Top 5 Search Engine Optimization Mistakes

There are a lot of ways to promote your website and, unfortunately, a lot of these methods are mistakes. Here is a list of some of the more common mistakes (often referred to as Black Hat SEO) that you should steer well clear of.

1. Bad Neighbourhoods

These sites are also known as free for all (FFA) pages and link farms. They serve no other purpose other than to list tens of thousands of unrelated websites. Not only will these sites not provide your site with any traffic, certain search engines will ban sites who participate.

2. Over Optimization

Optimizing your web pages for a particular search engine can be a good thing. Over-optimizing can defeat the purpose, however. Search engines are catching on quickly to pages that appear 'over-optimized'. Stuffing keyphrases into your pages is the most common problem. Never use hidden (invisible) text to add keywords. You will get caught, and your site will get banned.

3. Doorway Pages

Doorway pages are orphaned web pages that are typically optimized for a particular keyphrase and a particular search engine. They are promoted to the search engine in an effort to achieve high rankings. They are not linked back to by any other page on the website and, as such, search engines are able to flush them out quite easily and penalize the entire site.

4. Traffic Generation Scams

Services that purport to drive lots and lots of traffic to your website are typically not very useful. The traffic tends to come from seedy places like domain names that have lapsed in payment or commonly misspelled domain entries. Most of the traffic that hits these pages is accidental and is therefore of no value to you. Other traffic may come from other participants in the program who are required to visit other websites to gain 'credits' for their own site. Again, this traffic is not targeted and therefore of no value. Some traffic may even be generated by automated software!

5. Shadow Domains

Shadow domains are small, optimized, supplementary websites designed to drive traffic to a different website. The way this works is that an SEO company will design and optimize a website on your behalf. The danger here is that the you do not own this new website; the SEO company does! This means that if the relationship sours, they may choose to redirect this site's traffic to whomever they choose (see #4 above), or even sell the site to one of your competitors! Be very, very careful of this technique, as some supposed search engine 'experts' even use this method (no naming of names here, however).

One final note: Any company that tells you that it can achieve 'guaranteed' rankings is either lying to you or using some of these Black Hat techniques. Unfortunately, there is no way to guarantee a number one result within (unpaid) search results. When choosing a search engine optimization company to work with, be sure you feel comfortable with them and trust them (e.g. money back guarantee). And if you decide to promote your website yourself, consider yourself a little better educated against these common mistakes.

About The Author

Robin Eldred is the president of Apis Design, a Calgary Web Design and Promotion company specializing in building, managing and promoting quality, results-oriented websites for small businesses (http://www.apis.ca/)

robin@apis.ca

---

8 ways to build a really bad web site for Search Engines

Some web sites receive hundreds or thousands of unique visitors... Read More

Google, BackRub, Backlinking, and the Link Hunting Obsession that Takes Its Toll

Google is currently one of the dominant entities on the... Read More

10 Steps To Higher Search Engine Positioning

There is perhaps no more level playing field in business... Read More

The Power of Topic Specific Search

What are Topical Search Engines?Simply put, topical search engines are... Read More

Absolute Top Five Search Engine Marketing Myths Uncovered!

It's no secret that Search Engine marketing can drive significant... Read More

10 Easy Steps to Boost Your Search Engine Rankings!

In order that someone finds your website and buys your... Read More

Google Sitemaps Just Got Better

Having a Google Sitemap just got better! Not only does... Read More

One Way Link Building Secures Long Term Ranking Results

One-way link building is a great way to improve your... Read More

Do You Submit Your Website To All The Search Engines?

There is really only one search engine to worry about... Read More

Website Ranking With an Internet Marketing Specialist

On the internet, competition is stronger than ever. There was... Read More

Submitting Your Site To The Open Web Directory: Some Dos And Don?ts

One of the most important steps in any site's publicity... Read More

Increase Page Rank with Search Engine Optimization

Utilizing effective search engine optimization techniques will improve the page... Read More

Does Google Hire Mad Scientists?

Online search giant, Google, often tests the waters for new... Read More

Building Link Popularity with Topical Articles

One of the important factors in ranking high in search... Read More

Search Engine Success & The Google-Vision Secret

Want to know the secret to great search engine listings?... Read More

A Play In The Sandbox Is Necessary

There has been a good deal written about the Google... Read More

Keyword Optimization - How To Achieve It

The most important thing you can do for your business... Read More

3.5 Tips To Help You Avoid Becoming The Next Search Engine Outlaw

Want to avoid being blacklisted by the search engines and... Read More

Creative Search Engine Optimization ? A Case Study

Search engine optimization this and search engine optimization that. You... Read More

Top 10 Little Used SEO Strategies

There are millions of web sites trying to get listed... Read More

Effective Keyword Optimization and Analysis Techniques

Keyword optimization involves vital keyword selection and placement strategy depends... Read More

How To Soar In Your Search Engine Marketing, In The Post Google Era Part 2

'Are Google's Days in the Dominant Position in Search Technology... Read More

A Link From An Ugly Duckling Website With A PR=1 Could Give You 10 to 80 Times More PageRank

Whether you want to start a business and sell on... Read More

The 3 Essential Components of a Search Engine Optimization Campaign

Everyday, the Search Engines average 300 MILLION searches. In a... Read More

Search Engine Ranking... Oh, the Mystery!

Rankings, Rankings, Rankings!How do you get your website ranked well... Read More

Website Optimization, Good Overall Optimization is Key

Good overall optimization, the right keyword phrases and quality content... Read More

Link Building in Light of Vision-based Page Segmentation

The days of basing a successful link building strategy on... Read More

Straight Talk on Search Engine Optimization

To get your website listed well in the major search... Read More

The Search Engine Showdown

If you're anything like me, you have a favourite search... Read More

Is Reciprocal Link Exchange Dead?

The sun seems to be setting on the world of... Read More

The Matrix Help For Keyphrase Analysis

Keyword analysis is a major part of search engine marketing.... