10 Deadly SEO Sins
SEO still seems like a very foggy effort to many website owners. I still see people in the forums and blogs that seem to be stuck in search engine optimization circa 2001 by looking for directory submission services and articles “blasts” which do nothing but flood the web pages with junk. There is such a thing as good search engine marketing and it is important to fully understand this.
Let’s take a look at some of the largest SEO mistakes a website can make that will ultimately hurt their SEO efforts:
SEO Sin#1 – Mass Submission:
A mass submission of almost anything online is just not as effective as it once was. There is no easy way of marketing your business online. There is a tremendous amount of activity in the search engines now than there ever has been and it takes a strategic approach to push your way through all the noise in the online space. Internet marketing is all about being strategic and placing things where they will deliver the most bang for your buck. Whether that buck is monetary or simply your time, it is important that your online effort also delivers some targeted traffic to your website.
SEO Sin#2 – Over Stuffing:
Your SEO is not Thanksgiving so don’t over stuff yourself. If you are launching a business profile don’t jam 16 keywords into the title. If the keyword is part of your business name that is fine but to leave a sentence of keywords in your company name, description or anywhere else for that matter is a horrible approach. Sometimes you can achieve this task tastefully but often times greed sets in for most. Same rule or principal applies to almost anything you do online. Whether it is a meta tag, h1 tag or even your Facebook fan page you have to keep it clean and tasteful. People can often notice when someone is over optimizing.
SEO Sin#3 – Duplicate Meta Info:
Sometimes I come across websites that have the same meta information going across the entire website. Your meta tag information is descriptive information relating directly to the topic of that page and should never be the same across the board. From an SEO standpoint this is horrible because it does not give your pages the ability to individually rank in search results.
SEO Sin#4 – Stale Content:
The content on your website is going to be a very important driving force on how people respond on your website. If your content seems stale and just not with it your web traffic is not going to respond very well and neither are your search rankings. Take the time to update your website and copy and make it search engine friendly by utilizing some SEO related keywords naturally throughout your text.
SEO Sin#5 – Duplicate Content:
Not only does duplicate content leave behind a very poor user experience but the ramifications from the search engines could be crippling. Duplicate content, if not managed properly could results in search penalties leaving search rankings in a state of disarray. Your website content should always be unique and compelling. Often times this will happen if you have different versions of your home page on three separate files and do not even know it, such as: www.site.com or www.site.com/index.html.
SEO Sin#6 – Too Much CSS:
CSS is the new html. CSS allows websites to really do some neat things without having to worry about flash or any other non-popular forms of coding. CSS works in sheets that overlap each other and too much CSS can either slow down your page load time or sometimes trick the search engines into thinking there is hidden content.
SEO Sin#7 – Sloppy Interlinking:
Interlinking should be done properly and strategically. Not everything requires interlinking and too much interlinking will cause your audience to tune out.
SEO Sin#8 – URL Structures:
Do your URL structures have a strong of characters at the end of the URL that look horrendous and sloppy? If they do they will react the same way they look in the search results. Clean and tighten them up and you will strengthen your SEO efforts a great deal.
SEO Sin#9 – Flash:
If you still think flash is nice and fancy you are going to have some problems in the search engines. Flash is outdated and tacky and if you plan on building your website in flash it will almost never rank in the search results.
SEO Sin#10 – Lack of Knowledge:
Take the time and study up on the industry before you deem your onsite SEO changes a failure. They are the foundation to everything you will do online so make sure you educate yourself if you plan on doing these efforts online yourself.
It is important to know that onsite SEO is the foundational step to building up your web presence, so don’t commit any SEO sins!
24 Responses to “10 Deadly SEO Sins”
The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Journal is Written by SEO Expert:
Nick Stamoulis
Tel - 781-999-1222
nick@brickmarketing.com
Brick Marketing - SEO Company
Too much CSS, as well as Javascript, may cause the page load time to be slower by default, however if you compress the CSS and Javascript code with free tools such as “CSS Compressor” (http://www.cssdrive.com/index.php/main/csscompressor/) or “Javascript Compressor” (http://javascriptcompressor.com/) your page load time increases exponentially. Also, a Flash graphic is nice as long as it complements an otherwise SEO-friendly site, not as a website unto itself. Otherwise solid, though basic points.
Hi iRIS,
Thanks for reading and your comment!
Excellent resources! Thanks for sharing them with all of our readers!
Very true for the Mass Submission point, many people look for quantity buy not quality, it will hurt the serp as well if your site lists on spam sites.
