1. Targetting the Wrong Keywords

This is a many mistake by users make and what is worse – even experienced SEO experts make it. Users choose keywords that in their mind are descriptive of their website but the average users just may not search them. For instance, if you have a Hospital site, you might discover that “diseases guide” does not work for you, even though it has the “Hospital” keyword, while “Cancer Hospital” works like a charm.

2. Ignoring the Title Tag

Leaving the <title> tag empty is also very common. Title tag is one of the most important places to have a keyword, because not only does it help you in optimization but the text in your <title> tag shows in the search results as your page title.

3. A Flash website without a html alternative

Flash site might be attractive but not to search engines (google, yahoo, etc.) and users. If you are really insist that your site is Flash-based and you want search engines to love it, provide an html version. Here are some more important tips for optimizing Flash sites. Search engines don’t like Flash sites for a reason is the spider can’t read Flash content and therefore can’t index it.

4. JavaScript Menus

If you are using a JavaScript for navigation is not bad as long as you understand that search engines do not read JavaScript and build your web pages accordingly. So if you have JavaScript menus you can’t do without, you should consider build a sitemap so that all your links will be crawlable.

5. Lack of Consistency and Maintenance

Our friend Shray often encounters clients, who believe that once you optimize a site, it is done foreve. If you are want to be successful, you need to permanently optimize your site, keep an eye on the competition and changes in the ranking algorithms of search engines.

6. Concentrating too much on Meta Tags

A lot of users seem to think SEO is about getting own meta keywords and description correct! In fact, meta tags are becoming a thing of the past. You can create your own meta keywords and descriptions but don’t except to rank well only because of this.

7. Using only Images for Headings

Many users think that an image looks better than text for headings and menus. If you are using images for heading then your are not use H1,H2,H3 and H4 tags and menu links are important SEO items. If you are think that your use h1 h2, etc. tags look very large, try modifying them in a stylesheet.

8. Ignoring URLs

Many user under estimate how important a good URL is. Dynamic pages name are still very frequent and no keywords in the URL is more a rule than an exception. if you have Meta keywords in the URL, this gives you additional advantage over your competitors. Meta Keywords in URLs are important for MSN and Yahoo.

9. Backlink Spamming

It is a common that it more backlinks are ALWAYS better and because of this web masters resort to link farms, forum/newgroup spam etc., which could lead to getting their site banned.

10. Lack of Keywords in the content

Once you are focus on your keywords, modify your page content and put the meta keywords wherever it makes sense. It is even better to make them bold or highlighted them.

Tags: SEO

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 21st, 2009 at 4:24 am and is filed under SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.