You’ve just launched your shiny new website. You spent months developing the design. Your content is killer. Images sublime. In short, it’s perfect. So why aren’t more people visiting, referring and buying from you?

Our premise is simple: If people can’t find you, they can’t buy from you. At soulpepper, we make it easy for search engines to find your website when shopping online. While we use a complex system of strategies and tactics that will result in a significant jump in your online sales, there are lots of things you can do yourself that can increase your website traffic by 10%-15%. And the best part is that it won’t cost you a dime.

Since people rarely look past the first couple of pages of results when searching online, where your site ranks in a search is essential for directing more traffic to your business. SEO or Search Engine Optimization is an effective way to increase the number of visitors to your website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and others. Done correctly, SEO will ensure your website is actually found by a search engine which greatly increases the chances that you will be visited by an engaged user.

So let’s get started. Here’s a list of fundamental mistakes we commonly come across when conducting an SEO audit. See if your site is suffering from any of them.

You have more than one h1 tag

From an SEO perspective, it is a good practice to use just one h1 tag on each page. If you feel you need to use more then they should be separate pages.

 

You have too many on-page links

The more links you have on your page, the more power it takes for search engines to crawl and analyze it. Make it easy on everyone and streamline your links.

 

You post images with no ALT text

Without ALT text, search engines can not identify the nature of the content the image represents. This is one of the most common mistakes we find when performing SEO audits.

 

You have a page with little to no content on it

Search engines need a sufficient amount of content to index your pages and rank them for desired search queries. So give ‘em what they’re looking for.

 

You have pages with duplicate titles

Two pages with the same title may confuse your visitors as well as search engines as they try to understand and index your site. Especially on larger sites, take the time to comb through your page titles and make sure each one is distinct and not accidentally duplicated.

 

You have pages with the same meta description

This is a big no-no. Search engines do not like it when you have
a duplicate meta description on a number of pages. In fact, it is better not to have a meta description at all, than to have a duplicate one.

 

You have pages with duplicate content

Search engines dislike pages with identical content. Moreover, these pages will compete with each other for positions in search engines. Find creative ways to create compelling content that’s unique no matter where it appears on your website.

So there you have it. 7 simple fixes you can do yourself that will quickly turn your underperforming site into one that’s the envy of your competition. ‘Course If you really want to turbocharge your results, we’re just a phone call away!

 

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Written by Rik Klingle-Watt

About the author

Rik Klingle-Watt is a soulpepper and the writer of Not Business as Usual, an award-winning documentary about disrupting the business quo.

soulpepper is a digital marketing agency on a mission. We help companies that are up to something good, increase leads, attract more customers and drive more dollars to their bottom line. Check out our newsletter for more great ideas on how to build your ecommerce empire.