This way, it has become necessary for every website owner to build a website not only compatible with the various browsers on the desktop but also for the various devices including the smartphones. You have got a great website but your users can only access it through a laptop or desktop. Do you expect them to visit your website regularly? Not at all. They will find an alternative for the website, and you are forgotten. First, you need to make your website run on every device possible so that you don’t lose your customers easily.

But building a mobile website is not enough to sustain in the ongoing tough competition. Here you need to focus on the SEO of your mobile website as well. Yes, the mobile website also needs to be optimized separately to rank better in the searches. For that, you need to put some extra efforts. But sometimes, you have got the SEO game on too, and some mistakes we make ruin it all. So there is nothing better you can do but avoid making them. Here are some of the mobile SEO mistakes, that you might be making and causing your website damage:

Not Making Your Website Responsive: In the past few years, smartphones have become the major source of traffic for every website existing. When you are out of your home, or office, it is obvious that in an emergency or otherwise, you grab your smartphone for a query on Google, booking a cab or some other purpose. Also with the app development being so common today, people are more apt to use a smartphone rather any other device. So it has become important that every site owner builds a website that fits the mobile screen such that the end-user can conveniently access it. With maximum traffic coming from mobiles, you can’t risk losing the visitors by not having a responsive design for the website. You are never sure about the size of the device your end-user is using. So it is an intelligent decision to get your website a responsive design.

Not Focusing on a Certain Audience: While developing your website or at the time of the planning, you must specify the type of the audience, you would be targetting through your website. This way, you will get your content done specifically to your specified audience only, saving your time and efforts. By focusing on a generalised audience, you cannot plan the promotions well. After defining a particular group of people, you need to categories them based on their education, financial status, their needs and a few other things, such that you can provide what they want and can attract the right traffic to your website.

Not Optimizing the Page Load Speed: Slow page loading is a complete no-no, whether the user is accessing your website on the desktop or their smartphone. In fact, while using a smartphone to access a website, considering the small size of the device, the user expects it to load even faster. So having a slow load speed is a turn-off and puts a negative impact on them. A website with 5 seconds or less load speed gets high ad viewability as well as longer than average sessions. High load speed makes the visitors leave the website and move to other option really fast. The slow loading speed not only affects the user traffic but also gets your website even lower in the SERPs ranking. So it is quite disheartening to see the users go back just because of the loading speed when you have got everything on your website that can help them with their needs.

No Mobile Optimization: Today, there are three times more users using the internet on their smartphone than a desktop or laptop. So not optimizing your website for the mobile is the biggest mistake you will ever do. In fact, Google has mentioned many times that you can’t neglect mobile optimization when you want to rank your website higher in the SERPs. Mobile optimization is nothing but adjusting your website content in a way that they are easily accessible and provide the best user experience. To optimize the website for mobile, you need to make sure the content is visible on the screen of a mobile device and can be scrolled through. The images on the website must be high quality, the fonts must be readable, every button should be clickable, and the videos used on the website must get a compatible player. As said earlier, make sure the template you are using is responsive and make use of the Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), to provide the users with a faster experience.

Blocked Files: Every SEO expert is working to get each content on their website to be seen and crawled by Google. But sometimes there are files like a javascript or a CSS file, that are blocked, and Google is not able to crawl it. According to Google, the websites, having blocked files, will ultimately get lower ranking in the SERPs. So keeping such files is only a risk, that no SEO expert would want to take. If you are struggling with the ranking of your mobile website, you must check for the blocked files on robot.txt file of the website. To do so, you need to go to the Google Search Console and test the Robot.txt file. To make sure you don’t have any indexing issues in future, use the Fetch by Google feature.

Poor Use of Interstitials: Having interstitials on the entire screen of your website and a hidden close button, is one big mistake that you can make with your website. The user is always annoyed with unwanted ads and over that you annoy them more with a few popups one after another. This leads to nothing but the visitor leaving the website asap. Since these can also be your most compelling CTA, you cannot entirely stop letting these interstitials on your webpages. But as suggested by Google, you should make sure that these occupy a specific area on the screen, and do not prevent the users from accessing the content of the website. If your site fails to do that, Google may punish you with poor site ranking.

Unresolved 404 Errors: Though a 404 error may be due to the wrong URL a user typed, sometimes it is due to the broken links that your website might be holding. These can also be of the webpages that webmaster did not create a mobile copy of. To avoid having the 404 error on the mobile devices, you need to make sure that the users get to see the exact content on the mobile site as they can see on the desktop. Having broken links is really bad for your website ranking, so try to eliminate the 404 pages as much as you can.

SEO is the most important process for every website, and when it comes to the mobile website, you need to take extra care and optimize the website well.

