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As the internet adapts and changes so does the importance of different SEO techniques. However, there are some optimization practices that remain firm and also happen to be where most companies make their mistakes. Here are the top offenses.
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Title tags are the single most important on-site SEO factor. They provide a peek into the topic and relevancy of your page. Don’t include them and you will land squarely at the bottom of the search engine results. Make sure there is a title tag on each page and that it includes your most important keywords. The message you convey here can impact your traffic and certainly your search engine ranking. On that note don’t use the same title tag for each page of your site. Search engines list pages, not websites – so a unique title tag for each page of your site provides you with a new SEO opportunity.
Misuse or lack of proper keywords as well as the overuse of keywords is another mistake. Focus on the main topics related to your business and what you provide. Make sure keywords directly reflect what you are offering, but also that they are not overused or too wide in their meaning. Do some legwork by researching keywords related to your business to determine the best ones. Remember, if you do not have enough keywords in your content search engines will not pick them up – too many and search engines will scream foul and blacklist your site.
Another frequently made SEO blunder is ignoring the importance of fresh and unique content. There is a strong relationship between the amount of new content on a site and its ranking in the search engines. Both search engines and site visitors like fresh content, it gives them a reason to come back. If you are not updating your content, your site becomes stale and dated. But don’t forget to diversify! SEO is not made up of fresh content alone.
No links, internal and external link anchor text mistakes, and bad links round out the top SEO blunders to avoid. Consider every site or person that links to your site as a vote to increase your ranking. This is not to suggest that you go out and exchange links with everyone. You want others to link to you because you provide unique content that they want to link too – not as a favor. Additionally, external links should be relevant to your site. If you sell scuba gear you don’t want to link with a pet food supply company.
Similarly your internal links should make sense as well. Be sure that anchor text linking to pages within your own site is relevant to the target page. And lastly, periodically check your sites links to ensure that they are live and not sending the user an error message. Strong linking structure makes search engines and users alike hum with happiness.
