8 Common SEO Mistakes That Hurt Your Website’s Rankings

Launching a new website, or trying to improve the one you have so it ranks better on Google and other search engines? Building the site is only the first step: it also has to be optimized for search engines.

To help, here are the key points to check if you want to earn a place in Google’s results.

Why Optimize Your Site for Google?

As a reminder, a site optimized for search engine optimization (SEO) makes it easier for Google to recognize its quality and show it to searchers near the top of the results.

And good rankings (page one is the goal) mean more traffic and more conversions.

Millions of websites compete for attention. Without optimization, most of them go unnoticed by the world’s leading search engine.

As an SEO team, we see the same issues again and again. Here are the 8 most common SEO mistakes that hurt a site’s rankings on Google.

1) No HTTPS: Security Comes First

HTTPS is the secure version of HTTP, the protocol that carries data between the server and the visitor’s browser, and it appears at the start of your site’s URL.

What’s the difference? HTTPS encrypts that exchange, which protects your visitors from having their data or information intercepted.

Google has used HTTPS as a ranking signal since 2014, and since 2018 Chrome has labeled pages served over plain HTTP as “Not secure.” A warning like that is enough to make many visitors leave before they even read your page.

An unsecured site is also an easier target for attackers. If your site isn’t on HTTPS yet, fix it right away to protect your visitors and earn their trust (and Google’s).

2) Weak or Missing Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

The second most common mistake on unoptimized websites involves tags.

Each page on a website should have a clear purpose and focus on one specific topic.

Whether your site runs on WordPress, Shopify, Drupal, Joomla, or another platform, you need to pay close attention to your title tags, meta descriptions, and heading tags (H1, H2, and so on).

The title tag and meta description are what searchers often see in Google’s results: the clickable headline and the short snippet beneath it. Google sometimes rewrites meta descriptions, but a well-written one still gives you the best shot at the click.

These tags should match the topic of the page, so that whoever clicks lands on exactly what they were looking for.

Likewise, the page itself should be well structured, with a clear hierarchy of headings: an H1 for the main title, H2s for subheadings, and so on.

That way, Google sees a page whose content, headings, and tags are consistent. If it judges the page relevant, it will rank it.

The most common tag problems we find:

• Titles that are too long or too vague: Google doesn’t set a hard character limit, but it cuts off long titles in the results, so put the important words first. See our guide to title tag SEO.
• Duplicate titles and meta descriptions: every page should have its own.
• Missing tags altogether.

3) Unoptimized Images

Many sites neglect their images, yet images matter for SEO.

Simply uploading an image isn’t enough. Google analyzes images and ranks them in Google Images, too.

Unoptimized images can hold back a site’s overall performance. By unoptimized images, we mean:

• Images with generic file names (like IMG_0042.jpg)
• Images without alt text (a short description that helps Google understand the image and helps visitors who use screen readers, which is good for user experience, too)
• File names with special characters or spaces
• Images that are too large or too heavy, which slow down your pages, especially on mobile

Our guide to image SEO covers the details.

4) Duplicate Content

Google favors original content. When the same content appears on several pages of your site, or is copied from other sites, Google generally picks one version to show and filters out the rest. Your pages end up competing with each other, and a page you care about may not show up at all. Copying content from other sites to manipulate rankings can lead to a manual action.

So aim for as much original content as possible (titles and meta descriptions included) across every page of your site and, above all, never plagiarize.

5) Content That Isn’t Relevant

Content is the foundation of your site. Minimalist designs are popular and can look great, but a page with almost no text gives Google very little to work with.

What matters isn’t volume for its own sake. Your content has to be useful and relevant; otherwise, Google has no reason to show it to people searching for what you do.

The goal: when someone types a query into the search bar, the answer to their need shows up first.

To create relevant content, start by researching the most popular topics in your industry. It makes more sense to write about things people actually search for than to publish pages on topics nobody looks up on Google.

In SEO jargon, those specific search terms are called keywords.

To help Google see your content as relevant, focus each page on one topic and vary your wording and vocabulary.

Write with Google in mind, but also keep the user experience front and center. Visitors should find everything they need to know about your business right on your website.

If your site is available in several languages, make sure your hreflang tags are correct and that languages don’t get mixed: you shouldn’t find Spanish copy on an English page, or vice versa. Our international SEO guide explains how.

Likewise, links, whether they point to internal or external pages, should be relevant.

The anchor text leading to a link should tell Google (and readers) where it goes.

6) Neglecting the Mobile Version

Most web searches now happen on mobile devices.

Your site has to work just as well on mobile as on desktop.

That way, visitors can browse your site comfortably. And there’s a bonus: Google indexes and ranks sites based on their mobile version, so a poor mobile experience affects your rankings everywhere.

7) Slow Page Speed

People are more impatient than ever, and every extra second of loading time costs you visitors and conversions.

A slow site loses traffic, and page experience, measured through Google’s Core Web Vitals, is one of the many signals Google takes into account.

Speed is often dragged down by a poorly optimized mobile version or oversized images. Our guide to website speed optimization shows where to start.

8) Pages That Aren’t Indexed

Another major problem we find on sites that don’t rank is pages set to “noindex”.

Those pages are effectively hidden: search engines are told not to include them, so they can’t rank.

To fix this, check the indexing setting for each page; most CMS platforms and SEO plugins have a simple option for it.

You can also submit an XML sitemap, which tells search engine crawlers which pages to read, and use the Pages report in Google Search Console to see which pages are indexed and why others aren’t.

As you can see, optimizing your site is an essential step if you want to show up on Google.

Want a second pair of eyes on your website’s SEO? Référenceur is a French-speaking digital marketing agency from Belgium and Luxembourg that works with U.S. businesses remotely, from technical fixes to content. Get a free assessment.