Top 10 SEO Mistakes

1.  Targeting Keywords Based on Traffic and not Conversion Rate

More and more, untargeted keywords lead to low conversion rates.  Driving traffic without measuring conversion rates is a mistake many people make.  It is easy to cheaply generate traffic based on keywords that do not lead to conversions, which leads to a site with lots of useless visitors.  Make sure to use an analytics package that can measure the true value of a search engine referral.

2.  A Flash website

Flash is not read by search engines.  If your site contains a great deal of Flash that contains keywords, you should create HTML equivalents.

3.  Having Keywords in Images

The text in an image is not read by search engines.  Since many sites have their primary keywords in the main banner, they are not being indexed by search engines.  The ALT attribute of the image tag can help with this, but it is better to have your keywords in text.

4.  Ignoring the Title tag

Search engines use the <title> tag to determine ranking.  Leaving the <title> tag empty is 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.

5.  Using JavaScript to Display Content

Search engines do not read content rendered by JavaScript.  If your site relies on JavaScript to render content, such as with many CMS systems, it will not be indexed.

6.  Using JavaScript to Display Links

Like the previous issue, search engines do not follow links generated by JavaScript.  If you must use JavaScript menus, you should build a sitemap so that all your links will be visible to search engines.

7.  Concentrating too much on meta tags

Meta tags are not as important to search engines as they used to be.  They are still a step in SEO, but other items are far more important. 

8.  Non-Relevant Backlinks

Google has stated that it uses an algorithm to rate backlinks for quality.  Non-relevant backlinks are ignored, and some experts believe may actually harm ranking.  Do not resort to submitting to link farms, forums or newsgroups.  Instead, get quality backlinks from sites that are complementary to yours.  

9.  Keyword Stuffing

This is the practice of using too many instances of a keyword without any context to increase keyword density.  A few years ago, this actually worked, but these days your site is likely to be delisted from search engines.  

10.  Hidden Text

Using hidden text (done by making text color the same or very similar to the color of the background) is just as bad and usually goes along with keyword stuffing.

3 Responses to “Top 10 SEO Mistakes”

  1. Sometimes SEO strategies are proper today and mistakes tomarrow.
    We are playing by Googles rules, and they get to change them all
    the time. But, I enjoy it.

  2. It involves accumulating the most amounts of quality links as possible from
    other sites. SEO training classes in Delhi, make
    students learn about the on page SEO and off page SEO etc.
    The very start of backlinking to your new site is the worst because you have zero and need a lot
    more.

  3. There are literally hundreds of ways to build effective, solid links,
    but it all starts with quality over quantity. Specific popularity
    links: search engines favour links from a similar websites to your site rather then
    off topic links. This is one method you can do, while using article based content
    to drive users to your website as well.

Leave a Reply

(required)

(required)

© 2011 SearchTerms.com