10 Most Common SEO Issues Found During Site Checks

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the best way to get more people to see your website. But here's the problem: even the most beautiful websites often have problems that keep them from ranking well on Google without anyone noticing. That's why it's important to do site checks (SEO audits). 

An SEO checker can show you both technical and content-related problems that could be hurting your site when you run a full audit. We see a lot of the same problems at SEO Site Checker, no matter how big or small the business is, from new businesses to well-known e-commerce sites. 

We'll talk about the 10 most common SEO problems, why they matter, and how to fix them in this article. This guide will help small business owners, marketers, and SEO fans avoid the mistakes that can hurt your rankings.

Why it's important to check your site regularly for SEO 

Before we talk about the problems, let's talk about why it's important to check your site regularly. Google and other search engines use more than 200 factors to decide where to show your page. If you don't have all the right things, you could end up on page 5 instead of page 1. 

A good audit helps you: 

• Find technical SEO problems like slow site speed, broken links, HTTPS, and crawlability. 
• Fix mistakes in on-page SEO, like duplicate content, titles, and headers. 
• Make the user experience (UX) better so that people are more likely to engage and convert. 

Keep up with changes to Google's algorithm. You can do a full SEO audit in less than two minutes with the free Website SEO Score Checker. 

1. Meta tags that are missing or repeated 

Meta tags, which include title tags and descriptions, are like your online store. Google won't know what your page is about if you don't have them or if you have two of them. This often means that click-through rates (CTR) and rankings are lower. 

📍 Example Problem: 

• Title: "Home" (too broad) 
• "Welcome to our site" is the description. (duplicate on all pages) 

How to Fix It: 

• Make sure your titles are unique and include your target keyword. They should be between 50 and 60 characters long. 
• Add interesting descriptions (150–160 characters) to get people to click. 
• Use our Meta Tag Analyzer to quickly find problems by running a check. 

📖 Google's guide on snippets and titles is an outside resource. 

2. The speed of the website is slow. 

Websites that load quickly are important to Google. Research shows that a one-second delay in page load time can cut conversions by 7%. Visitors get angry with slow websites and leave. 

How to Fix It: 

• Use tools like Image Compressor to make images smaller. 
• Use our CSS Minifier to make CSS, HTML, and JavaScript smaller. 
• Pick a good hosting company and turn on caching. 

📖 Google PageSpeed Insights is an outside resource. 

3. Links that don't work (404 Errors) 

Links that don't work make the user experience worse and send bad signals to search engines. They can happen when pages are taken down, URLs change, or outside sites go down. 

How to Fix It: 

• A lot of SEO tools have a Broken Link Checker. 
• Send people who click on old links to the most relevant pages. 
• Use our URL Opener to check your links on a regular basis. 

📖 Ahrefs on Broken Links is an outside source. 

4. Not enough mobile optimization 

More than 60% of Google searches now come from mobile devices. If your site doesn't work well on mobile devices, you're losing visitors and rankings. 

How to Fix It: 

• Responsive design means that your site should look good on all screen sizes. 
• Use Google's Mobile-Friendly Test Tool to check. 
• Make images smaller and make it easier for mobile users to find their way around. 

👉 Check how your site looks on different devices with our Website Screenshot Generator. 

5. Images that don't have alt text 

Alt text makes your images easier to find and helps search engines understand them. Without it, your pictures won't show up in Google Images, which is another way to get traffic. 

How to Fix It: 

• Include descriptive alt text that includes your target keywords. 
• Don't stuff your keywords; keep it natural. 
• Instead of "image1.jpg," use "Houston plumber fixing leaking pipe." 

📖 W3C on Alt Text is an outside source. 

6. Content that is the same 

Unintentionally, duplicate content can happen, like when there are multiple product pages with the same description. Google might have trouble picking which version to rank. 

How to Fix It: 

• Use canonical tags to point to the original page. 
• Rewrite and improve duplicate pages that have different content. 
• Use the Rewrite Article Tool to check and update content that isn't very valuable. 

📖 Google's position on duplicate content is an outside source. 

7. Pages with little content 

Pages with less than 300 words and no real value are often marked as low quality. This happens a lot on product or service pages that don't have enough information. 

How to Fix It: 

• Add more information to your content by including FAQs, case studies, or customer reviews. 
• Use long-tail keywords to target specific searches. 
• For example, instead of just saying "Plumbing Services in Houston," say what kinds of services you offer, what the benefits are, and how much they cost. 

👉 For tips on how to write SEO-friendly copy, check out our guide on Content Writing Services. 

8. Using header tags wrong 

Header tags (H1, H2, and H3) organize your content. It can confuse both readers and search engines if it is used incorrectly (for example, if there are more than one H1 or no H2s). 

How to Fix It: 

• Use one H1 tag for each page (the main topic). 
• Use H2 to group sections and H3 to group subsections. 
• Make sure they are descriptive and keyword-rich. 

📖 Ahrefs on Header Tags is an outside resource. 

9. Website that isn't secure (no HTTPS) 

Your site is marked as "Not Secure" if it still uses HTTP. This hurts both trust and rankings. 

How to Fix It: 

• Get an SSL certificate (many hosts give them away for free). 
• Send all HTTP pages to their HTTPS versions. 
• After the move, check in Google Search Console. 

📖 Why HTTPS is important as an outside source. 

10. Problems with missing XML Sitemap or Robots.txt 

Sitemaps make it easier for search engines to crawl your site. Robots.txt tells them which pages to look at and which ones to skip. If you set it up wrong, you might block important pages. 

How to Fix It: 

• Make an XML sitemap and send it to Google Search Console. 
• Be careful with robots.txt; don't block important pages. 
• For example, allow /blog/ but not /admin/. 

Google's guide on sitemaps is an outside resource. 

Last Thoughts 

You can avoid most of these SEO problems by checking things regularly. You lay the groundwork for long-term growth by fixing problems like broken links, duplicate content, or missing metadata. 

👉 Are you ready to find out what problems your site's SEO has? Use the Website SEO Score Checker to check your site for free right now, and then check out SEO Site Checker for more than 65 other free tools.