In today's competitive web market place good search engine and Google rankings are so important when it comes to the fine lines of success or not. There are many SEO companies out there that can offer advice and/or optimise your site for you but when are we going too far? Well there are some techniques that I regularly hear that people have been advised to do that will actually do your site more harm than good. Some of the most common mistakes are below:
Stuffing your title with keywords
When it comes to optimising your site one of the most important elements of your site to remember is your page titles . Your page titles are where Google and other search engines initially try to match keywords therefore it is important to add your most important keywords to the title. There is a fine line however between adding keywords to describe page content and stuffing the title with keywords. Remember the title is there to tell visitors what they are going to be viewing; a list of keywords isn't very meaningful so make your title short, enticing and readable. Stuffed titles can result in users bypassing your site which will result in you less income for you.
Littering your body text with keywords
Remember the old saying "content is key". Well in SEO terms it is. Your content is not only what visitors to your site read but what search engines scan through as well. In order to rank highly for a certain keyword we all know that these keywords must appear in your body of text. However taking this too far can have a damaging result on your sites page rank and the length of time visitors are prepared to spend browsing your site. Who wants to read an article that is littered with the same word again and again when it has no place in the sentence. Write naturally and I'm sure the keywords will flow into the text freely and if not there is no harm in dotting in a few at the end. A keyword density of about 2% is fine (2 keywords for every 100 words).
Not using your real name on comments
This has got to be the most annoying tactic out there for developing backlinks. I find it painful to read, hear and see regarding this method of backlink development. It's also funny that so many SEO companies actually advise people to do this as well. What am I talking about? Well it's generating links through submitting blog comments, replacing your real name with a keyword name, and then linking it to your own website. Believe me when I say this that this doesn't work. By default blog comments include the rel="nofollow" attribute meaning Google doesn't include these as backlinks to your site meaning there is no search engine benefit at all. If you use your real name it gives you more credibility, plus if you post unique insightful comments people may click your link to read more about what you have to say.
Cloaking
This is another incredibly annoying technique that I have come across too often. Creating a site so that the search engine sees one thing and visitors see another is called cloaking. There are different ways of doing this but the two most common techniques are via programming or re-directs. Clicking on a link for computer games and ending up on a site for shoes will infuriate any browser and give you a really bad name.
Sending link exchange request emails
This is actually a really good technique to use if done well, but it is also one of the most time consuming. Many site owners will be happy to link to your site if your site has unique, insightful content that is related to their own. No one is going to link to a competitor, no one will link to unrelated sites (this does you no good anyway) and no one will link to you if your not personal with your approach. Sending out the same generic email to multiple webmaster is incredibly annoying to receive and will only frustrate them into hating you with a passion. Approach sites that you use regularly (maybe posting comments on), indicating this and post a link to them first. I'm sure they will be happy to link back to you if you have a great site.
Conclusion
Optimise your site the correct way and don't take the sneaky and lazy way outs. Develop traffic by creating a well structured site with excellent original content and promote your site the right ways.
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