Are you considering blowing up your website and building it from scratch? Are you unhappy with how your current site is performing or ranking?

Before you invest thousands of dollars into a new site, you should know that a new website can't fix a flawed SEO strategy. As a matter of fact, you might actually be able to save your current site with some cheap (or even free) fixes.

If you're planning on launching a new site, make sure you're not dooming it to fail by making any of these far-too-common mistakes.

1. Stale Keyword Research

Keyword research has an expiration date.

If it's been a few years since you initially did your research, it's very possible that:

1. The keywords you're focusing on are no longer relevant

2. The keywords you're focusing on are now more competitive

3. New and valuable keywords have emerged

"It's possible that you're trying to rank for keywords that don't actually drive sales or move the needle for your business," said Paul Teitelman, owner of Paul Teitelman SEO Consulting.

"Fresh research can reveal a few hidden gem opportunities. You can find low-competition keywords that you can reasonably rank for. And these could be searches that actually drive people's purchase decisions."

2. Bad Links

Bad links are tied to your domain, not your website. They will follow you wherever you go.

The quantity and the quality of your site's backlinks have been major rankings signals for Google since the Penguin update a few years ago. If you have never performed a backlink audit, you may not be aware of some spammy links that may be hurting your SEO value right now.

This audit can be done quickly and inexpensively. At the same time, The Penguin is part of Google's core algorithm, which means that any good work you do to clean up your link profile will show up almost immediately.

3. Bad Hosting

If you're going to invest in a new website, make sure you protect that investment by going with a reputable hosting company. This is not an area where you will want to save money, despite what any cheap hosting ads may promise you.

Bad hosting leads to bad performance and inconsistent speeds, which can kill your SEO value. Your site's load speed is poised to get even more important after Google's Core Web Vitals update later this year.

4. No SEO Strategy in Place

Despite the many advances in web design, there is sadly still no such thing as a set-it-and-forget-it website.

Approximately 70% of surveyed small businesses don't have an SEO strategy of any sort. This is basically gift-wrapping traffic and SEO value to the other 30%.

The good news is that the problems that we covered today are all free (or cheap) to fix. They only cost you the time it takes you to do things the proper way.

Take your SEO strategy seriously while your new site is being designed and you will save yourself a lot of frustration (and money).