It is one of the most common problems that we come across; people who have undergone search engine optimisation on their site when their knowledge on what it entails is limited. Of course many know the basics (link building, forum posting, optimising your site for keywords etc. etc.) however without careful practice you could be doing more harm to your site than good. The following is a quick list of places where people can go wrong:
Building links with no anchor text
Link building is almost synonymous with SEO and anyone who has heard of SEO or has slight knowledge of it will know the importance that links hold for SERPs. However time and time again we see sites that build links using their domain names instead of their keywords.
Building too many links too quickly
On the opposite side of the spectrum people know all too well the importance of links and anchor text but over do it. Google in particular can see that you are trying to manipulate the search engines if overnight your site gains hundreds of back-links and so may penalise you.
Not building relevant links
Believe it or not the actual purpose of links is to build a list of relevant resources for people that are interested in your site. So if your site sells baby clothes having a link in your resources to a site selling CCTV equipment is a bit odd. Too many of these and just like before Google can penalise you.
Not mentioning keywords in the title tag
This is a fundamental for SEO. The title is one of the most important indicators of what a site is about. Not mentioning the keyword in the title is like not filling in your name properly on a form, you can still build a picture of who you are but you are never overly certain. So make sure you mention the keyword in the title.
Not mentioning keywords in the meta information
Another fundamental. It is argued that the meta information does not hold as much importance to the search engines as it once did. However it is still important so you should always make sure you contain keywords in the meta keywords and description.
Wrongly using the meta description
Some people keyword stuff the description or the opposite don’t mention it at all. When writing the meta description make sure you write for the user and if possible contain the main keyword first in the description.
Wrongly using the keyword meta information
Many people think the meta keyword is a place where you can mention every keyword your site is about…wrong. The rule is that the keywords you state should be mentioned somewhere on your site. Some people also stuff keywords which is also wrong. Around 6-8 keywords is best and irrelevant keywords such as locations etc. are not needed.
Using no follows, and no index robots attributes
I have seen it many times; people putting no follow tags or no index tags in their sites. No follows prevents search bots from crawling links on your site and no index prevents search engines from crawling your site altogether. You can optimise your site until the cows come home but you will never rank in the search engines with these in so make sure your site does not have these.
Not having enough keywords on the landing page
Although links can achieve good rankings the onsite helps with it immensely. Containing the keywords show the search engines what your site is about and so the better optimised the more relevant the search engines see it. Coupled with a decent amount of links coming in from keyword anchor text and you have a recipe for some good rankings.
Having too many keywords on the landing page
On the other hand do not overdo the keywords. The rule of thumb is that you write content for the user and not the search engines. Mentioning keywords too many times really can do damage so limit the amount of times you mention keywords and the amount of times you mention them in close proximity.
Failing to see the benefit of the hidden gems of header tags, alt tags, bolding text…
Placing your keywords in these html tags is another way of showing the search engines the relevancy of your site to a particular keyword so take advantage.
Over using h1 tags
Some people understand the importance header tags have in onsite optimisation but then overdo the amount of times they use them so remember to use h2 - h6 tags also. Please note that roughly 3 mentions of a keyword with these tags are normally necessary.
Using flash
Flash is all well and good and makes your site look really slick however search-bots have difficulty crawling flash and therefore cannot identify the relevancy of your page for a given keyword.
Black hat SEO techniques
Hidden content, link farming, keyword stuffing- AVOID! For more information on this see our post on ethical search engine optimisation.
Long title tags
The title is not a place to keyword stuff. It looks messy and it looks like an obvious attempt to manipulate the search engines. Keep it simple with only a couple of keywords mentioned in there.
Duplicate content
Duplicate content is when you use the same content on more than one page on your site OR you have plagiarised content from other sites. Search engines can easily detect this and you could be banned from them if you are found to be guilty.
Not using keywords as internal links
Internal links are important as they highlight to the search engines the importance of that word for a particular page on your site. So many times we see ‘click here’ used as the anchor text which is a shame – where possible use your keywords.
Using frames
Its old school, it’s bad, don’t do it! Search engines find form very hard to crawl and so should be avoided at all costs.
Writing for the search engines and not the user
The most common mistake. It looks obvious and unnatural and will not only put users off of your site but will also get your site penalised. Remember the rule of thumb: write for the user and not the search engines!
Having long URLs
Some content management systems create long URLs that read like the following:
www.yoursite.com/546abcdabcd/session102/%rtf77tgima/folder1/rddtdta.ds34324d.sdfsd4545
URLs are better kept short. Some CMS allow you to SEO friendly URLs that contain the keywords so look into this when developing your site.
Broken links
This commonly happens when sites have been recently updated. Always check that your links are working.
Javascript links
Search bots find it difficult to crawl Javascript and so make sure your links are in the traditional format.
Not adding a sitemap
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