10 Common SEO Mistakes That You Should Avoid

5
Apr 2016

Posted by: Category:Search Engine Optimization

If you are running a website, the role of Search engine optimization (SEO) is not new to you. The significance of SEO in your website’s success is phenomenal and should be taken care of. The right implementation of SEO strategies will lead to generating more traffic vis-a-vis more business. Search engines use various complex algorithm to give rank to your website. There are several factors which are taken into account by search engines for ranking your website.

10 Common SEO Mistakes That You Should Avoid

The following lists describes about the various myths about SEO. These are the common mistakes which should be avoided while strategizing SEO activities. SEO is quite intricate for various reasons and should be managed in the most professional manner.

1. Links

Buying links for your website might give you a one-time boost in the ranking but it will not be a long term success. You might get attracted towards buying links flashed on your screen but it will be an irregular linking activity. It is always good to follow the old fashioned style of manual link building at a steady pace. If at all you are buying links make sure that you do not use same anchor text for all of them, use various anchor text or mix them up.

2. Content

Content is and will always be the most important parameter on which your visitors will rank your website. Make sure that you go with original and interesting content on your website to keep your visitors engaged. You can play with your keywords to some extent but you cannot use identical keywords many times. Besides annoying your customers, it can also be a reason for penalty. Search engines might penalise you for duplicate content on your web pages.

3. PageRank

Though pagerank is important for your website success, it is not the only criteria which can get you more traffic. According to Google, there are more than two hundred indicators which are used by crawlers to rank your site, pagerank is just one of them. Pagerank will get you more traffic but other factors such as your analytics, ROI, etc that also matters in ranking. Rely on all these factors for better ranking and creating more traffic for your website.

4. Title Tags

Using proper title tag for all your pages on the website is very important for search engine rankings. Integrate relevant and specific keywords in your title for facilitating web crawlers to reach your website. Keep a note on the maximum characters which can be used in the title as different search engines have different limit. Select your keywords after proper analysis and optimize your title before implementing it for better ranking and more visitors.

5. Looks

As said earlier content will be most important factor for generating traffic but looks also matters a lot when it comes to engaging your visitors. There are many visitors who will visit your website just for the sake of design which is appealing. You can use flash for better looks at the cost of speed but it will not be a good bet. Using flash in your design will prevent engine bots to crawl your pages at a faster rate.

6. Free Hosting Blogs

You can avail the services of various free hosting blogs to popularize your website. Blogger, TypePad and other free hosting blogs provides a perfect platform for gaining links and backlinks from these popular sites. The only shortcoming these platforms have is the inability to install Plugins, themes and other extensions for better SEO results. Using these blog platforms for promoting your website can give you faster results at minimum cost.

7. Keyword

It is essential to use keyword on your web pages but overstuffing them is absolutely bad. Use proper and relevant keywords but do not use them time and again as it can ruin its whole purpose. Beside being unethical, it also hurts your search ranking. If you want to integrate new keywords, create a whole new page for it and use them. Never try to manipulate search engines instead focus on creating useful pages for your website with your keywords used in the content.

8. Less Content

Using long and lengthy content is not good for your website but at the same time going for less content is not good as well. If you do not describe the various attributes of your product or service, you will not be able to convince your visitors. It is very important to win your customers through detailed and convincing piece of content which will trigger the buying decision. Writing short content for your website will be considered as low quality for SEO rankings by search engines .

9. Wrong SEO

There are several ways to plan and implement your SEO strategies, both ethical and unethical. Never go for black-hat SEO strategies as it would lead to penalty and less creditworthiness among customers. Implement white-hat SEO techniques for better ranking and more traffic. Take ethical course of action when it comes to planning and implementing SEO tactics. Shortcuts might give you success for a while but it will not fetch results in the long run.

10. ALT Tag

Web crawler is not a human being and understand your picture as an image file only without alt tag. If you want your image to be crawled by the search engine, use proper alt tag with relevant keywords. Use relevant and specific keywords in your alt tag to help search engines crawl your image for that topic. Using proper keywords in your alt tag will surely bring better results and more traffic to your website.

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