Search rankings play a direct role in the amount of traffic a blog receives. In fact, a study conducted by the marketing firm Chitka found that websites in the first organic, non-paid position in Google receive 32.5% traffic share for the respective keyword, whereas websites in the eleventh position received an abysmal 1% traffic share. This week, we’re going to discuss some things that are known to negatively impact a blog’s search ranking.
Duplicate Content
Don’t get me wrong, small amounts of duplicate content is perfectly fine and shouldn’t have a negative impact on your blog’s rankings. It’s not uncommon for blogs to use boilerplate content, quotes or excerpts, legal jargon, and other duplicate content across multiple pages. But if the base of your blog’s content is built around duplicate content, Google may penalize it. Use caution to ensure your blog is comprised mostly of unique, relevant content.
High Bounce Rate
We’ve talked about this before on our blog, but it’s worth mentioning again that a high bounce rate can and will impact your search rankings. Bounce rate is defined as the percentage of visitors to webpage or website who leave (AKA bounce) without clicking through to a second internal page. Here’s an example: let’s say one third of you blog’s visitors leave without accessing a single page within your blog. This means your blog has a 33% bounce rate.
If a significant portion of your blog’s visitors are bouncing, it’s usually indicative of a more serious underlying problem. Therefore, search engines may lower your ranking as a result. You can check your blog’s bounce rate using Google Analytics or similar web metrics/analytics software.
Links Not Working
Whether they are internal or external, you should get into the habit of double-checking your blog’s links regularly to ensure they are functional. If a site you were linking to is no longer in service, visitors will be greeted with a not-so-friendly 404 page upon clicking the link. Not only does this leave a bad taste in their mouth, but search engines may lower your rankings as a result. There are dozens of tools, both free and paid, which allow webmasters to check their sites for broken links.
Link Schemes
What the heck is a link scheme? It’s exactly what it sounds like: the process of creating links with the goal of manipulating search rankings. Google has begun to crack down on link schemes as of late, penalizing offending sites. Avoid paying or using automated software to create links to your blog and instead let them come naturally.
Are you guilty of making these blogging mistakes? Let us know in the comments section below!
Try http://www.brokenlinkcheck.com/ to see if your site has broken links
thanks for the brokenlink tip, just found 8 broken links that i didn’t know about