Xornor Technologies is a leading website development company in India with vast experience in SEO and digital marketing. If you want to get SEO or digital marketing services for your website, feel free to contact us.

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But what is On-Page SEO?

On-page, SEO is a practice of optimizing every page of the website, in terms of the content of the website as well as their HTML code, in order to get high ranking in the Google searches. Since the SEO algorithms keep on changing, you need to keep up with the changing technologies and strategies of the SEO as well.

Here is the latest on-page SEO checklist for a website which you need to follow to get good results in terms of the ranking of your website:

1) Meta Tags

Meta tags are snippets or small describing elements which tells the Bot what the web page is all about. For the SEO of a page, you must include and define all the meta tags in the HTML code of the web page. These tags are not visible to the end user of the website, but to the search engine. So these are really important for the ranking of a website. The meta tags used in SEO are:

• Title tag: This is the same title tag, which appears on the browser tab, and is written in the head tag of the HTML code. The same title also appears on the SERPs. It has to be keyword-friendly, and every page should have a unique title. By default, the character length for a title is 50-60 characters (600 pixels).

• Meta Description tag: A Meta Description is the summary of your content on the web page, having a character length between 140 to 160 (920 pixels). You must write SEO-friendly and unique content for the description, having the important keywords in it.

• Meta Keywords Attribute: This attribute includes every keyword which is relevant to your content on the webpage.

• Alt tag: Alt or alternative tag is used with the images, and it is really important that you use this tag in every image on your site. The bot cannot read the images, but it can read the Alt tag. So the Alt tag helps the bot to understand the content of the image.

From the SEO point of view, the mentioned tags are the most important ones and must be included in every page of a website. There are other meta tags, including Robot Meta tag, Canonical tag, Social Media Meta Tags (Open Graph and Twitter Cards), Responsive Design Meta Tag, which are used only when required.

2) Heading Tags

The Heading Tags are used in HTML for defining different sizes of the headings on a webpage, starting from H1 (the biggest) to H6 (the smallest). While using the Heading tags, you must write content-relevant headings including the appropriate keywords, as these help the search engines to analyse what your content is all about.

3) SEO-friendly URLs

A keyword-friendly URL of a webpage helps the bots as well as the humans to understand the theme of the landing webpage and improves the site’s search visibility. The maximum URL length is 512 pixels.

4) The Content

“Content is the king”, this has been repeated millions of times, but it goes only to unique and relevant content. For better SEO of your website, you must update the content in the form of blogs or articles, regularly. Never forget to add important keywords to it and maintain the proper keyword density. Since you will be updating the content regularly, the bot will get to know about it and will crawl your website faster.

5) Optimize Your Images

Optimizing the images of a website is the most important step to be taken during the process of SEO. Image optimization includes adding a caption to the image, resizing it without compromising its quality, and most importantly, using the alt tag along with it. Like the other content, the image must also be unique and relevant to the context of the web page.

6) Speed

The speed of a website is the major factor in increasing the bounce rate. Since people have got access to the faster internet, nobody wants to wait for a website to load for too long. The average load time for a website or a webpage must be optimized to 3-4 seconds, and not more than that.

7) Mobile-Friendly

According to the latest researches, people are more active on their smartphones, and it is the only device providing maximum engagement. Mobile-friendly websites rank better in the SERPs. So make sure your website is mobile friendly and easily accessible.

8) Free Reporting Platforms

Tracking the traffic on your website is a really important part of SEO. Google has provided free reporting platforms, Google Analytics and Google Console, to track the performance of the website on the Google searches. Google Analytics helps you to track the location of a user, the page on which the user has been active, as well as which type of traffic it is, i.e., referral, organic, paid (display and search), direct, social, etc.

On the other hand, Google Console helps in tracking the source of the backlinks you get, the status of Sitemaps as well as Robots.txt, the performance of the clicks, impressions, CTR, average position of the search queries, webpages. With the help of Google Search Console, you can also track the country and the device from which the traffic is coming. It can also check the errors like the 404, blocked pages by Robots.txt and shows which page is indexed and which one has been crawled.

9) XML Sitemap

The Sitemap of a website helps the crawlers to follow all the webpages of your website through their links. So from the SEO point of view, it is important to create and update the sitemap of a website as to index your website, the Search Engine must see all your webpages.

10) Robots.txt Is accurate

A part of the robots exclusion protocol (REP), Robots.txt tells the web robots on how to crawl and index a particular webpage. It is created through the webmasters, and every time the search engine is about to visit your website, it will check the Robots.txt file.

11) Site Architecture

A better site architecture of a website helps the crawlers to move from one page to another quickly and make a copy of every page. Those copies of the web pages are stored in the index, and whenever the users search for something, the crawler checks it in the Index.

