7 Search Engine Optimization Mistakes And Solutions
|
|
To many websites, webmasters discover that major sources of website traffic come from search engines. Therefore, they are all keen on gaining top search engine placements through search engine optimization.
Based on our several years of SEO experience, we point out some common mistakes and shed some lights to correct it.
1. Cannot Get Indexed by Search Engines, Really?
A garment ERP software solution provider came to me and asked a question: "I have established a new website for 1 year, and found a SEO company to submit my website. However, my website can be found in search engines only when I type my domain name http://www.indigo8-solutions.com in search query box. The SEO company told me
my domain got banned. What can I do?"
Ah, I told them they have been fooled by that SEO company. If you type your domain name in search box and your website can be found, which means your website has not been banned. Interestingly, your SEO company's domain name is no longer found in Google. Their domain got banned only.
To help them find out their real problems, I found the following in search engines:
a. When typing their domain name in search query box, their site will be displayed in search result. Instead of displaying
Title Tag in the search result, search engine displays their domain name only.
b. Only 1 page is being indexed.
What's the problem then?
With a closer look to their coding, I found that at the top of their webpage, they heavily use Javascript to present theirheading, company name, visible content, and website menu. Actually, many search engines have difficulties in reading Javascript codes.
Solution?
Put those Javascript in external js files and leave the webpages with plain HTML codes. Search engines usually have problems in crawling Javascript. Since their whole site navigation menu is written in Javascript, they should build a sitemap using plain HTML so that search engines can read all of their pages.
One more tips: When you cannot get indexed by search engines, do not blindly believe someone saying that your website get banned. You should firstly look at your website structure and see if your coding are clumsy and make search engines hard to "read" your website.
The problem created by Javascript is not uncommon nowadays. Even a very big Asia Market Research Firm also commits this error. They are now starting to rectify it.
2. Link Building
In many forums, some people are strongly opposed to link exchange and claim that it is a devil and it hurts your search engine ranking and even get you banned.
I personally do not agree. Evidence shows that many top sites are doing link exchange and getting top rankings across all major search engines. In addition, link exchange has been a long used way for traffic building by smaller websites. I do not see why search engines will block people to promote websites using this simple and long used method.
Indeed, link exchange becomes a problem only when you manipulate link text with a pure purpose of tricking search engines, exchange links with link farms, or buy hundreds of domain names and cross-link with your site.
A solution to avoid link exchange hurting you includes:
- Use a wide variety of link text
- Seek link exchange with sites of similar theme
- Emphasize on how many traffic you can get from your link partners instead of search engine ranking
Some webmasters know the importance of link exchange. However, they think that it consumes most of their time and finally give up doing it. A solution is that you can consider using Linkautomate.com to manage your links. This kind of software saves you time in link checking and link page update.
3. Use of Flash Intro
Web design companies try hard to persuade you to use a Flash introduction as your homepage. You think that "Wow! The flash animation is very appealing and it makes your site looks more attractive". However, do you know that it can hurt your website in search engine ranking?
Let me explain..
Search engines analyze website based on text. Flash, unluckily, is not text. According to "How to Design Website Guideline" of Siuchu Suga, search engines are not able to read content presented by Flash. They just treat Flash as an embedded object or graphics only. If you use a Flash Intro as your homepage, you will never get good rankings.
In addition, many Flash intro do not offer additional and meaningful content to visitors. Ask your visitors, how many of them are really interested in reading your Flash Intro before going straight to your website content?
A solution to use Flash or not, please ask yourself whether the Flash intro is really useful and can offer additional information to your visitors? Secondly, instead of a Flash homepage, you may consider making a Flash header together with content at your homepage.
4. Hidden Text and Meta Tags
Webmasters understand that keyword density is a way to improve search engine ranking, and some webmasters use a technique called "keyword stuffing". They will stuff keywords into their webpages repeatedly, e.g. "keyword 1, keyword 2, .... keyword 1, keyword 2...." Well, everyone knows it does not make sense to visitors. Therefore, those "clever" webmasters will make those text invisible. For example, make the text color identical to background color.
