Web Site Promotion | Avoid Common SEO Mistakes | Web Site Promotion Blog

There are some basic SEO mistakes that any web site marketing campaign should avoid

By John Lombaerde – Here are 12 common mistakes in web site promotion that can cause a negative effect in either search engine position or page rank. You don’t need to understand the complex mathematical algorithms for page rank. You do need to avoid each of the following classic SEO mistakes in web site marketing.

SEO Mistake # 1 – Paid Links – A fundamental negative factor in SEO is the buying and selling of links. Never buy or sell links to your web site. Do not listen to anyone who promises you that their paid links are high quality. If they are paid links, they are not considered to be good links, and are detrimental to your web site marketing. If there is any doubt on this issue, do a search for this topic. It has been well documented for a number of years.

SEO Mistake # 2 – Poorly designed title tags – The title tag serves two purposes. The first and most important purpose is to tell the search engines what your site is about. The second is to spark some interest in your visitors. This is what your visitors see in the search results when they decide to click on the link to your web site. It is critical to your search engine placement and visitors as well, to use a well designed title tag that contains your keywords, and is short and to the point. Less is more here. Never allow your title tag to exceed 70 characters, otherwise it will be chopped off at that character limit.

SEO Mistake # 3 – Poor keyword research – Make sure to spend enough time to research the best possible keyword variation for your site. Consider both long and short tail keyword phrases. Long tail phrases should always be promoted first, followed by short tail keywords. See the following post on long and short tail keywords

SEO Mistake # 4 – Keyword stuffing – Keyword density is too high. Anything over 2% is excessive, and even that percentage is pushing the limit. Use keywords naturally. Too many repetitive keywords sounds like you are trying to beat your readers over the head with your message. Read your content out loud. If it sounds repetitive, it may look spammy to the search engines.

SEO Mistake # 5 – Plaguarized content – Do not copy content from other web sites. Create your own original content. Follow strict copyright guidelines. See the following posts on copyright – part I and copyright – part II.

SEO Mistake # 6 – Bad outbound links – Never link to a directory or any other site that has no Google Page Rank. It could be a bad neighborhood. Your site can be penalized for your link there.

SEO Mistake # 7 – Unreadable file names – Most CMS create unreadable names for posts or web pages by default. Joomla has an option for Search Engine friendly URLS. WordPress has a number of SEO plugins that create readable, non-cryptic URLS.

SEO Mistake # 8 – Broken Links – Eliminate 404 errors. All internal or external links should work without any problems.

SEO Mistake # 9 – No Canonical Redirect – Google developed this method specifically to avoid duplicate content issues. SEO plugins for WordPress handle this with ease.

SEO Mistake # 10 – No internal links – It is important for relevancy, and to keep your readers engaged, that you provide links to similar content that you have previously written.

SEO Mistake # 11 – No variation in keywords or anchor text – Don’t use only one keyword or phrase to target in your web site marketing or your link building. Link building should be a natural and gradual process. Over-targeting a single keyword phrase seems unnatural. If you write content with emphasis on only one keyword, your content will not be interesting, attractive or fresh.

SEO Mistake # 12 – Overuse of automatic submission tools. It is ok to submit to a large number of search engines when you first set-up your site, but only do this once. After your site has been indexed by Google, it is unnecessary to use a submission service, free or paid, again. This applies to any automatic submission tool, whether it is for press releases, articles, submission to search engines, directories, classified ad sites, etc.   Avoid sites that offer web site promotion services and use words such as multiply, propagate, spinning, etc. It is likely that these sites are using black hat methods that will get you into trouble sooner or later.

For additional search engine optimization advice, please take a moment to complete the
SEO Preparedness Quiz

Tagged as: Search engine optimization, Search Keywords, Web Site Promotion