Costly SEO Mistakes To Avoid

Any business owner knows the importance of website traffic.  It’s not about just those folks that pop into the site for a look around either, I’m talking about the ones who stay and play – the targeted group that you hit with your marketing efforts.  If you’re not generating that targeted traffic for your site then you’re going to have conversion issues.

The primary focus of driving traffic is the search engines.  While there is always the option for paid search results and PPC that can be an expensive option.  This puts organic search at the frontline of your arsenal for picking up targeted traffic with the lowest cost.

Many site owners and designers don’t often put traffic acquisition as a priority, though they all want traffic.  More importance gets placed on putting up an attractive website.  Having a presentable site is important, but that’s only one small piece of the puzzle for setting up a sales funnel online.

Here are some other goofs to avoid:

Ineffective Keyword Use

This happens more commonly than people think.  Not only do site owners choose the wrong keywords – often opting for extremely competitive and broad terms – but they also don’t use them effectively on their site.  The range is across the board, from far too little keyword density to heavy overuse.  Likewise, in an attempt to appease the search engines many businesses design the content so that it’s appealing to the algorithm but this often leads to copy that doesn’t read well for the user.  The result is something less than favorable.

Repeating Keywords

This occurs in content when you have someone that is fairly new to writing optimized content.  You’ll see keywords used heavily within the content, something multiple times per paragraph.  Not only does this get excessive when it’s being read by a person but the search engines may view the content as a bit spammy.  Use themed keywords instead, where your primary keyword is used only a few times, surrounded by related keywords or synonyms.

Duplicate Content

There are a number of different ways to end up with duplicate content issues.  Content theft, using catalog descriptions on your site, copying your own pages over and over, using PLR, having your content copied.

Regardless of the nature of it, it’s important to avoid duplicate content at all cost.  Duplicate pages are not listed in the SERPs, and even if one of your pages is the original page it may not be the one that gets listed.  Google may even choose not to list any version if the duplication is severe on the web.  Remember, it’s their search engine – they can set the rules.

Unrelated Keywords

Trying to trap traffic is an old hat technique where site owners used a lot of keywords that weren’t relevant to their website.  The result was much better listings for their sites but the traffic that was landing there wasn’t interested in what they saw because it was completely unrelated to their search.  Google views this as spam, and it’s a good way to get blacklisted.  Only market your site for keywords that are relevant to the content on your site.

Hiding Keywords.

There are some sneaky techniques that people used in the past and still use despite Google openly stating their ‘illegality’.  Hidden keywords are one of those underhanded ways of improving search listings without having the keyword use affect the way the copy is read.  Site owners would make the copy the same color as the background, or hide the H1 content in a similar manner.  Other slipped the keyword list into collapsible Java or into an invisible dev box.  Bottom line, it’s not an acceptable practice, and should be left alone.

Link Farms

Just because you have a lot of links to your site doesn’t mean that you’re building a good link profile.  It’s more about the quality of the links than the quantity so building a pile of backlinks from a mass of various websites could actually do more harm than good.  Google puts weight on the quality of links and knows what is considered to be “bad neighborhoods” when it comes to where you get your links.  Too many businesses build links to quickly from the wrong places and end up doing a lot more harm than good.

Going It Alone

Unless you know what you’re doing in great detail, it’s not a good idea to handle your optimization and search engine marketing on your own.  Many businesses have gone down this road in the past and it creates long term problems.  SEO isn’t a onetime deal and does require a significant investment of time.  If you walk away after you start to gain ground it’s like leaving a car parked on a hill with the emergency brake off.  The results will just roll away and you’re back to square one.

To Your Success,
Joerg Weishaupt

P.s. Get more information on social media and marketing in my free primer "Building A Successful Marketing Strategy". Sign up for your free copy today.

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