List of things to avoid for better ranking
While ‘what is seo’ clarifies about the search engine optimization concept and what is not seo talks about the misconceptions about SE , ‘what to avoid in seo’ warns you against perils of careless actions that you might take.
SEO has come a long way through from being carefully arranged keywords. Thanks to BERT, it now understands the context in which keywords are typed and analyses search history to give more comprehensive results. So no more grammatically excellent paragraphs with calculated keyword positions would help.
Disappointed Search Intent
If search intent is unsatisfied, the entire mission is capsized. Suppose you type SEO, what is the need that is associated with SEO? Do they want to know what is SEO? If your keyword is SEO services, it caters to those who would like to hire you in this regard. SEO in Chennai, would bring you local business.
Let us take a youtube search, for example. I am pretty sure we all might have faced this issue. In your search for a video, the title will be in English, but the spoken language inside would be different. You might be offering the solution to the user’s search, But unless you offer multi-language support, Don’t do this.
Traditional SEO techniques
Manipulating traditional SEO techniques and stuffing keywords would help no more, because Google has come up with ‘Google BERT’ that understands content without keywords as well as user queries, better. You might even get caught in a penalty.
Science and anything associated with computers constantly emerge, and the training never stop. Update lost is traffic lost. Google’s BERT updates nail in the coffin of keyword stuffing.
“Keyword stuffing” is the act of loading a website with numbers or keywords to influence the website’s ranking on Google search outcomes. The keywords are often found in lists or groups in a different context (not in natural language).

Lack of updates

Let’s take a WordPress site, for example. You get updates every month. An un-updated site is not just outdated but open to other vulnerabilities too. Always keep the website updated and provide the best user experience for your visitors. Google updates its algorithm frequently to ensure that users get the best content possible.
If you have an outdated website, Your site wouldn’t be listed in the first place despite having good content. Good content with the latest updates makes your site better for ranking. You need to understand the competition is high, and your competitors are likely making changes to their sites to outrank you.

Dismissing conversion probabilities
Converting leads into sales is a valuable practice that no business can afford to miss. Generating leads, convincing them with reviews, case studies are ways of engaging people.
Unclear goals
When SEO strategy does not know where it is heading towards, it obviously heads towards nowhere.
Parent & Child categories: The page you are trying to rank, Comes under a category. Is it relevant to the category you have placed in? The contents you have put inside must be relevant to the keyword you are trying to rank.
Not using Heading tags: Provide proper headings and subheadings. Paragrams should look monotonous with lengthy sentences.
Popups and widgets: Annoying popups, unwanted effects, and animation might affect your loading speed and user experience.
Internal Linking: No internal linking or too many internal or external linking can be avoided. Make sure you are linking to the right content and it’s not broken.
Decrease Your Bounce Rate: A high bounce rate can indicate a poor user experience. Track the visitors, and try to understand why they are leaving. Finding the right target audience plays a major role here.
Easy Navigation: If users are puzzled by the navigation option, you can lose potential customers. Visitors must feel user-friendly with the design and must be able to navigate easily. Basic navigation like returning to a page, search option, Breadcrumbs must be user-friendly.
Backlink Strategy: A well-planned backlink strategy is essential for every search engine optimization strategy. Build quality backlinks and not spammy backlinks. Ensure the links you build are from similar niches and not from irrelevant websites.

Mobile incompatibility
Almost half of the search today, is through smart phones. If the website is not responsive for mobiles, visibility is lost which is business lost. Websites are usually designed for laptops or devices that have larger screen sizes.
The controls aren’t designed to work with touch-screen user interfaces or smaller screen spaces. The concept of responsive design means designing websites to be adapted to mobile usage. Two of the main features of responsive design are providing a better viewing experience on smaller screens and aligning or orienting controls so that the mobile user can get to them.
Mobile optimization will become important aspects of web design in the coming years. While optimizing make sure that it doesnt get broken on other devices. CSS & JS minification, sometimes break the code on mobile devices.
Overlooking structured data
The website must be well structured. Topics like review content, address, books, events, and FAQ, fetch information easier. Optimization is necessary but make sure you don’t overdo it. Your content must be enjoyable. Human beings view the website with their eyes while bots crawl pages and validate the content based on algorithms. Make sure your contents are pleasant to the humans.

Writing for search engines than for people
A content that tries to satisfy search algorithm, but which does not helps the human who searched, is obsolete. Therefore, write contents for real people and BERT would take it to them.
Other must avoids
Neglecting out-of-date contents, ignoring poor site speed, forgetting to add relevant internal and external links, Failing to assimilate content into readable formats, careless or meager image optimization, concentrating on bulky content than precise informative reads, poor site structure and neglected URLs are all avoidable in SEO strategy. These are some of the things you should avoid in SEO.