The 5 most common SEO Mistakes
Summary:
I thought there would be sense in providing a consolidated list of things you most definitely
DO NOT want to be doing if you want a high ranking in the search engines. There are 5
main things that literally hundreds of thousands of webmasters err on regularly.
I thought there would be sense in providing a consolidated list of things you most definitely
DO NOT want to be doing if you want a high ranking in the search engines. There are 5
main things that literally hundreds of thousands of webmasters err on regularly. With a few
little changes they could make a big difference in their rankings. Below are the 5 most
common errors and their solutions in no particular order.
The Error:
Trying to optimize a home page for all possible keywords. Often you will see <Title> tags
for example loaded with 12+ keywords, where a webmaster is attempting to squeeze in all
his/her keywords on the home page. A classic example of a little know-how being a
dangerous thing!
What generally happens is not one of the 12+ words ever reach a high ranking for the reason
that individually they can never get the keyword density or repetitions needed in order to
rank highly. This is especially the case for popular terms. I laugh when I see spammers
hiding loads of keywords in long lists, knowing that rather than improving their ranking they just make it worse!
Less, can mean a lot more when it comes to SEO in this respect.
The Solution:
Focus your home page for a MAXIMUM of three of your top keywords. If you have a
particularly competitive field then make that just one or two keywords. Concentrate on just
those keywords on your home page and of course in your title tags. Eg. The ABAKUS home
page (root) concentrates on 3 keyword phrases where it does very well in German searches.
'Internet Marketing', 'Webpromotion', and 'Suchmaschinenoptimierung' (search engine
optimization). A newbie at SEO would also have added 'Suchmaschinen eintrag',
'Suchmaschinenranking', 'Suchmaschinen platzierung' and possibly more keywords to the
title tag, and would have tried to optimize the home page for all the terms rather than spreading them throughout the site as I have done.
Summary:
Focus on your top three keywords (hopefully researched properly)for your home page, keep
them to a maximum of three, however if you are really in a niche market with little
competition, it is ok to go for up to 4 or 5. Try and keep your title tag to less than 7 words
and make sure your text copy uses the three terms at least 3 times each. Don't forget EVERY
page is a potential entry page from search engines so there is no need to cram everything in
on your home page.
The Error:
It is human nature to be a bit lazy when developing a website. One of the most common, yet
devastating for search engine traffic, mistakes is when a webmaster uses 'save as' to work on
a new content page but forgets to change the non-visible header area of a page in
Dreamweaver or whatever. I think we've all seen these sites. A whole site has something like
'widgets-for-sale.com' in the title on EVERY page. The meta tags are identical on every
page. Only the visible content is different. Rarely however do separate pages have exactly
the same theme or content. Every page can be optimized for different keywords whether
major or minor and can of course be an entry point to your site from a search engine. It is
such a waste and almost makes me cry when I see great sites using mydomain.com for a title
on every page.
The Solution:
When developing a site, stick to a pattern. I will normally do the content first but I always
make sure the last thing I do before moving on to a new content page is to make sure I have
not only the content optimized, but the <head> area as well. You will not find an identical
title tag on my whole website, or meta description for that matter. Never forget that each
page is an entry page and optimize each to the best of your ability.
Summary:
Never repeat titles or meta descriptions in a website. Treat each page as if it were the most
important and optimize it thoroughly. Don't be tempted to leave the head area without
optimization.
The Error:
It is now rare that I will see a framed website and believe that the use of frames in anyway
enhances the site, or that it is a practical necessity for a webmaster. It isn't so much that
framed sites generally rank lower, it is that few webmasters know how to correctly optimize
them.
The majority of those 697,000 websites require search engine optimization as to be honest,
their current optimization stinks. Not many of those sites are going to rank in the top 10 of
anywhere. Just to have in your noframe tag "...browser does not support frames" Is a great way to never
get your website found on a search engine.
The Solution:
Treat the noframe tag content as if it was a text version of your home page and optimize it as
you would a normal website. Very important also is to link to your framed pages from your
noframe area. Also for your framed pages consider javascript that will call the frame set
should it be found orphaned in a search engine. Normally framed pages without the frameset,
mean no navigation and not displayed as was initially intended. The following code placed in
all framed pages is one solution and works on the majority of browsers'
<BODY onLoad="if (parent.frames.length==0)
top.location='http://www.yoursite.com/frameset.html';">
There are more complex / better solutions which really wouldn't fit in the space I have here.
Try http://www.netmechanic.com/news/vol5/javascript_no7.htm for a more complete
solution.
Also be aware that you can achieve what a frameset does through the use of CSS layer
positioning, iframes and other methods. Only use frames if you really, really have to.
Summary:
If you must use frames, make sure you optimize them properly. Use the noframe tag properly
and thoroughly link to framed pages. On your framed pages use JavaScript to prevent them
being called without the frameset.
The Error:
I often see poorly ranked sites that visually contain a lot of text' but the text itself is not of
the font variety but graphic. Great eye candy, but forget a high ranking and search engine
traffic if that is the only text on a page. I would say at least half my clients used to suffer
from overdoing graphic text. The main webmaster culprits for this are (surprise, surprise)
adult sites, and also those targeting young markets where it is believed lots of graphics and
eye candy is what impresses and sells (handy shops, games console websites, games
software sites etc.)
Of course the worst of all has to be the Flash websites that offer no pure html alternative and
the source code looks like the example I give in my SEO for flash tutorial page'
http://www.abakus-internet-marketing.de/en/seo-tutorial/flash.htm
The Solution:
IIntegrate normal text where you can. You can make text and text links look great with a bit
of css formatting know-how. You do not need graphic text to make text look attractive
nowadays. At least do not make your pages all graphic text. Leave something for the search
engine spiders to find and index. This also applies to Flash sites. Rarely does everything
have to be a flash object. You can quite often have text surrounding a Flash object without
any negative effects.
Summary:
Web pages that contain no normal text, or very little text, simply will not rank highly unless
there is a VERY strong link campaign running. Mix graphics and objects with text. It is
really this simple, No text = No ranking.
The Error:
Unfortunately too many webmasters do not really bother using any of several keyword
research tools. There are about 4 or 5 of them. Most, like the overture keyword research tool,
are free. Many webmasters don't think they need to use them as they know what their site is
about and don't need to research the top keywords. This is a big mistake. Another big
mistake is either optimizing for too niche or too obscure a search term, or going the other
way and going for a very broad term with millions of competing pages on a new site with a
only a handful of incoming links. Both are common errors and can result in all on page
optimisation and off-page optimisation criteria, through requesting links with the wrong link
text for example, to be a complete waste of time. You either get too little traffic as you
optimized for terms that are rarely searched for, or you go for the terms with millions of
competing pages but you simply do not have the experience or PageRank to be able to
compete.
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