1. Meta Keyword Tag Mistakes
Google, Bing and Yahoo officially stated that they are not using the tag in order to see what the page is about. The use of meta keywords stands out as a move that is not necessary and you waste time in adding them on every single page. In addition, you offer important information to competitors about yours targeted keywords.
2. Using the Same Title On Many Pages
Every single page on website must have unique title properly reflecting the purpose and content. Never create pages with the same title as the search engine will see them as similar. The page title should include important keyword phrase that you are optimizing for.
3. The Use of tobots.TXT to Block Content
In the past, people used robots.txt files in order to block content from search engines. This was done in order to have a much bigger content base when the official launch happened and in a belief that pages that are older will have a bigger weight in rankings. It is a bad idea. Do not block your robot visitors by using a robots.txt file.
4. Content Keyword Stuffing
In the past, people simply added numerous keywords inside the content area and this would make the pages rank higher in organic results. Nowadays if you do this, you are more likely to receive a penalty resulting in poor site rank or blacklisting. If you have a high bounce rate, it means that website content is keywords stuffed.
5. Lack of Internal Links
It is really easy to link the site’s pages together but it is also quite common to overlook this factor. You should perform it well as a good sitemap and proper internal links are going to raise the quality of your site and the weight of every single link.
6. Broken Links and Sitemaps
Any website gains benefits from the presence of proper sitemap. Sitemap connects all the pages and makes the task of search crawler robot to understand which page links to what page. The crawler acts very similar to a human; and if there exists any broken link, it may not be able to understand what your site offers .
7. Bad URL’s
Most people do not understand what a bad URL is and takes it just like a broken link. The bad URL can be defined as a link that cannot be found, visited, linked, clicked or submitted to any social networking site. The difference between a bad URL and a broken link stands in the fact that the broken link is not working anymore while the bad URL never worked.
8. Flash Only Sites
This is a really common mistake committed by many Designers and Developers. A flash only website basically features no text and a site that has no text will be really hard to rank high in search engines. If you really want to use Flash, the best thing that can be done is to create 2 versions of the site. The first one would be a Flash version and the second one will be a HTML version.
9. No Alt Text For Images
When you insert an image in a page, there is the possibility to add a Title tag. This will count as extra text. ALT text supports the SEO efforts by making the working of crawlers easier. Make sure to use long tail keywords linked with the general content of webpage.
10. The Use of Header Tags
Header tags like H1, H2, H3 and so on are always going to bring in benefits in SERP due to the fact that the search engines will weigh the words that you place under the header tags in their ranking process. This mistake is commonly committed by the web masters because they do not know to define the Header Tags.
11. Invisible Text
Just because someone can’t read the text (because it’s the same color as the background) doesn’t mean search engines can’t. If you stuff keywords or hide links in invisible text, you’re going to get caught and penalized for this black hat trick. It might not happen right away, but it’s not worth the risk.
12. Using a "Splash Page' for your Home Page
We've all been to that website that has the very sexy graphic or Flash animation on its homepage that users need to click to enter the "real" website. Not only is this bad from a usability perspective (these pages confuse some people and they simply leave the website) but it's also bad from a SEO perspective. A Splash Home Page contains little or no written content. Given that the homepage is typically the strongest page of your website in terms of "ability to rank" in the search engines, you want to be sure there is content on the page that tells the search engines what your site is about.
Google, Bing and Yahoo officially stated that they are not using the tag in order to see what the page is about. The use of meta keywords stands out as a move that is not necessary and you waste time in adding them on every single page. In addition, you offer important information to competitors about yours targeted keywords.
2. Using the Same Title On Many Pages
Every single page on website must have unique title properly reflecting the purpose and content. Never create pages with the same title as the search engine will see them as similar. The page title should include important keyword phrase that you are optimizing for.
3. The Use of tobots.TXT to Block Content
In the past, people used robots.txt files in order to block content from search engines. This was done in order to have a much bigger content base when the official launch happened and in a belief that pages that are older will have a bigger weight in rankings. It is a bad idea. Do not block your robot visitors by using a robots.txt file.
4. Content Keyword Stuffing
In the past, people simply added numerous keywords inside the content area and this would make the pages rank higher in organic results. Nowadays if you do this, you are more likely to receive a penalty resulting in poor site rank or blacklisting. If you have a high bounce rate, it means that website content is keywords stuffed.
5. Lack of Internal Links
It is really easy to link the site’s pages together but it is also quite common to overlook this factor. You should perform it well as a good sitemap and proper internal links are going to raise the quality of your site and the weight of every single link.
6. Broken Links and Sitemaps
Any website gains benefits from the presence of proper sitemap. Sitemap connects all the pages and makes the task of search crawler robot to understand which page links to what page. The crawler acts very similar to a human; and if there exists any broken link, it may not be able to understand what your site offers .
7. Bad URL’s
Most people do not understand what a bad URL is and takes it just like a broken link. The bad URL can be defined as a link that cannot be found, visited, linked, clicked or submitted to any social networking site. The difference between a bad URL and a broken link stands in the fact that the broken link is not working anymore while the bad URL never worked.
8. Flash Only Sites
This is a really common mistake committed by many Designers and Developers. A flash only website basically features no text and a site that has no text will be really hard to rank high in search engines. If you really want to use Flash, the best thing that can be done is to create 2 versions of the site. The first one would be a Flash version and the second one will be a HTML version.
9. No Alt Text For Images
When you insert an image in a page, there is the possibility to add a Title tag. This will count as extra text. ALT text supports the SEO efforts by making the working of crawlers easier. Make sure to use long tail keywords linked with the general content of webpage.
10. The Use of Header Tags
Header tags like H1, H2, H3 and so on are always going to bring in benefits in SERP due to the fact that the search engines will weigh the words that you place under the header tags in their ranking process. This mistake is commonly committed by the web masters because they do not know to define the Header Tags.
11. Invisible Text
Just because someone can’t read the text (because it’s the same color as the background) doesn’t mean search engines can’t. If you stuff keywords or hide links in invisible text, you’re going to get caught and penalized for this black hat trick. It might not happen right away, but it’s not worth the risk.
12. Using a "Splash Page' for your Home Page
We've all been to that website that has the very sexy graphic or Flash animation on its homepage that users need to click to enter the "real" website. Not only is this bad from a usability perspective (these pages confuse some people and they simply leave the website) but it's also bad from a SEO perspective. A Splash Home Page contains little or no written content. Given that the homepage is typically the strongest page of your website in terms of "ability to rank" in the search engines, you want to be sure there is content on the page that tells the search engines what your site is about.
