Avoid These Top 10 SEO Mistakes

I often associate SEO with space travel – one wrong move and you can end up light years away from where you want to be!

There are literally thousands of ways that an SEO campaign can go wrong. What things should you always avoid if you want to be a success?

There are many things that you should avoid when doing SEO and here is my list of the top 10 no-no’s that you should always avoid if you want to optimize a website:

1. Using the Wrong Page Title

The first thing that the search engines will look for is your page title so when they send out their crawlers this is the first thing that they will encounter. Don’t use fancy titles that can be deceptive – you want the crawlers to know exactly what your page is about! Keywords should always be included and all pages must have a different title so that each page is unique.

2. Using the Wrong Keywords

Keywords are the most vital component of an SEO campaign so it is a must to get these correct! Using high ranking keywords is the most basic part of SEO and the rest of your efforts will be futile if your keywords are incorrect. Study the keywords and phrases that you use really target your market by optimizing accordingly.

Above everything – NEVER assume your keywords; always check them in a ranking tool

3. Using Wrong Content

Bad content is as useful as no content, in fact no content could sometimes be better! If there is bad content on the website then the crawlers will not rank your site and generating the best content can be done by concentrating on your chosen keywords etc.

4. Using Too-little Text

Too many videos and images and not enough text is never a good thing for a website. Websites need text in order to be ranked highly by the search engines and if you want to sell a product or service then you have to shout about it or the engines will never hear you!

5. Using the Wrong Target Audience

You can only manage an SEO campaign effectively if you know who you are aiming at. Without the correct target audience, how can you direct content at the right people? A website cannot be optimized properly if the target audience is wrong and this has a domino effect. Wrong target audiences = wrong keywords = wrong content = pointless website!

Ok, so you have got the hang of the top five things that should always s be avoided in SEO and here are the next five to think about:

6. Using Unnecessary Frills

Frills and bows should be avoided as much as possible on a website. The occasional cartoon or animated graphics can be used but if you overdo it – you will bore your customers and here’s why:

When you first visit a website the graphics and images look great but when you go back to it over and over again and you are greeted by the same flashing and moving images you will soon get very irritated by them. If you have children think about how annoying it is when you have to watch the Barney DVD for the third time in a row or how disappointed you feel in your self-pride when you realise that you know all the words to every song!

Crawlers are unimpressed by graphics so concentrate on the text if you want to get high rankings.

7. Not Using the Header Tags

Header tags: <h1>, <h2>, <hn>

These tags are hugely important and should never be left out! They highlight the main point of your pages so using the right keywords in the right tags is vital to an SEO campaign. The tags should appear in the same size font as the content and NOT larger as many people think.

8. Using Too Many Keywords

Keywords overkill is so easy to do! Many people assume that the more keywords you have; the better your pages will be optimized but that really isn’t the case at all! Your keywords should appear in your text as well as page titles and tags etc but for the bulk content they should only appear in the title, in the opening sentence, in the anchor text and meta description and then sporadically throughout the text – and I mean sporadically!

9. Using the Wrong Links

You may harm your rankings by using links that are indiscriminate. Outgoing and incoming links should ALWAYS be sourced from reputed websites and if you resort to buying 100 links for $99 then you will pay the price. There is nothing beneficial about purchasing your links and they should always be generated organically.

10. Not Using Blogs

Along with using the correct keywords, blogging is another hugely vital part of an SEO campaign. There is no reason not to blog on a website and now that everyone has seen the light when it comes to using blogs to boost traffic, links and rankings; if you don’t do it you will be left behind!

What techniques do you always employ to ensure that your SEO is really effective and how do you ensure that you keeping climber up and up and up…?