Common SEO Mistakes Still Being Made in 2011

There are so many websites today on the internet, with many SEO experts vying for the top ten spots in search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo!  Even with that said, there are even more websites all over the internet with little or no SEO at all.  Still, the worst thing that happens and is constantly ruining reputations of reputable SEO companies are these self-proclaimed “SEO Experts”. These are the companies taking people’s money and doing all the wrong things as a futile attempt to provide optimization in a very competitive market.

For this reason alone, this article is written to point out the common mistakes that are often made(still in today’s web) in hopes to educate companies on what they should not see when they are paying for proper SEO.

One Time Only

A lot of web design companies provide a SEF service while calling it SEO.  Making a website search engine friendly (SEF) by making sure all of the title tags are specific, that there aren’t any duplicate URL’s, that the URL’s are easy to read permalinks, providing ALT attributes for images, optimizing images for fast page loading, designing easy flowing navigation, and filling out the meta information on each page is great for making a website visible and easily indexed on search engines.  Make no mistake. This form of optimization does serve a purpose.  The purpose however, is to make your website easily indexed and provides an easy flow for web crawlers.

The key to figuring out if you are buying a SEF package called SEO is: the one-time fee.  SEO is an ongoing process (keeping up with algorithms, measuring metrics, tweaking pages for even better results, optimizing new pages, building backlinks, etc.) and therefore, an ongoing expense.

Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing refers to the stuffing of keywords into the content of the pages.  For example:

You are reading a Search Engine Optimization article that provides Search Engine Optimization tips on avoiding common Search Engine Optimization mistakes when doing Search Engine Optimization for a website.

Who talks like that?  The truth is, this form of keyword stuffing may have a short term gain in rankings, but will fall rapidly as the bounce rate sky rockets towards 100% since no HUMAN wants to read long winded and exceptionally redundant information.  Any SEO expert will tell you that content optimization is a delicate balance between adding the correct amount of keywords, while still providing natural sounding, quality information.

One Set Fits All

A really bad (and L-A-Z-Y) practice for SEO is optimizing every page with the same titles, keyword phrases, or descriptions.  Each page that exists in a website can be optimized uniquely from all of the other pages.  Bloggers especially understand this because their articles (even while in a niche) can receive search traffic from tons (and I do mean a lot) of different keyword phrases.  Each article usually tackles a different topic, and therefore ranks under a different search term.

Optimizing each page on your website to the specific popular keyword phrase is the best way to get quality traffic.  Users want to see exactly the information that they are looking for when they come to your website.  People do not want to be dumped on the homepage and left to fend for themselves.  They will leave faster than you can say “back button”.

Keywords Meta Tag

This mistake is very common.  Many websites will stuff the keywords Meta tag with every possible (even if slightly relevant) keyword that they can think of.  Is Google really going to believe that a single page is going to have information on 100 keywords?  I hope that sounds as ridiculous to you as it does to me.

The ironically funny thing is that Google does not care about the keywords Meta tag anyway!  This point is straight from the source!  Click here to read Google’s thoughts about the keywords Meta tag.  This information is straight from Matt Cutts, and was posted in 2009!  So if your business’ SEO Company is talking about the keywords Meta tag, run for your life (at least your money’s life)!  Keyword research should be completed to properly optimize content and the web page’s “title” tag.

Shotgun Precision Keyword Phrases

This blunder happens so frequently that it is absolutely scary to behold!  Companies will choose keywords and phrases that are so generic, that the chance of them grabbing the number one spot is astronomical and incredibly unrealistic.  Long tailed keyword phrases may return less monthly searches, but the trade off of quality (and actually interested) traffic is far more desirable.   For example, nobody will care if your website shows up on page 50 for “SEO”.  However, the interested user will really care if your page shows up as number one for “Phoenix Organic SEO Company”.

You Are Here

Location based search is becoming more and more important with every passing day.  People want to find products or services that are close to their home if possible.  With this comes the SEO mistake of not using the location of your business in your keyword phrases.  If some poor user is thinking about dinner (specifically seafood) and they find a restaurant on the other side of the country, they may get upset.

SEO really has taken a turn towards location based search ever since the rise of geo-location social platforms like Facebook Places and Foursquare.  Google is very aware of that fact.  Make sure that your titles, headings and content reflect your location-specific keyword phrases or your page might get lost in the generic section of the internet, between pages 5 & 5,000,000.

The truth of the matter is that there seems to be more SEO companies in the world than there are webpages.  Our Company, KMH Kreations, gets more spam from SEO companies than any other internet based service, even though we perform SEO, Web Design & Internet Marketing Services!

If you are reading this article because you are thinking of hiring a SEO company and are skeptical, just keep in mind to hire a local SEO company if you can (have you ever tried to sue internationally for being ripped off?), check out their reputation (like the Better Business Bureau), and understand the age old expression: “You get what you pay for”.