Unluckily, this trick no longer works. Search engines are able to detect it, and penalize websites using this nonsense technique. If you do not want your site being penalized, remove those text immediately in case you have adopted this method.
Okay, some webmasters only stuff keywords in Meta Keyword Tags, an area for putting keywords. I am sorry to say that stuffing keywords in Meta keyword tags is also no good. You can only repeat a keyword for 3 times at most. Nowadays, search engines place less emphasis or even no emphasis on Meta keyword tags. So, what is the point of risking yourself by stuffing keywords there?
5. Use of Dynamic Pages
Many websites use content managment system (CMS) to generate their webpages. As generation of dynamic pages are easier for website development, CMS generally use dynamic pages. However, search engines have difficulties to spider and understand them.
To solve the problem, you can consider using Mod Rewrite in case you use Apache server or finding a CMS that can generate static HTML pages.
6. Be a Pagerank Monster
Many search engine marketers are too focused on their website's pagerank. Everyday, they are talking and checking pagerank.
They perform link building based on pagerank only. In fact, pagerank is only one factor for Google to determine search engine ranking. It also cannot affect your rankings in other search engines like Yahoo and MSN. If you are too concerned about pagerank, you finally will ignore other important optimization criteria.
Therefore, you should repeatedly remind yourself that pagerank is only one of the many factors and you cannot only work on it.
7. Too Believe in Sandbox
Some webmasters propose that a new website will be put into sandbox by Google so that you cannot get any high rankings for highly competitive keywords. Even though their website cannot get any rankings after 1 year, they still believe that it is sandbox effect. Some even says Yahoo has Sandbox, MSN has Sandbox, etc...
From Google's patent information, there is no clue that such sandbox occurs. From my experience, if your site is new and cannot rank high in highly competitive keywords, it is solely because other websites are more established in search engine world. For example, they have more inbound links, more content, etc. Therefore, webmasters should not focus on finding how to get out from sandbox. Instead, you should put more effort in link building and content optimization. Eventually, you will see your website's rankings rise.
By Jimsun Lui, who is working in Search Engine Optimization division of Agog Digital Marketing Strategy Limited. The company assists clients in both Chinese and English search engine optimization
|
|
|
Created & Maintained by Empower! CMS Web Sites
Host2Sell Web Hosting | Emarketing Workshops | Site SEO Review | FREE NewsletterHow To Get The Ranking You Always Wanted!
Is your web site well ranked (In the top ten search results) in the results? If not, you need to read this and get the ranking you always dreamed of getting with your web site! I will show you how to get your web site a top ten ranking in the search engines with these few easy-to-do steps.Site Design - The web site's structure will decide how the spiders read your web site and the speed of them indexing the web pages. There should be more text content then HTML content. You should avoid programs such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver. Such programs will add coding that isn't necessary and also they may add coding errors. The pages should validate and be usable in all of todays leading browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape, etc.). Also look at your web...(related: Search Engine Optimization)
Search Engine Indexing - 3 Strategies Guaranteed To Skyrocket Your Success
In order to design a website that performs well with the search engines, it is very important to give the search engines what they want. You'll want to find out what search engines index and what they do not in order to have your pages returned as a result. Consider the following strategies to get your web page noticed as frequently as possible.Strategy #1 - KeywordsTo most search engines, keywords are vitally important. Because of this you will want to pay special attention to keywords and how they play a role in your website and ultimately search engine results. Do some research to find the keywords that are most important to your products, services, and what your website is all about. Then, construct copy using the keywords, being sure to include the keywords in the title and near the top of the article. By doing this, you will be ...(related: Search Engine Optimization)
Seo Expert Guide - Conclusions (part 10/10)
As you have seen throughout the guide, search engine optimization (SEO) is a multi-faceted activity. Likely to be time-consuming, it is important that you spend your time wisely. By way of conclusion, therefore, I would like to (i) summarise the time/spend/effort (=cost) and value trade-off for each area I have covered, (ii) highlight from that you top five areas of focus and (iii) give you some migration tips for how to cut-over to your new, optimized site.