I have placed my website on line recently. I can type the URL and everything seems to work. If I do a search for a product my URL never shows up. I’m thinking I may have bitten off more than I can chew.
I took an online “how to build your own website” from a local vo- tech and I have had help but I seem to have gotten past everyone now.
How difficult could it be from here?
Your information seems to be real good but I am either reading some of it too fast or am not comprehending at all.
I agree with this sins. But, there are other sins, also important:
Incorrect server redirects (redirect user to a new website, and not googlebot, for instance).
Link exchange programs
And so on. But this examples can get your site out of google SERP.
Keep good work Nick!
Hi Miguel,
So very true! Indirect server redirects is certainly an SEO sin to avoid!
Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts!
Nick
How about, not utilizing Google and Bing’s FREE local marketplaces if you’re a regional company. Or… not utilizing Webmasters to see if there are problems with your SEO efforts.
Hi Douglas,
Right on the money! Not using the local marketplace listings or webmaster tools is an SEO sin!
Thanks for the comment!
Nick
“Flash is outdated and tacky…”
So is your information:
http://searchengineland.com/google-now-crawling-and-indexing-flash-content-14299
http://www.wow.gr/acceleratesuccess/2010/07/seo-flash/
http://www.seoconsultants.com/articles/2598/flash/
You didn’t specifically comment on the point about Link exchange programs being a sin.
I think I know what they are, so is this an SEO sin and if so why?
Great points as always! thanks for sharing! I think #8 is the most important as the links are what draws google’s spiders! But all of them are equally important! thanks for sharing (as always!)
Darren
Hi Douglas,
I must say some of your comments are right on. I do need to point out that I published a 100% flash site to prove that my sight promotion techniques work. I enjoy number one ranking in all but two of the key words and phrases which I’m going after. Site promotion in my real world experience is far more effective that site optimization. I have the results to back up this claim.
I couldnt agree more Nick – well written.
Thank you
Another great article nick, way to go. I always enjoy your articles they are very informative yet actionable.
Cheers
Hi Cool Robb,
Thanks for reading and sharing your thought and the additional resources. Maybe I should have rephrased this to say that Flash gets indexed but not nearly as well as other form of HTML, etc. Over my 12 year career I have personally optimized hundreds of websites and have NEVER done well for any Flash only sites, especially since 2008 (since the Search Engine Land) article. As far as I am concerned having a Flash only site is truly outdated. Elements of Flash work well to drive a message or conversion aspect…anyway that is my 2 cents
Hi Mike,
Here is some information about Google’s perspective of link exchanging:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66356
I hope this helps.
Thanks!
Nick
Nick
I believe in Quality over quantity
I would rather have 39 PR 8 backlinks
than 2399 junk links
I would rather have 5 quality articles and PDF’s on PR8-9 sites than junk sites over the web
I would rather have 5 videos to 100 video sites with 10,000 views than spamming junk videos with 5 views,
Quality over quantity will always win
Jing Zhou
Hi Jing,
Thanks for your comment!
Very true, at the end of the day it is about high quality relevant links rather than a volume of low quantity links…
Thanks again & take care,
Nick
SEO Sin#9 – Flash:
If you still think flash is nice and fancy you are going to have some problems in the search engines.
Hey man,
This is definitely not the case.
Have you ever heard of Asual.com? I’ve been utilizing their mod_rewrite version of SWFAddress for around 6 months now – with amazing search engine ranking results.
Sorry to hear you think flash is outdated and tacky – although I couldn’t disagree with you more my friend – and I don’t think you’ll find any tackiness here – http://www.thefwa.com/ – pure flash genius and very cool.
Hi James,
Thanks for reading and sharing this example!
Take Care,
Nick
I think your posting is “spot on” and I have positioned myself on the web within a few months as a result of doing those “exact” things that work. I have seen 1st page results with keeping it clean and search engine friendly. Also I would like to add: keeping it real. Being a real person on the web with all your most important social websites is the best for good fresh content that is unique to each website. Don’t just post something that crawls out to every one of your social networking sites. When it all looks the same, no one pays attention. Keep it real!
Hi Danielle,
Thanks for your comment! Keeping it real is certainly the best policy!
Take Care,
Nick
I found this article about search engine optimization helpful.
It will help me to make some changes in my approach to better utilizing the search engines, and getting more traffic to my website.
Once again, thanks for great information!
Marguerite Fair
Hi Marguerite,
Thanks for reading and your comment! I am glad these SEO sins helped!
Take Care,
Nick
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