Minimising SEO Errors on Your Umbraco Site
Do you have your website built on Umbraco?
Do you ever get frustrated by your website not ranking on Google searches, even after using the most relevant keywords?
Keywords alone aren’t enough to keep up with the demands of the Google search engine algorithms these days. As an Umbraco CMS website owner, you may be making some errors that are stopping your site from ranking higher.
While there are plenty of great ways for you to update your SEO strategy, you can’t overlook these common SEO mistakes.
The Importance of SEO for Umbraco Sites
- More than 80% of shoppers conduct online research before making a purchase (Invoca)
- Over 90% of online experiences begin with a search engine (Techjury).
Having an SEO-friendly content management system like Umbraco is important for your business as search engines are one of the main drivers of traffic to your website. But SEO doesn’t just help to drive any old traffic to your website, it helps to drive the right traffic – and that’s incredibly important as it means you’re attracting people who are actively searching for your product or service.
In simple terms, if your website is optimised for SEO, it can have a huge impact on your website’s visibility, traffic, and its overall success.
If you’re interested in working with an Umbraco SEO Specialist, get in touch with Egnetix Digital.
What makes Umbraco unique for SEO?
Umbraco’s flexibility and customisability has made it the CMS of choice for many businesses including Mercedes, B Lab, Landscape Services and more but why is it such a good option for SEO?
- Control over on-page optimisation – Unlike some other CMS platforms, Umbraco gives users total control over title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and image alt text meaning you can add in the right keywords to help you rank higher on SERPs.
- Clean and semantic code – Search engines like Google use semantic code to understand the structure and content of web pages better. Umbraco allows users to use the right HTML elements and tags, and this can help Google to rank your site more accurately, leading to better visibility and organic traffic.
- Mobile friendly design – Over 70% of purchases are made via our smartphones now which is why it’s more important than ever to have a site optimised for mobile. With Umbraco setting up your mobile website is made simple to set you up for success. You don’t have to create a separate site for mobile.
- Structured Data Integration – Umbraco lets you integrate Schema.org markup into your website. This structured data signals to search engines information about your content which can lead to more search results and an increase in click-through rates.
- Internal linking – Umbraco has a great interface for managing internal links, this makes it easier for users to link pages together, creating a strong website structure that Google values.
Common SEO Mistakes to Avoid
Improper Use of Templates
If you have limited HTML knowledge, templates can be a great way to start your website. But you do have to be mindful of them as many aren’t SEO-friendly. Updating title tags, meta descriptions, and header tags are all incredibly important as they help to show search engines your website’s purpose. If these elements aren’t customised, it can impact how you show up on Google.
Neglecting Mobile Optimisation
Google now uses mobile-first indexing for pretty much every site online. If your site isn’t optimised for a positive user experience, it will negatively impact how it performs in search results, and in some cases prevent it from appearing at all.
Ignoring URL Structure
Google recommends keeping URL structures simple. By keeping query parameters in the URL simple, it can help Google (and visitors) to understand what the URL is about.
Skipping Meta Tags and Descriptions
If you own a website, you should always prioritise writing meta tags and descriptions, otherwise you jeopardise your site being shown correctly on Google, and this will impact your organic click-through rate. If you skip these two elements, you can lose traffic and rankings.
When written accurately, you can actually persuade visitors to enter your site. Think of them as a little synopsis to entice visitors with.
Lack of Keyword Strategy
Not having a keyword strategy isn’t just an SEO mistake, but also reflects your poor digital marketing strategy. If you don’t know your target audience or your niche, you may be bringing the wrong visitors to your site and this can increase the bounce rate, making you slip down the rankings on Google.
By understanding your audience and discovering your USP, you can identify what its needs are. Once you have this nailed, you can begin to implement your keyword strategy and start to see your site rise on results pages.
Ineffective use of Heading Tags
Not using heading tags correctly can also be a costly mistake for your Umbraco website because search engines make a connection between the content and words written in the heading. H1 is the most important type of heading, and it’s important to only use it once throughout your content.
Once you have your keyword strategy in place, you should add keywords to your heading tags wherever possible as this can help you to rank better and gain more organic traffic to your site.
Poor Content Organisation
Poor Content Organisation can lead to a whole host of problems. Not only does it cause confusion for visitors to your site attempting to find what they’re looking for, but it can also negatively impact your search engine rankings.
By arranging relevant posts together, it becomes much easier to identify missing or duplicate information as well as quickly update old files.
Not Setting Up 301 Redirects
Each time you update a URL on a page, you need to consider any external websites that link to it, or users that may have it saved. If you don’t redirect traffic from the old page to the new page, it’ll bring up errors for your visitors, meaning you could lose out on potential business or views because users won’t get to the right place.
By setting up 301 redirects, you can direct traffic to the right place. This is because 301 redirects tell web browsers that the URL has moved, as well as the content’s new location.
Finally…
Mistakes can happen to any website, regardless of content management system, but the important thing is understanding and correcting them. If you have a robust SEO strategy and are staying close to trends and movements with SEO algorithms, you can ensure a strategy that works for you day in day out.
Who are Egnetix Digital?
Egnetix Digital, a leading SEO consultancy based in Kent with more than a decade of experience, specialises in enhancing the performance of Umbraco CMS websites through strategic SEO implementations. We harness our deep understanding of Umbraco’s unique capabilities to empower brands, ensuring their digital presence thrives in competitive markets. Our approach includes revitalising existing content, a proven method that significantly boosts organic search rankings and drives sustained business growth for our clients. If you’re looking for an SEO partner to deliver tailored SEO solutions that transform your Umbraco website into a powerful business asset, then contact us today.