subject: What To Avoid In Seo [print this page] Youve heard of search engine optimization or SEO and how its vital that your business get with it right away. Unfortunately, SEO isnt something to be taken lightly. In the enthusiasm to forge a way for web visitors to find your website, you might be going at it the wrong way. Here are several things to avoid when doing SEO.
Delaying search engine optimization
Dilly-dallying over when to optimize your website doesnt do your business any good. It only delays more people who need your business and whose buying power you need from finding you instead of the competition.
Keyword stuffing
This is probably the most common mistake. Do not riddle your meta tags, descriptions, content, blog comments, etc. with keywords. It not only does crazy things to a web visitors vision, it also does not earn you brownie points with the search engines. Plainly, its a bad SEO practice.
Spamming
Randomly scattering your links all over different places on the internet. Just because your link is there does not guarantee that someones going to click on it. It has to be within content that is relevant to your website and is of interest to your target customers. Besides, most websites have already installed anti-spam apps. Youre just wasting precious time and money if you do this kind of bad SEO.
Reusing same content on different domains
Not a very wise move to have exactly the same content on different domains just to get them listed on the SERPs. While having multiple domains may be necessary in some instances, its still best to keep content a bit different.
Stale content
Content is king may be an overused or even abused phrase but its principle still applies. Fresh, regularly updated informative and relevant content is always good for your SEO strategy.
Obsessing over PageRank
Page ranking isnt what it used to be. Just because your website doesnt rank a 10 or at least a 6 on Google PageRank doesnt mean your SEOs faulty. PageRank these days is more about how often your site is being crawled. Avoid checking your rankings everyday. Whether you do or dont, theyre going to change. Concentrate on improving your website content instead.
Making your website uncrawlable
If you use too much Flash, too much graphics, too much URL variables, too much AJAX, too much everything, then youre blowing out your SEO. Your website becomes uncrawlable for the search engines. Your sites dead from the beginning.
Targeting very common keywords
Targeting keywords that are used by all your competitors doesnt add up to good SEO. Instead, find keywords unique to your site that visitors often enter in a search.
Worrying about keyword density
Have a sensible number of your targeted keywords in your page title, description meta tag, and website content. Incorporate them in a naturally flowing manner, not like they were forced into the sentences. It doesnt take a grammar teacher to know when a paragraph is awkwardly constructed.
There are hosts of other stuff to avoid when implementing search engine optimization. The ones mentioned above though are the most common and should be avoided at the very start of your SEO.
