Most Common Problems affecting a Website’s Search Engine Performance

Owning a website and letting it be on its own without auditing or improving its performance does not good for your business, nor can it get potential customers. A timely manual website audit is a must because like any other website your website might also be undergoing certain common problems which need to be known & resolved asap. Here’s a detailed view on it.

Common Mistakes/Errors:

• Canonicalization Issue
• Https over Http
• AMP Version
• Header Tags
• Custom 404 Page
• Image Optimization
• Broken Links

– Canonicalization Issue

Canonicalization helps search engines in picking the best URL from several alike options available. It generally refers to the home page. It can direct different URL to the same page e.g. https://www.premware.services and https://premware.services. In case if you want your default URL to be https://premware.services/,  You can make your web server such that if someone requests https://www.premware.services/, it does a 301 redirect (permanent) to https://premware.services/ That helps Google and other search engines know which URL you prefer to be canonical URL.

– Https over Http

Using HTTPS for your website is highly recommended as unsecured sites are in a constant threat of being hacked. HTTP is unsecured while HTTPS is secured. HTTPS has added security and trust. It protects users against man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks that can be launched from compromised or insecure networks, this can lead to increased conversion and loyalty. HTTPS transmits its data security using an encrypted connection. If we talk from the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) point of view, Google confirmed the small ranking boost of sites using HTTPS.

– AMP Version

AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) are an open-source project to ensure whether mobile webpages operate at optimal speed. One can Check AMP mark up with the AMP validator.
AMP for SEO not only increases your rankings but also helps one to get more click-throughs (more traffic) from the organic search results. One can even get more time on site and more conversions. It also improves local SEO.

– Header Tags

Headings help in defining the hierarchy and the structure of the web page content, they are important to a quality user experience and has a great impact on your SEO ranking.
HTML offers six levels of heading tags, <h1> through <h6>; <h1> tag defines the most important heading, whereas the <h6> tag defines the least important heading.

Main purposes for HTML header tags:
– Optimize page readability
– Improving the relevance of the page

Your header content plays an important role in matching your content to a finder’s query. Search engines rely on HTML header tags to help determine if a page answers the finder’s query. A page’s h1 tag(s) is one of the most important places to use a keyword. It generally consists of the topic titles or important headers to draw one’s attention. The H2 tag(s) represents the second most important headings after H1 on the webpages, this consists of mostly the subheadings. Also, one should avoid using too many H1 and H2 tags as it may make the topic more complex, or look like spam tactics.

– Custom 404 Page

Whether your website is using a custom page for 404 error or not will be known by your web developer or SEO expert. Creating a custom 404 page with existing important links will help to reduce bounce rate and keep the users engaged on your website via the sales process. It will also let your branding remain consistent and might attract external attraction as well.

– Image Optimization

Adding alternative text to photos is of utmost priority. Users who have difficulty in viewing image can view it by an alt attribute to better understand an on-page image. If an image is taking more time or is not shown on the page due to low connectivity or other issue, Alt tags will be displayed in place of an image. They provide better image context/descriptions to search engine crawlers, helping them to index an image properly.
Using relevant keywords and text in the alt attribute can be quite helpful to both users and search engines to easily understand and interpret the subject of an image. This process is called Image Optimization.

– Broken Links

Not only Broken links cast a negative impact on the user but it adversely affects your website’s overall ranking.
This will aid in finding any broken or dead links in your website including both internal broken links (pointing within your website) and external broken links (pointing outside of your website). Moreover, This will also help you check whether an URL is working properly or not, its availability, whether it directs towards the original destination, or it has been moved. It will help you analyze the website and the underlying issue and assist in fixing if any.

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