Search Engine Optimization Mistakes

Article by: Bruce Gow http://www.searchengine-guy.com.au

Many web designers and website owners believe in "If You Build It They Will Come". This attitude will get your web site nowhere fast.

Sure, if you build it you will get people that know about your company and know that you have made the site live come and visit, but you will not be unleashing the real potential of your web site.

Search engine optimization needs to be implemented from the beginning and to be ongoing if you want any sort of rankings for your website. The following are biggest mistakes in SEO that I see all the time.

1. Poor Choice of URL or Website Address

How many people, let alone search engines would know that www.mpna.com.au is all about mobile phones, even though the letters stand for Mobile Phones Network Australia? Adding a strong keyword in the URL like, www.mobilephonesnet.com.au would place this website in front straight away. It tells English literate humans and search engines that the site is about mobile phones!

2. Lack of Adequate Keyword Research

Keyword research HAS to be carried out initially or else you may be placing your efforts into becoming popular for keywords that few people are searching for regularly.

3. Laziness

Laziness is also a major contributing factor. Many webmasters feel it is just too hard or too time consuming to do search engine optimization or write articles about what they do best. If you are not adding at least one page to your website every month, then you can't expect to be ranked very high for your important terms.

In situations where you just can't devote the time to search engine optimize your site I would recommend seeking the services of a professional search engine optimization company, such as our SEO firm; http://www.searchengine-guy.com.au

Whatever your choice, make sure that any firm that you choose has the appropriate internet marketing qualifications to do the job well.

4. Aiming Too Low

Many people think "Well my site is only a small site, there is no way I will be able to compete with the larger sites that have top spots in the search engines". It is possible that that if you optimize your web site you may not be able to compete with the larger sites and may not be able to get a page 1 or 2 ranking in any of the search engines, BUT, what if you did? Always shoot for the stars so if you fall short you will at least hit the sky.

5. Lack of Planning

Simply said, "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." Planning is an essential factor in your SEO campaign. Knowing exactly what steps you are going to make and in what order and how you are going to go about achieving each of those steps will save you not only time but it will save you frustration as well. Planning is essential.

6. Too Many Changes Made Without Testing

Don't change your entire site all at once, instead, change a few areas at a time and see what results they produce. If you are satisfied with this then move on and optimize another section.

7. Failing to monitor Your SEO Progress

There are many ways to do this you will have to find the best method for you. You will need to monitor your search engine ranking for the keywords you are targeting after each update.

Changes should be recorded and used as references to monitor progress and for strategy adjustments. There are many tools for this process as well. I recommend IBP, Internet Business Promotion, will has most of the SEO tools that you need to get top rankings in the search engines.

8. Linking to "Bad Neighbourhoods"

These sites are also known as free for all (FFA) pages and link farms. They serve no other purpose other than to list tens of thousands of unrelated websites. Not only will these sites not provide your site with any traffic, certain search engines will ban sites who participate.

9. Over Optimisation

Trying to pull too many rabbits out of the hat at once, or "Over Optimisation" of your website.

Optimizing your web pages for a particular search engine can be a good thing. Over-optimizing can defeat the purpose, however. Search engines are catching on quickly to pages that appear ‘over-optimized’.

Stuffing key-words into your pages is the most common problem. Never use hidden (invisible) text to add keywords. Adding loads of links at once, even if they ARE related to your site. You will get caught, and your site will get banned.

10. Use of Doorway Pages

Using Doorway Pages to get unrelated pages popular. Doorway pages are orphaned web pages that are typically optimized for a particular key-phrase and a particular search engine.

They are promoted to the search engine in an effort to achieve high rankings. They are not linked back to by any other page on the website and, as such, search engines are able to flush them out quite easily and penalize the entire site.

One final note: Any company that tells you that it can achieve ‘guaranteed’ rankings is either lying to you or using some of these Black Hat techniques. Unfortunately, there is no way to guarantee a number one result within (unpaid) search results. When choosing a search engine optimization company to work with, be sure you feel comfortable with them and trust them

**Webmasters** You may use this article free of charge, as long as the article remains intact and you provide a link back to http://www.searchengine-guy.com.au




About the Author
Bruce Gow specialises in search engine optimisation, Search Engine Optimization & article submission.

This article is free for republishing as long as the article remains intact and a link is given back to our website. For a free report on search engine marketing of your website, visit http://www.searchengine-guy.com.au