SEO Mistakes You Should Avoid Making

Hi Folks

At least a couple of times a day I'm asked to give my opinion on a new members website.

I'm a very straight talking person and tell it how it is so I usually tell them exactly what I think of it. Some of the sites are good, and one or two are very good for a first time effort. Unfortunately even the very good ones have quite a few common mistakes.

This is mainly due to the new members having very little or no understanding of the importance of search engine visibility, which leads to traffic volume. They seem to place more importance on producing a 'Pretty' website. This is not a bad thing, but it really is secondary to the site's listing in the SERPS.

Hopefully, the following common mistakes made by quite a few website owners will help them generate more targeted traffic to their site...after all, isn't that what they want?

• Not using keywords effectively
  
  

This is probably one of the most critical areas of site design. Choose the right keywords and potential customers will find your site. Use the wrong ones and your site will see very little, if any, traffic.

• Repeating keywords
  
  

When you use the same keywords over and over again (keyword stacking) the search engines will most probably downgrade the page or site.

• Using unrelated keywords
  
  

Many unethical website owners try to gain search engine visibility by using keywords that have nothing to do with their website. They place unrelated keywords in a page such as the name of a known celebrity, or the hot search topic of the day inside a meta tag for a page. The keyword doesn't have anything to do with the page topic. However, since the keyword is popular, they think this will boost their visibility. This technique is considered spam by the search engines.

• Keyword stuffing

Somewhat like keyword stacking listed above, this means to assign multiple keywords to the description of a graphic that appears on your website by using the "alt=" HTML parameter. If the search engines find that this text does not really describe the graphic it will be considered spam.

• Stealing from other websites
  
  

How many times have you heard or read that "this is the Internet and it's ok" to steal images and text from websites to use on your site. Don't do it. Its one thing to learn from others, and another to blatantly copy their work. The search engines are very smart and will detect page duplication. They may even prevent you from ever being listed by them.

• Hidden text
  
  

You might think that if you can't see it, it doesn't hurt. Wrong.... Don't try to hide your keywords or keyword phrases by making them invisible. An example would be to have the keywords the same colour as the background of the page.

• Using very small fonts
  
  

This is another version of the item above (hidden text). Don't try to hide your keywords or keyword phrases by making them tiny. Setting the text size of the keywords so small that it can barely be seen does this.

• All search engines are not the same
  
  

Many people assume that each search engine plays by the same rules. This is not so. Each has their own rules and is subject to change anytime they want to. Make it a point to learn what each major search engine requires for high visibility.

• Forgetting to check for missing web page elements
  
  

There are some more things you should check as well as the above graphic shows, so make sure to check every page in your website for such as, missing links, graphics, etc.

This is just a few of the methods and techniques that you should avoid. Don't give in to the temptation that these methods will work for you. They will do your website harm than good.

Not only will you have weeks of wasted effort, your site could be banned from the search engines forever. Take a little time to learn the proper techniques for increasing search engine visibility and your traffic numbers will increase.

Ok folks there you have my opinion on having a great site that is search engine friendly.

Anyone with any other tips and advice can of course leave them via a comment below.

Have a great day and be successful.

Robert Allan