You do SEO for the future. If you market your site with press releases but don’t optimize it for search engines, then you’ll have to keep writing press releases indefinitely. When the press releases stop, your website traffic is likely to stop as well. Another common mistake is that many organizations think the process completed once a site is launched. They don't realize that the web site needs to be promoted much like any other product or service. That’s why SEO should be continuously kept in mind to enhance your web performance. Last article, we mentioned some good tips in SEO and of course, along with any list of Do’s come the Don’ts. Then here they are…
1. Having no content
Your website needs content. The search engines need something to rank and you need a way to show authority with users and answer their questions. If you want to create a site that is rich in content and a popular resource amongst internet surfers, then adding quality, unique content is a must. Sure, the search engines like it too. It shows them your site is worthy of being ranked because it’s actively growing with information related to the theme of your site.
2. Lack of consistency and maintenance
If you want to be successful, you need to permanently optimize your site, keep an eye on the competition and – changes in the ranking algorithms of search engines. If you optimize your site today, you won’t see the results of your work tomorrow. You might not see the results even after a couple of months. Search engine optimization, like building a business, takes time to pay off. Therefore, try to focus on your long-term goals. Be patient, and keep working away at it. Eventually, your SEO efforts can turn into a steady flow of free qualified traffic to your website — potential customers coming to you. That’s a result worth waiting for.
3. Choosing keywords you can’t win
Even experienced SEO experts can make this mistake. People usually choose keywords in their mind that are descriptive of their website but the average users just may not search them. Or people may focus on very popular keywords which may not be relevant to the site. Even if you are very resourceful, you can't think on your own of all the great keywords. In fact, choosing the right keywords can make or break your SEO campaign. Most of the sites fail to do enough research on keywords. Using good keyword selection tools, such as Google Adwords Keywords and WordTracker, will help you find keywords that are good for your site. Be thorough in your research, don’t just do it once and forget it. Use as many tools as you can get your hands on – look at web stats and look at the logs for the search feature on your site – get a feel for what people are looking for.
4. Keyword Spamming and Stuffing
Many people may already understand is that keyword stuffing is an SEO technique of the past that should be avoided. Piling up the unrelated keywords needs to be reduced because most of the popular search engines including Google go through the content of the whole page. Therefore they index only the relevant keywords. So, just adding unnecessary keywords is useless. Don’t stuff keywords in your meta tags, image alt tags, etc. Don’t stuff keywords in your page footer with lightly-colored or hidden text.
5. Ignoring the Title tag and Meta tags
A common mistake is overlooking the importance of the title tag. More significant than the name of your business is what your business is all about. This is one of the most important places to have a keyword, because not only does it help you in optimization but the text in your title tag shows in the search results as your page title. Therefore tag should contain the most focused keywords.
Similarly, though you may think that meta tags do no good to your page rank but it cannot be a possible reason to leave your meta descriptions. The search engine research pages vary the description of your web page according to the search keywords. So it’s better to define your web page in the best way you think it will drag a reader towards your site. The tags you put in should be suffice and able to correlate to your page. A good optimized meta description can increase your CTR significantly. Also, a lot of search engines other than Google rely heavily on meta description for ranking your site.
6. Ignoring URLs
Many people underestimate how important a good URL is. Dynamic page names are still very frequent and no keyword in the URL is more a rule than an exception. Yes, it is possible to rank high even without keywords in the URL but all being equal, if you have keywords in the URL (the domain itself, or file names, which are part of the URL), this gives you additional advantage over your competitors. Keywords in URLs are more important for MSN and Yahoo! but even with Google their relative weight is high, so there is no excuse for having keywordless URLs.
7. JavaScript Menus
Using JavaScript for navigation is not bad as long as you understand that search engines do not read JavaScript and build your web pages accordingly. So if you have JavaScript menus you can't do without, you should consider build a sitemap so that all your links will be crawlable.
8. Poor internal linking
We talk a lot about the power of links in SEO. You want people to link to you with keyword-rich anchor text as a way of telling the search engines that you are relevant to those terms. Well, then why aren’t you linking to yourself the same way? When you’re linking between pages on your site, make sure you’re using preferred anchor text to give yourself a boost in the search engines and give users a keyword-rich path to follow. You may not be able to control how other people link to you, but you can control how you link within your own site. Make it count.
9. Flash website without an html alternative
Flash might be attractive but not to search engines and users. Great content embedded into a Flash website get invisible by the search engines. If you really insist that your site is Flash-based and you want search engines to love it, provide an html version. Similarly with Splash pages. A good alternative to both issues is to make use of a flash header. There’s no problem to include a flash animation at the top of your main site, or as a feature within the content area, etc. Because this is an addition to your web site, as opposed to a full separate element.
10. Overusing graphics instead of text
Many people think that an image looks better than text for headings and menus. Therefore, if you are too graphics-rich, you. Most search engines are not programmed to read graphics but instead look for text. may be bypassed by the search engines. An image can make your site look more distinctive but in terms of SEO images for headings and menus are a big mistake because heading tags and menu links are important SEO items. Whenever you’re using a photo, make sure there is also relevant text to accompany it.
11. Backlink spamming
It is a common delusion that it more backlinks are always better and because of this web masters resort to link farms, forum/newsgroup spam etc., which ultimately could lead to getting their site banned. In fact, what you need is quality backlinks.
12. Ignoring local.
You’re loco if you don’t do local! Therefore, make sure your site is listed in the relevant local engines or directories. Make sure your site is optimized for mobile! According to a recent survey, 1 out of 3 smartphone users have been led to a local business after finding in through local mobile search. Danielle Nohe, director, technology and entertainment for Compete, is calling on local businesses to optimize their sites for mobile/smartphone users.
13. Ignoring social media/networking
SEO and social media are interconnected in a way that many people don’t want to admit or acknowledge. Social media is not just a passing trend that is a distraction from “real work” – social media does impact SEO and it can increase exposure and traffic for your site. You don’t have to like it, but you do have to do it (if you care about keeping your site on the forefront). If it’s overwhelming, start with getting a killer Facebook Fan Page up and work on building fans, and then introduce Twitter and then move on to YouTube. It’s OK to do it in stages, just make sure you are working towards social media mastery.
14. Ignoring the trends in the industry
Search engines and social media sites make changes often. Staying current is important for many reasons: you want to be sure your site is cutting edge and taking advantage of all strategies and techniques that are proven to work, you also want to make sure you aren’t wasting your time on old school stuff that doesn’t work. SearchEngineJournal is a great place to stay current and hear all the latest and greatest!
15. Over-optimized pages
Sometimes people go off the deep end after learning about SEO. They start creating overly keyword-rich pages in an effort to move their rankings upwards. This can quickly make for a poor user experience, resulting in a decrease in conversion rates and/or the site being less attractive for others to link to.
Even organizations that are aware of SEO's importance have a tendency to start the process too late. The best way to prevent these mistakes from happening is with education. If you need help with putting that together, hire a senior SEO professional to come in and do the job for you. Once they understand the business implications of their decisions, most senior managers will make far better decisions about the website and SEO.
