Information Democracy: SEO Mistakes You Must Avoid In 2014

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Search Engine Optimization itself is quite complex for several reasons, but mainly because Google uses an algorithm, which takes several factors into account when ranking a webpage, and they keep changing it. Optimizing a website for search engines requires a lot of consistent effort. Many bloggers expect immediate success in ranking high on search engines, and they soon realize that this is not possible. This article presents the common mistakes which bloggers make in search engine optimization (SEO).

Thinking About Ranking Report and Not Focusing On Traffic Stats. SEO is a means to an end. It’s a way to get traffic. It’s not about looking at pretty reports and feeling good. Look at your traffic stats, learn from it. Often you are hitting yourself over the head to get a certain phrase ranked but you don’t realize that all these other phrases are bringing in some traffic and expanding those could be a great way to go. Ranking reports can give a snapshot of where you are at on a set of words you chose to run the report on. But the beauty of SEO is that if your site is well optimized, the engines will start picking your site up for other related phrases and you won’t even know that traffic is actually increasing because you are too busy lamenting a ranking report that doesn’t show great rankings on one impossible, coveted phrase.

Failure to apply constant effort in optimizing a website for search engines. SEO involves continuous effort in carrying out all the key activities that can help you rank high on search engines. Many people fail in their efforts to rank high on search engines because they expect overnight success, and they soon give up when they fail to see immediate results. It is important for you to gradually add new content to your website so that search engines visit your website more often. You also need to steadily build links to your website in order to improve your ranking on search engines.

Failure to use different SEO strategies and tools. It is important for you to use different tools for optimizing your website. You must also aim to rank high on several major search engines. Choose about four main search engines and aim to rank high on them. Write and submit articles, participate in relevant forums, submit your website to many directories and search engines and exchange links with related websites that have high popularity rank. List the strategies that you intend to follow in optimizing your website for search engines, and make sure that you carry them out on a regular basis.

Lack of a good understanding of your niche’s keywords and phrases. If you want to successfully optimize your website, it is important that you know all your keywords and it is also important that you use these keywords on your website content, in your articles, and in any other content that you use to promote your website. Many people make the mistake of using untargeted keywords and phrases on their websites and other content that is meant to drive traffic to their website. Some internet marketers and website owners also fail to use their keywords on the title tag of their website.

Lack of patience. Many web masters get impatient and they want to see their website rank high on search engines immediately. They fail to apply constant effort in implementing their SEO strategies. SEO requires that you patiently use your selected strategies and tools in optimizing your website for search engines.

Using A Flash Website. One of the main problems with flash based websites is that it is not very friendly. Not only is it limiting to the users, it also is unreadable to search engines. Search engine spiders can’t read your content if it is in flash and therefore they can’t index your site. If you must have a flash website please provide an HTML alternative.

There’s More Than One Search Engine. A mistake that many people make is that they only focus on Google. Google is a large search engine if not the largest, but it isn’t the only search engine being used by users. You need to prepare your site for all search engines to get the full benefit of SEO

Don’t Pay For Links. After Google updated its algorithm to Penguin it became dangerous to pay for links. Search engines have started to expect you to create quality links naturally and paying for links are a violation. The best way to avoid this is to focus on creating great content and earn your links naturally.

Building The Wrong Links. Building links just to build links is not a great strategy when it comes to SEO. You need to make sure you are building quality links that search engines will respect and use in their ranking system. Linking to directories is not enough and only provides low quality links. You should try to link to a well respected and trusted industry site that will be worth more to you than 100 links from directories.

Lack of Maintenance. The bottom line is, if you want to be successful in SEO, you must keep you site update with fresh content and adjust your strategy as algorithms change

Ignore your target audience. When you optimize your site you need to make sure you keep your audience in mind. Use language that your audience uses and will understand.