10 Most Common SEO Mistakes - Stone Age to Present

SEO offers business owners a significant way of promoting their products and services online. While SEO is easy, it is also generally misunderstood as something that requires major capital. True that SEO can provide your business some major benefits, but if mis-treated it can also go in the opposite direction... leaving you and your business in a lurch.

Search engines have their own rules and guidelines set to be followed. Ethical SEO firms and SEO experts make sure that they follow them to a large extent, if not completely. And while some of us are on the go, following these set of rules, we tend to make some common mistakes that can lead us into the deep dark ditch of penalization.

So here's a look at some of the most common SEO mistakes made from times past to the day present:

1. Copy Cats: Copied content, either plagerized or otherwise will simply not do. Unique and original is always better. Be it short or long, just make sure that the content on your website or blog is originally yours to begin with. Otherwise... well, face the consequences!

2. Linking Softwares: Trying to link your website automatically to various websites and search engines via some software can get you banned forever.

3. Duplicate Meta Tags: Using the same titles and descriptions throughout your website is... well... wrong!

4. Keyword Stuffing: Don't try and increase your keyword density by over using the keywords throughout the page. You should know by now that this will get you penalized.

5. Link Farm Programs: Participating in link exchange and link farm programs will possibly lead you into bad neighborhood, might link you to scam websites and will surely get you penalized... need I say more?!

6. Cloaking: As old as SEO itself... cloaking text using same color as the site background and hiding keywords just doesn't work anymore. Will make you zero instead of a hero.

7. Flash-based Website: The search engines refuse to crawl flash-based websites, so avoid making it completely with flash. Also try using images and graphics that take less time to load to keep both the visitors and search engines happy.

8. Doorway Pages: This one's from stone age too and must be avoided at all costs. Try the Landing page instead, its healthy and profitable.

9. Over-Optimized Web Pages: Too much of everything is bad. So is the case with SEO. Don't over optimize your web pages, instead keep them fresh and easy to read.

10. Duplicate Content: Like duplicate meta tags, this one's a goner too. Only spread duplicate content across several pages of your website or various domains if you're looking for some penalized fun ;)

So there you have it... 10 most common SEO mistakes from the SEO Stone age to the present day. And with this we end the Murderous March series for now. Until next time, Happy clicking! :)

Instant Website Knockouts - Insignificant SEO Worries

And Murderous March continues...

There are some things in SEO on which we like spending our time. Then there are a few things we have to spend time on. And then there are a few others we should NOT be spending time over at all, let alone think about them.

These 'other things' we should 'Not be spending time on' are what I refer to as the 'Instant Website Knockouts'. Research shows that small business owners are amongst the hard hit by these as they tend to obsess over many insignificant SEO related things. So a word of advice...

Don't knock yourself out fretting over the following:

Google Page Rank Obsession >> In case you didn't know, Google Page Rank is not very significant. What the page rank tool bar probably shows you are rankings that are many months old and are barely relevant. What you should be concerned more with is whether or not any of your web pages got stuck in the supplemental index.

Multiple Domains >> Trying to get yourself up in the SERPs by having additional domains or multiple sub-domains is a bad idea to start with. Multiple domains are generally required under different considerations and are mostly this involves user's involvement. Don't try to be over smart with the search engines or the users by spreading out your content over many domains.

Website Submissions to Search Engines >> Huge wastage of time and big loss of money. Search engines are generally crawler-based and will find your website eventually. So don't waste your time submitting your website to search engines. So not the in-thing anymore.

Website Rankings >> It's absurd checking your website rankings every day. If they have dropped down, your looking constantly at them will not make them come back. The best thing to do is to keep working on improving your web pages.

Replying to SEO spam emails >> Don't ever believe a company that claims that you can buy over a 2000 quality links for a mere $50 or less. Neither should you believe any claim of getting your website submitted to over 1000 websites and search engines with just one click. It's not likely that an authetic SEO company would send you such an email. If it sounds too good to be true, it could be spam.

The list can continue well beyond this point. Your comments and suggestions are welcome :)

10 SEO Suidical Attempts - The Hangman's Noose!

Despite the fact that there are many SEO firms and experts out there who claim to be following the ethical practices and seem to know what they are doing, there seem to be hitches and glitches everywhere. While SEO can lead your website to the best of places, some basic mistakes in it can also become the hangman's noose for you, leaving you and your website stranded.

So today we take a look at the most common SEO mistakes or as I'd rather call them...
The Top Ten SEO Suicidal Attempts:

1. Hiring the Vigilant: When choosing to hire a SEO company for your business, make sure that you pick out only the best. Since SEO has the capacity to make or break your business, it is best to choose an experienced company after much research and questioning. Remember to question as much as you can and even meet a couple of their clients if you can for maximum satisfaction. You will be paying them so its your job to understand and know about them as much as possible, because if you don't then you might end up paying a high price for their mistakes.

2. Website Usability: Do not avoid things like logical navigation, simple structure, good linking and quality content. These are considered by both, the visitors and the search engines, so rest assured that it will not be overlooked. Even the smallest downloading issue or complication with these can make a visitor lose interest.

3. Generalized Keywords and Phrases: Opting for keywords that are too general will lead you nowhere. Chances are that these keywords will also be competitive and the higher the count there is for these keywords, the lesser the chances are of your website getting ranked anywhere on the top for these. Specific keywords/phrases tend to work well and these are possibly something that potential customers will possibly use when trying to find the services/products you offer.

4. Duplicate Content: Having the same content, not just on your web pages as text but also in the meta title, is a no-go. Before you know it, your site will start appearing in the supplemental index and will be caught for duplicate content issues.

5. Same Anchor Text: Try using different anchor texts when linking your website. Using the same text every time for linking is considered unnatural and doesn't really help your link building in anyway.

6. Stuffed Up Web Pages: Stuffing your meta tags, page footer or the page header with keywords is called spam. Same as with hiding text in the background or anywhere else on the page. You will get caught, so don't do it!

7. Domain Name Issues: Always be careful with your domain name. Search engines consider www.mydomain.com and domain.com as 2 different websites, so you can imagine what that could possibly mean. You will get caught for duplicate content for sure.

8. Too Much Link Usage: Using your website link over and over in your guest books, blogs or comments is not good SEO. This will be taken as spamming.

9. Restrained Spiders: Incorrect robots.txt files, having an all-flash and full of graphics website that the spiders can't crawl, various session IDs and a number of variables in your website URL are capable of restraining search engine spiders to crawl your web pages and hence prevent it from getting properly indexed.

10. Disturbed Link Trade: Trading links with every website is not the very best of ideas. Although reciprocal linking is good but it is best to trade links with quality sites only and with those related to your industry.

The list can continue well beyond where it stopped. Your additions and comments are welcome :)