12) 404 Pages

The 404 appears when a user enters a wrong URL, or the website does not have a page with the same URL, it had given to the text, on which a user had clicked. Getting the 404 pages is not bad, as it does not always appear because of the fault of the website owner. But at the same time, it can be a turn off for the site visitors and can hurt the SEO of the website.

First of all, you need a great design for your 404 webpage. To prevent the visitors from clicking that back button on receiving the 404 error, you must add several informative links on the 404 page, such that the visitor does not leave the website. The reason being, if the visitors go back to the Google searches due to the occurrence of the 404 error, and click other links in the searches, it indicates Google that your content is not adding any value and if it happens repeatedly, your ranking is hurt badly.

13) SSL Plugins

Most of the people are not sure that the data they post on various websites is secure or not. It happened only a few years ago when Google announced HTTPS as a ranking signal. But still, only 1% of the websites have implemented this SSL certificate on to it. The HTTPS brings extra security between the browser and the server, adding an additional layer for the security of the data like the credit or the debit card information. This helps the site visitors to trust the website, and share their personal information on it.

14) Structured Data

Like the SSL, most of the marketers are not aware of Structured Data, or we say Schema.org, and only a smaller percentage of website owners are using them. With the help of Structured Data, you can control how your website, and its other entities, must appear in the SERPs. The Structured Data helps the search engine to understand the content of your website and display search results in a specific format. You can manage this result format and show the highlights, like good reviews as the snippet, for the search results. This makes the search results look richer, and this is why these richer results are also called rich results or rich snippets. Since Structured Data helps the search engines to understand your content better, it helps with the ranking of your website.

The post On-Page SEO Checklist: All You Need to Know appeared first on Xornor Technologies.

Just using the images on the website does not work for the SEO, but defining the various attributes like alt text, captions, image name, etc., are the key to image SEO. Since the SE crawlers cannot see the images, these attributes help them to get all the details about the image and how it is related to the content of the website, resulting in a better ranking of the website in the searches.

So images are one of the important assets of SEO, and here are the tips that you can follow for the better image SEO:

1) High Quality & Original Images: Using high-quality images on a website makes the website look more attractive and enhances the user experience. Also when the images are original, i.e. belong to your company itself, it puts a great impact on the user of the site. Original images do not need a high-budget setup, but you can get those images by yourself using a good camera. And, for the infographics or other images, you can take the help of a good designer who can design high-quality pictures for you. Also, many website owners use stock photos on their website, which is great as they pay a good amount for those pictures. But do you know, there are other people also, who spent money on the same pictures? So to avoid any kind of duplicity, try to produce your own pictures for the website instead of taking them from any stock websites.

2) Relevant Images: Your website talks about selling clothes, but you have put the food pictures on it. Does it make any sense? No! Right? In the case of images, it is quite simple. The image must represent the context of the textual content on the web page. The images are more expressive and are helpful in simplifying the complex content into a simple form. Using wrong images on your website can turn off the visitors.

3) A Big No to the Copyright Images: The other reason to use original pictures, on your website, is to avoid the copyright conflict that can occur when you use some random pictures from the internet. Copyright claims on the images are not good for your website, and also for you, as you can get into an expensive lawsuit. The companies that own the pictures can issue a notice for not taking their permission to use the images, which is valid under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). And this is not only for the images, but the same goes for the other content on the website too.

But in any case you are unable to create relevant images for your content, you can simply search for copyright free images on Google (using the Usage Rights too in the Google search) or try to write down the credits for the pictures whenever you use them.

4) Choose the Right File Type: Choosing the right file type for the images is also another important part of Image SEO. Commonly, there are three most used file types, i.e., jpg, png and Gif. All the three types are slightly different from each other but fall in the same category. The png files render the highest resolution of all, but at the same time, they have the biggest file size too. So most of the people use the jpg format of the images, as they provide high resolution at the smaller file size. But in case of the designed graphics, both gif and png are the better choices. So try to choose the file type for the images according to the content on the website.

5) Image Size and Hosting: Another prime factor in Image SEO, is the size of an image, as the page load time for a website depends on it. The bigger size of the image is a major agent in slowing down the page load time for the website. According to the researches, on a new website, the users wait for the site to load only for ten seconds and leave the site immediately. So for better user engagement, one must maintain the page load time to its lowest. As image size plays a big role in the same, you must optimize the size of the image every time using a new image on the website. The images can be resized or compressed to an extent, using various tools, keeping the quality of the image intact.

6) Naming the Images: Naming the images might look an easy task, but then is also the most critical one. In the Image SEO, the name of the images has its own role to play. While naming the images, try to choose a name which is relevant to the content. Or you can simply use the target keyword along with the content related name of the image, making it a descriptive one. The image name is not visible to the users, but it is helpful in providing the content information to the search engines.

