In a world where information search often starts and ends on the Internet, it is extremely important for your website to feature high on the rankings list of search engines. It becomes imperative to take effort and time to optimize the website in such a way that search engine queries using particular terms result in your website achieving a superior page rank. This can mean a great difference to the number of visitors that your website is able to attract as users of the Internet are often heavily dependent on these rankings. In view of the common tendency of visitors to review only sites that appear on the first page of the search results, it can often mean the success or failure of your web marketing exercise. Let’s take a look at the SEO mistakes you must avoid.
Duplicate Content
Having the same content on you home page as that in the internal pages can really damage your search engine rankings as it reduces the value of all the web links that have been incorporated in the various pages. Since it is Google’s intention to serve the maximum value to their users, duplicate content is viewed as being poor content. Ideally, Google likes to see a few thousand words per page but at the very minimum you should not dip below 400 to 500 words per page. While Google doesn’t interpret duplicate content as spam, it is still something to be very much avoided.
Not Having Fresh Content
Website owners should keep their pages updated with fresh information. As far as search engines are concerned, old contents are of little use to Internet users and page rankings can really slip due to this being overlooked. Fresh content and new links are interpreted positively by search engines and result in superior ranks. Another important point you should keep in mind is that while changing the keyword strategy make sure to update the Meta description and ALT text.
Long Page Loading Time
People are always in a hurry and rarely have the enthusiasm to wait for pages to load. Research reveals that more than 50% of the users expect pages to load in less than two seconds and tend to abandon their attempt if the load time exceeds even a second more. Web users are so finicky about the site performance that most of them wouldn’t bother to return after a bad user experience and will actually recommend that others avoid it too. You can guess the extent of the damage being done in this way.
Less Value to Users
Despite all the tricks and tweaks available for search engine optimization, the best way of getting superior ranks is to provide content that is of use to visitors old and new. There is very little to be gained by achieving superior page ranks and then not having the content or services that will generate business for you. Make sure that you provide content that is fresh, relevant and arranged in a fetching way with proper image placement, podcasts, slide-share decks, etc. that will attract and engage visitors, and have them coming back repeatedly.
Not Engaging a Good SEO Company
For your website to rank consistently high in the results page of the search engines, there are a huge number of SEO techniques that need to be kept in mind. Understanding the often complex logic and algorithms employed by search engines is a job for the professionals so it is best that you opt for the top SEO Company in Mumbai to look after your website’s performance. Ask them to demonstrate their credentials and not just merely talk about SEO concepts. Discuss what you want in detail and be sure to execute an agreement that clearly defines the deliverables and the timelines.
Some Common SEO Mistakes You Often Overlook
- Often keywords are stuffed in your image alt tags, Meta tags, etc. This is considered to be spam today. Avoid it.
- Often keywords are stuffed in the page footer with hidden text or lightly-colored text. Avoid doing this 1998-99 technique, since it is regarded as spam today.
- You often ignore usability. You must understand that things like logical navigation, proper site structure, descriptive link text, etc. are fruitful for both search engine spiders and the users.
- You should stay away from developing an unbalanced link profile.
- Often you tend to use key phrases in precisely the same way each and every time. Avoid doing this. Be creative and try your best to sound natural by using key phrases in different ways.
- You often forcefully use keywords that are not relevant to the page. Suppose you are operating a wedding reception site, you should not forcefully use a search term regarding wedding dresses, simply because it would pull an immense traffic. It would be of no use unless you are selling, designing or altering wedding dresses.
Don’t be obsessed with ranking; instead concentrate on improving your website as that will take care of your rank.
Author Bio: David Moore is a blogger and an SEO expert. He enjoys sharing his knowhow with his followers.