Study Reveals Biggest On-Page SEO Blunders

In a recent on-page SEO study completed by Raven Tools, it was found that the most widespread on-page SEO issues in 2015 are un-optimized images, duplicate content and under-utilized schema.

Let’s take a look at each of those items a little more in depth.

Un-Optimized Images

We'll start by checking out an image that’s been optimized well. I often look for desktop backgrounds that fit the season, so I’ll choose this real-life example. I’d like to find a Thanksgiving wallpaper for my desktop. So, let’s google "Thanksgiving desktop wallpaper." Here's what comes up:

Of course, images are the first result. Let's take a closer look at that very first image that pops up once we navigate into the image search.

Why does this image come up as the number one result? There are a couple different factors, but notice the information there on the right about the picture. You see how it says "Thanksgiving Free Desktop Wallpaper" and under that it says "Thanksgiving-wallpapers." Seems like they matched my query pretty well! What happens if we navigate to the page this image is from and check out the source?

Ah-ha!

title="Thansgiving Free Desktop Wallpaper" alt="Thakstiving Free Desktop Wallpaper" src=".../Thanksgiving-wallpapers-600x330.jpg".

That, my friends, is an optimized image. File name, title tag and alt tag are all optimized and relevant.

Now, will adding these tags to your images and naming them well automatically send you to the number one image spot for the keywords you use? Definitely not. But when considering overall SEO, these fields are clearly noticed by Google. Showing up in image search isn't even a relevant goal for many queries, but using your valuable image real estate to show Google what's on your page is huge. Read more with ALT Text: The Ins & Outs of Using Photo Description Tags. 

Duplicate Content

"This content works both here and here, so I'm going to put it in both places."

"This piece of content from another site is really awesome - I'm going to copy paste it onto my own site and mention the author."

Have you ever uttered either of these phrases? Odds are, even if you haven't, your site could have duplicate content on it. 

So what's the deal with duplicate content, anyway? Let's go to the subject matter expert: Google.

In some cases, content is deliberately duplicated across domains in an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings or win more traffic. Deceptive practices like this can result in a poor user experience, when a visitor sees substantially the same content repeated within a set of search results.

So in a nutshell, Google hates duplicate content because it can lead to a poor user experience for its users. Most of your duplicate content issues most likely won't be the kind that Google unlists your site for, but leaving duplicate content issues alone could result in your content not being seen as often as it would be otherwise.

Luckily, duplicate content is usually a fairly simple fix. For instance, on your website, maybe in your navigation your contact us page is /contact-us/, but you link a callout on your other pages to /contact-us (no slash). If your website brings up both of those pages without redirecting one of them, you've got duplicate content. All you have to do is fix that link, or forward /contact-us to /contact-us/.

There are several tools that will crawl your website for you and alert you to duplicate content issues. Try Siteliner.

For more about what duplicate content is and how to fix it, head over to Google Search Console Help.

Under-Utilized Schema

Say what? This one gets a little techical, but hang with me here and I'll show you.

Situation: It's a Saturday morning. Everyone's hungry. You decide to make blueberry pancakes for breakfast. You open your trusty friend, Google, and type in "Blueberry Pancakes." Soon, you're scrolling through infinite pancakes, looking for one with good ratings and doesn't take too long to prepare.

Have you noticed that you're looking at those two factors without clicking through on the results? For several of the posts, you see rating and how long it'll take right there in the search result.

Is it magic?? Nope. It's schema.

Schema is basically a set of tags that you put in your content to tell search engines what it is. So, for a recipe, you include a tag in the code that tells Google "hey, this is a recipe!". Then, you tag other parts of your recipe with the recipe tags that schema.org provides, such as rating and prep time. You can also indicate ingredients, instructions, and whether the recipe is an appetizer or a dessert. All of this information is used to display your content the way it was intended, and can even increase the click-through rate from search.

Pretty snazzy, eh? There are so many elements on your website that you can mark up with schema. Maps, videos, photos, music, your blog, articles, your address, your products...the list goes on.

Check out the full list of possible schmas here.

Read the full on-page SEO report here.

Does your website suffer from any of these blunders? We can help!