7) Captions & the Alt Text: Alt Text or the Alternate Text is another most important constituent in the Image SEO. Using the alt tags carefully is beneficial to the overall on-page SEO strategy. Most of the search engines are text-based, and when the image takes longer to load, or in the case, does not even display, it is the Alt text that appears on the screen, and the SE reads it. When there is no alt text given for the images, in the same situation, the screen appears as an empty space to the search engine, which affects the SEO of the website. Like the name of the image, the alt text also should be relevant to the content. You can create a descriptive alt text having SEO-friendly keywords in it.

8) Image Sitemap: For better SEO, creating a sitemap is a common thing, but did you know that Google also encourages creating a sitemap for the images used on the website for better search engine ranking? You can add the images to the sitemap, or you can create a separate sitemap for the images. It helps the search engines to add those images to the index, such that the images also show up in the searches. Using the image sitemap, the crawlers find those images and the information embedded with them, most likely. This increases the visibility of your images as well as the website on which those images have been used.

Following these tips, you can encourage your website’s load time, increase the visibility of the images in the searches, and most importantly, help in the Search Engine Optimaization of the website.

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Lack of Well-Written Content: There is a sea of eCommerce websites on the web, and here, your content will help you make your own place. You must prepare the content after proper research on the product and highlight its main features. A well-written content may not be entirely responsible for grabbing all the traffic, but yes it definitely will make people be more attentive towards what your website is trying to sell.

Improper Keyword Research: Keyword research is one of the most crucial tasks in SEO. So not performing the same for your eCommerce business, can be a huge risk and lead you to failure. So doing proper keyword research is the prime thing to do for a good SEO ranking of your website.

Keyword Stuffing: There are a few major components of the content on the website, including the headings, meta descriptions, product descriptions, the real website content, etc. Most of the people think that more they use the keywords in those, the more the chances be that the website will be ranked higher in the SERPs. But this is completely wrong. Keywords are important, but stuffing the content with the keywords will lead to spam.

Duplicate Content: Whether it’s SEO for an eCommerce Website, or for any other website, duplicate content is never going to help you get the desired traffic. Even most of the products in a category are similar. So you need to create a distinct title as well as the description for the product, that defines the product in an attractive way. Try to write a keyword-friendly title and a keyword-friendly description for the product such that the product gets crawled higher on the Google search.

Not Using Social Media Platforms: Thanks to the Smartphones and the easily accessible internet that people spent most of their time scrolling on the various social media platforms. This habit of people has resulted in making big eCommerce companies to use the same for showcasing their products on them such that they can now reach more people with lesser efforts.

Marketing is what your eCommerce website is supposed to do, and using the various social media platforms to endorse your products and services will be an addition to your marketing strategy.

Lack of a Blog: Content is the king and what else would be the better way of getting more content onto your website than setting up a blog. The context of the blog and the articles in the blogs must be relevant to the service you are providing through your eCommerce website. The articles in it can be from your technical team or from the famous influencers, such that updating the blogs regularly will lead your website to more traffic.

Compromising the Security: The eCommerce sites hold the most sensitive data of its user, including their name, email address, address as well as the payment method and its details. So the security is the major concern you have to take notice of. If you are hosting an eCommerce website, you are bound to provide the highest of the security to data of your users.

So, you must adopt SSL security encryption, most preferably, Extended Validation SSL (EV SSL) certificate and HTTPS for your e-commerce website.

Poor Website Loading Speed: You must admit that unless it is too important, you can’t stay on a website that has a poor page loading speed. Most of the people go off the website within merely 8-10 seconds, if it does not load faster. They might wait for a while in case they really want to get the information stored on the page, or in case of an eCommerce website, there is a huge sale on it. So with a poor website load time, you cannot expect any new person to stay on the website and wait till it is loaded properly. So you must optimize your page loading speed, in order to make the shoppers stay on your website.

No Product Reviews: The user reviews are really helpful in hiking the SEO ranking. Genuine product reviews play a vital role in the success of every eCommerce website, as the reviews are the best way to ensure the authenticity of your products. The better the reviews, the more you are able to build trust among your customers. Lack of reviews may create doubts in the mind of shoppers, and there are high chances that might decide on not investing in a certain product or service on your website.

So, you must have a feedback form on your website that the buyers can fill after they punch in the successful delivery of the product, or you can send your buyers personal automated emails for the feedback.

The competition in the eCommerce industry is growing day-by-day, and there is no time to make mistakes. Even if your product is an outstanding one, you must focus on the better SEO techniques and keep yourself updated with Google’s algorithm to attain higher search engine ranking.

The post 9 SEO Mistakes You Must Avoid for the Growth of Your eCommerce Website appeared first on Xornor Technologies.