Seo Mistakes to Avoid

Apr 16, 2012, by admin

Targetting the wrong keywords

This is a mistake many people make and what is inferior – even experienced SEO experts make it. People choose keywords that in their mind are evocative of their website but the average users just may not search them. For example, if you have a relationship site, you might discover that “relationship guide” does not work for you, even though it has the “relationship” keyword, while “dating advice” works like a charm. Choosing the right keywords can make or break your SEO campaign. Even if you are very ingenious, you can’t think on your own of all the great keywords but a good keyword suggestion tool, for example, the Website Keyword Suggestion tool will help you find keywords that are good for your site.

Avoiding the Title tag

Leaving the <title> tag blank is also very common. 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.

A Flash website without a Html Alternative

Flash might be good-looking but not to search engines and users. If you really persist that your site is Flash-based and you want search engines to love it, provide an html version. Here are some more tips for optimizing Flash sites. Search engines don’t like Flash sites for a reason – a spider can’t read Flash content and therefore can’t index it.

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 (or putting the links in a noscript tag) so that all your links will be crawlable.

Lack of Concurrence and Sustenance

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.

Focusing too much on Meta tags

A lot of people seem to think SEO is about getting your meta keywords and description correct! In fact, meta tags are becoming (if not already) a thing of the past. You can generate your meta keywords and descriptions but don’t except to rank well only because of this.

Using only Images for Headings

Many people think that an image looks better than text for headings and menus. Yes, an image can make your site look more distinctive but in terms of SEO images for headings and menus are a big mistake because h2, h2, etc. tags and menu links are important SEO items. If you are afraid that your h1 h2, etc. tags look horrible, try modifying them in a stylesheet .

Avoiding URLs

Many people undervalue how important a good URL is. Dynamic page names are still very common and no keywords in the URL is more a rule than an exemption. 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 contestants. Keywords in URLs are more important for MSN and Yahoo! but even with Google their comparative weight is high, so there is no reason for having keywordless URLs.

Backlink Spamming

It is a common illusion that it more backlinks are ALWAYS better and because of this web masters resort to link farms, forum/newgroup spam etc., which ultimately could lead to getting their site banned. In fact, what you need are quality backlinks. Here are some more information on The Importance of Backlinks

Lack of keywords in the Content

Once you focus on your keywords, alter your content and put the keywords wherever it makes sense. It is even better to make them bold or highlight them.