6 Stupid SEO Mistakes That Can Kill Your Search Campaigns
ComScore’s “State of the Internet” report confirmed that
there were over 212 million Americans using the Internet to seek out
informational content. You are doing
your organization and your bottom line a huge disservice if consumers cannot
find your brand online. The science of search marketing is not simple. However,
there are several simple SEO mistakes that should never happen, no matter what
your level of expertise. Below are 6 SEO
mistakes that can kill your search campaigns, and your brand’s reputation.
1. Title Tag
Tragedies
One of the worst things you can do for onsite SEO is to ignore
your title tags. Take the time to show your title tags some TLC. Every page on
your Web site should have a unique title tag. They should be specific to the
page content, engaging, and inspire people to click through or, even better,
link to you.
2. Chasing
After Intangible Keywords
Before you start spitting out web copy,
research and become very familiar with your keyword universe (list of targeted
terms you are optimizing). Don’t chase after “buzz words” that have no chance
of converting. You are wasting precious website real estate and misleading
visitors. Some tools you can use for keyword research are Wordtracker or Google Insights for Search. However,
your strongest source of data is your own analytics reports.
3. Clumsy URL Structuring
Keep your URLs
comprehensive and consistent. Use all lower case when spelling out URLs and
make sure to use a (-) dash not an underscore (_).
4. Internal
Linking Errors
External linking is essential to SEO. However, internal
linking is just as important. When optimizing for internal linking from a blog
post, service page, or Contact Us form, make sure you are using active anchor
text. Things like “click here” or “read more” no longer make the cut. Be
creative and strong in your calls to action, and encourage people to click
through your site. Internal linking absolutely effects a visitors average time
on site.
5. Don’t Require Visitors to Use a GPS in
Order to Navigate Your Site
Flash navigations are the kiss of death for
strong onsite SEO. Navigation should be text and HTML based. Also the
navigation tabs should live on the top of the page.
6. Keyword Density is Cliché
It is still
important to include keywords in your website copy. However, there is no magic percentage when it comes to keyword
density. It was previously recommended that each page has a 3-6% keyword
density; it is now recommended that you just produce great content which
includes keyword terms. Most importantly, keywords should appear in the page
title, description meta tag, and alt tags as well.
Bonus: Don’t Obsess Over Google Page Rank -
What you see in the toolbar is several months old, and doesn’t affect
rankings like it used to. Page Rank is not, even remotely, the most important
factor when it comes to SEO.