| When
it comes to search engine optimization, there are
certain common mistakes that people make over and
over again. Here's a list of the most common mistakes
that people are making. By avoiding these mistakes,
you can avoid a lot of anguish and frustration in
the long run.
1)
Optimizing your site for the wrong keywords
The
first step in any search engine optimization campaign
is to choose the keywords for which you should optimize
your site. If you initially choose the wrong keywords,
all the time and effort that you devote in trying
to get your site a high ranking will go down the
drain. If you choose keywords which no one search
for, or if you choose keywords which won't bring
in targeted traffic to your site, what good will
the top rankings do?
In
order to learn how you can choose the correct keywords
for which you should optimize your site, see my
article on this topic.
2)
Putting too many keywords in the Meta Keywords tag
I
often see sites which have hundreds of keywords
listed in the Meta Keywords tag, in the hope that
by listing the keywords in the Meta Keywords tag,
they will be able to get a high ranking for those
keywords. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Contrary to popular opinion, the Meta Keywords tag
has almost completely lost its importance as far
as search engine positioning is concerned. Hence,
just by listing keywords in the Meta Keywords tag,
you will never be able to get a high ranking. To
get a high ranking for those keywords, you need
to put the keywords in the actual body content of
your site.
3)
Repeating the same keyword too many times
Another
common mistake that people make is to endlessly
repeat their target keywords in the body of their
pages and in their Meta Keywords tags. Because so
many people have used this tactic in the past (and
continue to use it), the search engines keep a sharp
lookout for this, and may penalize a site which
repeats keywords in this fashion. Sure, you do need
to repeat the keywords a number of times. But, the
way you place the keywords in your pages needs to
make grammatical sense. Simply repeating the keywords
endlessly no longer works. Furthermore, a particular
keyword should ideally not be present more than
thrice in your Meta Keywords tag.
4)
Creating lots of similar doorway pages
Another
myth prevalent among people is that since the algorithm
of each search engine is different, they need to
create different pages for different search engines.
While this is great in theory, it is counter-productive
in practice. If you use this tactic, you will soon
end up with hundreds of pages, which can quickly
become an administrative nightmare. Also, just imagine
the amount of time you will need to spend constantly
updating the pages in response to the changes that
the search engines make to their algorithms. Furthermore,
although the pages are meant for different engines,
they will actually end up being pretty similar to
each other. The search engines are often able to
detect when a site has created such similar pages,
and may penalize or even ban this site from their
index. Hence, instead of creating different pages
for different search engines, create one page which
is optimized for one keyword for all the search
engines. In order to learn how to create such pages,
see my article on this topic.
5)
Using Hidden Text
Hidden
text is text with the same color as the background
color of your page. For example, if the background
color of your page is white and you have added some
white text to that page, that is considered as hidden
text. Many webmasters, in order to get high rankings
in the search engines, try to make their pages as
keyword rich as possible. However, there is a limit
to the number of keywords you can repeat in a page
without making it sound odd to your human visitors.
Thus, in order to ensure that the human visitors
to a page don't perceive the text to be odd, but
that the page is still keyword rich, many webmasters
add text (containing the keywords) with the same
color as the background color. This ensures that
while the search engines can see the keywords, the
human visitors cannot. The search engines have long
since caught up with this technique, and ignore
or penalize the pages which contain such text. They
may also penalize the entire site if even one of
the pages in that site contain such hidden text.
However,
the problem with this is that the search engines
may often end up penalizing sites which did not
intend to use hidden text. For instance, suppose
you have a page with a white background and a table
in that page with a black background. Further suppose
that you have added some white text in that table.
This text will, in fact, be visible to your human
visitors, i.e. this shouldn't be called hidden text.
However, the search engines can interpret this to
be hidden text because they may often ignore the
fact that the background of the table is black.
Hence, in order to ensure that your site is not
penalized because of this, you should go through
all the pages in your site and see whether you have
inadvertently made any such mistake.
6)
Creating Pages Containing Only Graphics
The
search engines only understand text - they don't
understand graphics. Hence, if your site contains
lots of graphics but little text, it is unlikely
to get a high ranking in the search engines. For
improving your rankings, you need to replace the
graphics by keyword rich text for the search engine
spiders to feed on.
7)
Not using the NOFRAMES tag in case your site uses
frames
Many
search engines don't understand frames. For sites
which have used frames, these search engines only
consider what is present in the NOFRAMES tag. Yet,
many webmasters make the mistake of adding something
like this to the NOFRAMES tag: "This site uses
frames, but your browser doesn't support them".
For the search engines which don't understand frames,
this is all the text that they ever get to see in
this site, which means that the chances of this
site getting a good ranking in these search engines
are non-existent. Hence, if your site uses frames,
you need to add a lot of keyword rich text to the
NOFRAMES tag. For more information on the different
issues that arise when you use frames in your site,
see my article on this topic.
8)
Using Page Cloaking
Page
cloaking is a technique used to deliver different
web pages under different circumstances. People
generally use page cloaking for two reasons: i)
in order to hide the source code of their search
engine optimized pages from their competitors and
ii) in order to prevent human visitors from having
to see a page which looks good to the search engines
but does not necessarily look good to humans. The
problem with this is that when a site uses cloaking,
it prevents the search engines from being able to
spider the same page that their users are going
to see. And if the search engines can't do this,
they can no longer be confident of providing relevant
results to their users. Thus, if a search engine
discovers that a site has used cloaking, it will
probably ban the site forever from their index.
Hence, my advice is that you should not even think
about using cloaking in your site. For more information
on what page cloaking is, how it is implemented,
and why you should not use cloaking, see my article
on this topic.
9)
Submitting too many pages per day
People
often make the mistake of submitting too many pages
per day to the search engines. This often results
in the search engines simply ignoring many of the
pages which have been submitted from that site.
Ideally, you should submit no more than 1 page per
day to the search engines. While many search engines
accept more than 1 page per day from a particular
domain, there are some which only accept 1 page
per day. Hence, by limiting yourself to a maximum
of one page per day, you ensure that you stay within
the limits of all the search engines.
10)
Devoting too much time to search engine positioning
Yes
- I lied. There's another common mistake that people
make when it comes to search engine optimization
- they spend too much time over it. Sure, search
engine placement is the most cost effective way
of driving traffic to your site and you do need
to spend some time every day learning how the search
engines work and in optimizing your site for the
search engines. However, you must remember that
search engine optimization is a means to an end
for you - it's not the end in itself. The end is
to increase the sales of your products and services.
Hence, apart from trying to improve your site's
position in the search engines, you also need to
spend time on all the other factors which determine
the success or the failure of your web site - the
quality of the products and services that you are
selling, the quality of your customer service, and
so on. You may have excellent rankings in the search
engines, but if the quality of your products and
services are poor, or if your customer service leaves
a lot to be desired, those high rankings aren't
going to do much good.
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