(a) The cost/value tradeoffI have listed all the SEO and promotion techniques covered in the guide below, rated them for cost a...(related: Search Engine Optimization)
Top 10 Little Used Seo Strategies
There are millions of web sites trying to get listed in the top 20 to 30 spots on the major search engines. That's a lot of competition! So if you're having a hard time getting those spot...(related: Search Engine Optimization)
7 Search Engine Optimization Mistakes And Solutions
To many websites, webmasters discover that major sources of website traffic come from search engines. Therefore, they are all keen on gaining top search engine placements through search engine optimization.<...(related: Search Engine Optimization)
Does The Number Of Links On A Page Affect Ranking?
Lots of research has focused on inbound links to a site, but little has focused on the number of links actually on a page (outbound or to other parts of a site). Many SEO gurus have recently been talking about ...(related: Search Engine Optimization)
Search Engine Updates Vs. Seo
Webmasters always anxiously wait for a search engine update. Those who rank well want to see their sitesget even better. Those who didn't do well expect a major boost. Those whose sites get de-indexed anticipatea major comeback. Those who just started new sites bet on their sites will make into the first page ofsearch engine result pages (SERPs) for their targeting keywords. Of course, not everyone will be happy aboutthe results of search engine updates. After all, search engine traffic is a zero-sum game - someone losesand someone gai...(related: Search Engine Optimization)
Great Site Ranking In Google The Secrets Out
How many years did you register your domain name for?If it was only one then Google could hold that against you.Why?Because the majority of Spam websites only register a domain name for one year. A domain name registered for a longer period implies that the owner is more likely to be legitimate and serious about their web site.This is just one of the unusual factors possibly considered by Google when indexing and ranking a website. Factors you could never even have guessed at in some cases.How do I know this...(related: Search Engine Optimization)
Beyond Search Engines
Some webmasters report that search engines account for 75% or more of their total website traffic. However, it's important not to become too dependent on search engines for new business. Achieving a top listing from a major search engine is becoming more and more difficult over time. The competition for top spots is intense and it's getting harder every day to get listed at all. Also more and more search engines are moving to a pay-per-click m...(related: Search Engine Optimization)
An Introduction To Google Sitemaps
... and why I 'm dying to get finally in the Google SERPHave you also experienced that getting indexed on Google, despite the Google crawler visits each day your site, is getting tougher and tougher, not to say it's apparently almost impossible in short term?! Between us, in the corridors of Google, they're talking about the notorious 'Google Sandbox' theory. According this theory, a new website is first 'sandboxed' and doesn't get a ranking when the keywords of that website are not incredibly competitive. The Google Sandbox is in fact a filter placed in March of 2004 which new websites prevents from having immediately success in the Google search engine result pages. This filter "is only intended to reduce search engine spam". The ...(related: Search Engine Optimization)
Why Pay-per-inclusion Search Engines Are Dying
A Pay-Per-Inclusion search engine is a service in whicha search engine charges you a certain amount to spiderand include your website in its da...(related: Search Engine Optimization)
Importance Of Keywords In Anchor Text Or Title Text
Keywords are indisputably, the single most important element of an anchor text.First of all, for those who are still learning the ropes let us define an anchor text. Anchor Text is also called Title Text. It is a clickable statement or text on a webpage, which takes you to another page or website.It is a link to another site or page.The question is what should be considered an ideal anchor text? Since it is an invitation, it should be able to draw attention. It should i...(related: Search Engine Optimization)
Ranked #1 At Google For Invisible Entrepreneurs But No Traffic?
I am ranked #1 for that silly phrase at Google. So What?Here's a secret. You can be ranked #1 at Google for thephrase "Waterfall Watches" if you put the phrase on yourpage 4 times and in metatags twice. How do I know that?I did it in 2001 and still rank number one in Google forth...(related: Search Engine Optimization)
site-map - Copyright © 2006 Empower! Web Design | All Rights Reserved. | Search Engine Optimization