10
Costly Search Engine Mistakes to Avoid
By: ©Tim Gilligan
a/k/a/ "Skipper"
If you have a website then you already know the importance of
traffic. Traffic is to Internet marketing as location is to real
estate. It's the only thing that really matters.
If
you cannot generate targeted visitors to your site, you will not
make any sales.
Usually
the owner or designer of the website is the person designated
to drive traffic to the site. The chief ingredient in generating
traffic is the search engine.
Of
course, you can use advertising, but it's going to cost you. Using
the search engines to generate targeted (interested in your product)
traffic is the least expensive method known.
Unfortunately,
many website owners do not understand the importance of search
engine visibility, which leads to traffic. They place more importance
on producing a "pretty" website. Not that this is bad,
but it is really secondary to search engine placement.
Hopefully,
the following list of common mistakes, made by many website owners,
will help you generate more targeted traffic to your site...after
all, isn't that what you want??
1.
Not using keywords effectively.
This
is probably one of the most critical area of site design. Choose
the right keywords and potential customers will find your site.
Use the wrong ones and your site will see little, if any, traffic.
2.
Repeating the same keywords.
When
you use the same keywords over and over again (called keyword
stacking) the search engines may downgrade (or skip) the page
or site.
3.
Robbing pages from other websites.
How
many times have you heard or read that "this is the Internet
and it's ok" to steal icons and text from websites to use
on your site. Don't do it. Its one thing to learn from others
who have been there and another to outright copy their work. The
search engines are very smart and usually detect page duplication.
They may even prevent you from ever being listed by them.
4.
Using keywords that are not related to your website.
Many
unethical website owners try to gain search engine visibility
by using keywords that have nothing at all to do with their website.
They place unrelated keywords in a page (such as "sex",
the name of a known celebrity, the hot search topic of the day,
etc.) inside a meta tag for a page. The keyword doesn't have anything
to do with the page topic. However, since the keyword is popular,
they think this will boost their visibility. This technique is
considered spam by the search engines and may cause the page (or
sometimes the whole site) to be removed from the search engine
listing.
5.
Keyword stuffing.
Somewhat
like keyword stacking listed above, this means to assign multiple
keywords to the description of a graphic or layer that appears
on your website by using the "alt=" HTML parameter.
If the search engines find that this text does not really describe
the graphic or layer it will be considered spam.
6.
Relying on hidden text.
You
might be inclined to think that if you cannot see it, it doesn't
hurt. Wrong.... Do not try to hide your keywords or keyword phrases
by making them invisible. For example, some unethical designers
my set the keywords to the same color as the background of the
web page; thereby, making it invisible.
7.
Relying on tiny text.
This
is another version of the item above (relying on hidden text).
Do not try to hide your keywords or keyword phrases by making
them tiny. Setting the text size of the keywords so small that
it can barely be seen does this.
8.
Assuming all search engines are the same.
Many
people assume that each search engine plays by the same rules.
This is not so. Each has their own rule base and is subject to
change anytime they so desire. Make it a point to learn what each
major search engine requires for high visibility.
9.
Using free web hosting.
Do
not use free web hosting if you are really serious about increasing
site traffic via search engine visibility. Many times the search
engines will eliminate content from these free hosts.
10.
Forgetting to check for missing web page elements.
Make
sure to check every page in your website for completeness, like
missing links, graphics, etc. There are sites on the web that
will do this for free.
This
is just a few of the methods and techniques that you should avoid.
Do not give in to the temptation that these methods will work
for you. They will do more harm than good for your website.
Not
only will you spend weeks of wasted effort, you may have your
site banned from the search engines forever. Invest a little time
to learn the proper techniques for increasing search engine visibility
and your net traffic will increase.
| About
the Author: Tim "Skipper" Gilligan is an experienced
online entrepreneur working from his home office on Ft. Myers
Beach, Florida. The above article is one of the many articles
"Skipper" has written. He has also just completed
his very first e-book titled, "The Dangers of Identity
Theft and How To Protect Yourself" and if you would
like to get more information on this subject, Please visit
this page http://www.teejayenterprises.net/cgi-bin/arp3/arp3-t.pl?l=34&c=443 |
