed by other tags that serve to hierarchize all the content and structure, such as H2, H3, and so on up to H6.

One of the most common mistakes is to put more than one H1 per page, as well as not putting any header tag. Likewise, as with titles and metadescriptions, we should not have duplicate content either, as it will penalize us.

Word and keyword density

Word density is another determining factor that will favor or penalize the organic positioning of your web page. The most important url is the home page, so it must be the most complete in terms of extension. There is no optimum maximum word count, but a minimum of 1500 words is recommended. As for the other strategic pages, we should have content of a minimum of 600 or 700 words.

Naturally, there is no quantity without quality, so we must provide valuable information that is relevant to the user. In this context, the keyword density per page also comes into play. Although it is not one of the most relevant factors for Google when it comes to positioning a web page, it is an aspect that influences the user experience. To do this, it is important to use synonyms and not to overuse the keyword for which we want to position ourselves. It is recommended that the keyword does not appear in more than 2% of the text. Here is some additional information about the keywords.

Importance of On Page factors

As you can see, on page SEO encompasses a large number of factors and elements that directly condition the positioning of a web page. In this article we have only focused on the most common mistakes that people who are not experts in SEO tend to make, so that you can get an idea of everything you need to take into account. If you need advice and you want to know how to make your business grow exponentially thanks to an SEO strategy, do not hesitate to
contact Rodanet’s team.
. Together, we will make your business go as far as possible.