SEO Blunders

1. Selecting the wrong/irrelevant keywords - This is the most frequent mistake committed by people. Not only an average SEO guy but an experienced SEO person may also commit this mistake. While choosing keywords we can:

o Study competitor's website

o Use various keyword extraction tools

o Conduct brainstorming sessions with the client or with the SEO team

But above stated methods are fine till we don't work with any kind of pre-assumptions. When choosing keywords we must be very cautious that we extract and use keywords from user's perspective and not what we think for our website. Suppose, we provide web design services and we are choosing keyphrases for our company's website. Now we must use all the strategies to extract keywords but use them if they fit in from users' point of view. If we are located in San Francisco then we must use keyphrase like "web design San Francisco" which a user is more likely to use and also helps in local optimization and not "website design firm" which is more generic and competitive.

2. Ignoring the Title tag - Most people don't use this tag and if they use then they don't pay attention to the usage. They simply put company's name in the title of every page. The title tag is quite important from SEO point of view. We must create unique title for every page and it must be relevant to the content of the page. Moreover, whenever we search for anything on the search sites such as Google, Yahoo!, AOL etc we click the result which has most of our keywords/keyphrases in the title as well as description. The reason behind it is that we can't peep into the results and see where we will land. We go by the title and description. The one which is most descriptive is more likely to be clicked. Therefore we must make our title and description as descriptive as possible.

3. Content without/misplaced keywords - It's a common saying in SEO world that "Content is King". But do you know how the content is king? The content becomes king when it satisfies all the queries of the website visitor and makes the website rank higher in search results. But how to achieve higher search results with content? When we talk of content then our keywords/keyphrases must be strategically placed so that the content looks natural and at the same time helps SEO. The keywords/keyphrases must not be stuffed as it will result in spamming. The ideal keyword density must be 5-7%.

4. Excessive use of images - Images make our website look better but excessive usage makes our website heavier. One common mistake is to use button images for links. Links must be textual as crawlers won't index the images but can easily read the text. But images can't be done away with as they are indispensable part of a website. To make images bit SEO friendly, all the images must have ALT tags which define what the image stands for.

5. Ignoring h1tag - Crawlers attach importance to h1 tag but most of the time people forget to use it or they overuse it. H1 must be used to mark most important keyword/keyphrase on the page and not the whole sentence or paragraph.

6. Ignoring revamping and maintenance - Many people believe that SEO once done and results achieved is SEO finished. But it is not the case. There are thousands of people like me and you doing SEO for related keywords/keyphrases. Once we achieve respectable ranking then we have to work hard to maintain it. SEO requires lots and lots of maintenance. SEO for any website will continue till the website is online.

7. Quick SEO - Many people or business guarantee quick SEO results which is not at all true. SEO requires loads of patience. The motive of search sites is to provide user with the best result. In order to do so they have hundreds of parameters being updated regularly to provide quality results.

8. Ignoring domain name - Domain name is quite important from SEO point of view. The website owner must try to get such domain name which is related to the product or service being offered by the website. If such a domain is not available then the naming of the pages should be done in such a way so that they incorporate keywords.

9. Excessive use of Flash & Javascript - Flash and Javascript do make a website look much better but they greatly compromise the SEO value as these are not crawled by the robots. If necessary they must be minimal or with a HTML alternative.

10. Using Frames - Though frames have become obsolete but sometimes webmasters use them for some or the other purpose. Frames must not be used at all. The reason for this is that when we use frames our different webpages are different for users but not for search engines. All the pages have same URL and the same URL will not be indexed again and again.

I simply love the web. According to me, it's the most happening place in the world and the best place to interact and gain knowledge. My strong attraction towards site analysis from users as well as search engines perspective made me to pursue the career in Internet Marketing. I started as SEO but now I work as an Internet Marketing Specialist.

To get in touch please contact me at LinkedIn or Facebook

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