When it comes to optimizing your site for the search engines, it’s as much about what not to do, as what you should be doing. SEO mistakes cost businesses millions each year in lost revenue because they not only prevent sites from being found, they often discourage consumers from completing transactions.
To truly maximize your site’s potential, you need to make it friendlier to both search engines and humans! Here are 5 of the most common search engine optimization mistakes to avoid:
1. Wrong Keywords
It’s fairly common for site owners to target the wrong keywords when optimizing their sites. Unfortunately, it’s a mistake that could cause a lot of headaches. Your keywords are foundational to your success, so think about what search terms not only best describe your business and what you do, but also are likely to be used by web searchers.
A keyword research tool can be an invaluable resource here. Use it to ensure that you get found by the people most likely to need your products and services.
2. Poor Content Quality
This includes a multitude of sins, including content that is:
Check your site for duplicate content. Calculate keyword densities to ensure that you aren’t over 2% on any of your pages. Resist the urge to pack your pages with ads. Only create unique content that is useful to readers and avoid grammatical errors.
3. Bad Navigation
Both search engines and humans need to navigate your site. Remember—search engines must be able to crawl through navigation menus to find and index you. Make sure that your site is designed with crawlable navigation menus. Add internal links within your content to help the spiders find all of your pages.
Periodically test your site for user experience. Visitors should be able to navigate to their pages in as few clicks as possible. Navigation should be intuitive and devoid of distracting ads and flash.
4. Duplicate Tags
Title tags tell search engines and people what each page is about. Check your pages to make sure that that each one has a unique title tag. No two pages should share a tag, and each one should be optimized with a keyword that describes its content.
5. Hidden Text
This is generally regarded as “black hat” SEO, and sites are now being penalized for it. In short, it’s the practice of hiding keywords by making them the same color as the background color, so that readers cannot see them. But, they are readable to search engines. Back in the day, this practice allowed sites to pack keywords into their pages without the content appearing spammy to readers. Now, it’s just another way to get your site permanently banned.
Remember—it’s OK to make mistakes with your SEO, as long as you fix them before they do permanent damage to your site. Monitor your site regularly, and stay in touch with your webmaster to ensure that your site is always working hard for you.
