10 basic SEO mistakes to avoid

Editor's Notes

• #9: Missing robots.txt. This is a text file that contains parameters for indexing the site for search engine robots. If it is not on the site, then the robot will index the site as disorderly. This leads to get unnecessary information or not getting the right information into the index of search engines. The whole site is closed from indexing “Disallow”: /. Sometimes developers forget to open a site for indexing after the end of work, so it is always important to check whether your site has been opened for indexing, since there is no benefit from the closed site. Errors in the syntax: incorrectly written directives, lack of directives (for example, missing of a user-agent, its incorrect spelling, and the absence of prohibitory / permissive directives Disallow / Allow) Missing sitemap.xml file or the presence of "unnecessary" pages. The file serves as a map for robots, through which they navigate and learn about added or deleted pages. If you do not update the file, the robots will need more time to index, which slows down the result after the changes are made to the site.
• #11: Good article about the 302 and 301 redirects by Jonathan Hochman https://www.hochmanconsultants.com/301-vs-302-redirect/ Mirrors are not configured / not correctly configured (with or without www). In this case, the search engine can choose any mirror site as the main, which will not always be the right choice. Also, with unconfigured mirrors, all information on the site will be duplicated, which in the end will negatively affect the positions of the site. 302 redirect, instead of 301. 302 redirect is a temporary solution, which tells robots that it’s no need to delete the page as there are temporarily construction works on it, and 301 redirection is server redirection of users to another URL when changing the site address or page address. The response code for meaningful pages differs from 200 or 404 The redirects for index files (site.com/index.html or site.com/index.php/category reports 200 ok) are not configured. Often there is an error when the link to the Main page in the navigation elements leads to the page of the site site.com/index.php
• #13: There is no title field (not shown in the code), or automatic definition of the title does not occur from the main header (for example, on the first sentence of the content area) The auto-formatting of default header templates is incorrectly configured. For example: Title from the field on the page + title of the parent category + title of the Main page. Sometimes, the brand / company name is added to it, as a result, there are in an excessively long title, which adversely affects the relevance of the document. For WP, the problem often occurs when creating pages with the type "Record" Missing the description field (Google often forms a snippet from it) Elements of the template, for example, navigation or end-to-end blocks are decorated with the help of headers h1 - h6. As a result, the hierarchy of headers is broken (there are h1, h3, etc., but there is no h2), or on the page an excessive number of headers h of the same type (more than 1 h1, 20-30 h2, h3, etc.) Same meta tags on all or many pages
• #14: In the absence of additional add-ins or plug-ins, the title will be formed from the area which is selected on the screen (usually, it = h1, if this parameter was not changed in the template code). The title of the page is not always suitable for the content of the “title”, which is very important for promotion in Google. Some templates can ignore this area, and the title will not be formed (will be empty), or the title will be duplicated Title on all pages.
• #16: URL’s are not semantic (site.com/p=?123). Semantic URL’s are the best for the robots to approximately understand the content of the page. This leads to better indexation. And, as a result, to better ranking in search Missing static URL (do not use site-search or sorting-results URLs, such as: «site.com/search=?234category/&sort=?646» instead of static categories and sub-categories. This causes a large number of duplicates and an unstable capturing of the relevant page by Google (doubled pages change each other in the search results), long URLs that are poorly indexed; There are less informative pages, since in this case the search and sorting results are open for indexing. You didn’t hide search and sorting results from the indexation. While building up semantic URL’s there is no redirect from the old URL to the new one. If you forget to register it manually, a duplicate page appears, and there are a lot of such redirections for each individual page in .htaccess – it’s processing is slowing down. You didn’t remove a media-file links when uploaded an image, the image appears with it’s own URL, which is open for the indexation. As a result, there are lot of non-informative pages in index.
• #18: To use semantic URL, you have to choose Post name, or Custom Structure add-on. In the second case, you can specify a free structure for the URL, but if you do not know what to write (how to work with WP variables), it's better to limit the Post name (the URL will be formed from the page name). You can see how the semantic URL forms from the page title Good article about SEO-friendly URLs: https://www.shoutmeloud.com/useful-tips-for-structuring-urls-seo.html
• #19: • The page should be visually and structurally complete and at the same time match the general conception of the website design. • It is better to place links that can be useful to the visitor on the page, for example, on the website homepage, the catalogue, contacts, etc. • It’s important to apologize to visitors that the page isn’t working. • It’s advisable to place a search bar where the user will be able to find what he’s looking for. • You can tell about discounts and promotions on the page and that will let you interest visitors, etc.
• #20: The response code of a knowingly non-existent page differs from 404 (pages can get into the index, there are duplicate content on different URLs) A non-existent page gives the content of the hosting "stub", without the possibility to return to the desired site; Or the page is shown without filling at all.
• #21: • The page should be visually and structurally complete and at the same time match the general conception of the website design. • It is better to place links that can be useful to the visitor on the page, for example, on the website homepage, the catalogue, contacts, etc. • It’s important to apologize to visitors that the page isn’t working. • It’s advisable to place a search bar where the user will be able to find what he’s looking for. • You can tell about discounts and promotions on the page and that will let you interest visitors, etc.
• #23: If for some reason you can not remove such links from the site, they must be closed from indexing.close unnecessary links from indexation, namely external links (links directing to pages of the other resource). It will allow not to transfer the page weight to other websites and it will positively affect its optimization. To close external links from being indexed, i.e. to forbid robots to visit the links, add a rel attribute = "nofollow" in the robots.txt file which is stored in the root folder of the website. For example, that’s how you should add a rel attribute = "nofollow" to forbid indexation of the external link: <ahref= "site.com" rel="nofollow"> linktext</a>
• #26: Low pages loading speed (for example, due to the problems of paragraph 10, as well as because of slow server response or use of "heavy" uncompressed images in templates and content). The speed of downloading directly affects the position of the site in the search engines, as well as the behavioral indicators of users. Due to the low download speed of the site, a user simply can not wait to open the page and go to another resource. Google has a tool for checking the speed of downloading the PageSpeed ​​Tools, through it you can see if there are any problems and it’s reasons.
• #27: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/
• #29: Backdoor, «зашитые» exchanges tags (e.g. backlinks and ad-exchanges), executable ad-scripts etc... Here is an old but good article about backdoor in Wordpress: http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-find-a-backdoor-in-a-hacked-wordpress-site-and-fix-it/
• #31: WP websites cannot exist without a common plugin. Some developers use this breach in their own interests. We recommend to change your password from time to time and keep your CMS up to date Good resource about the topic: https://www.pluginvulnerabilities.com/
• #33: Invalid template code. Since almost every developer is able to build up a PHP template, there are many unprofessional templates in WP. Critical code validity issues. Code should be designed according to a specific rules and terms. You can check it at (https://validator.w3.org/). Heavy html. The code excessiveness could cause the downloading speed decrease. We recommend to check the template code before installation. Excessive php, decrease the page downloading speed Excessive JS и CSS, which are not in a separate file. Java Script and CSS can overload the website. We recommend to put them into a separate file.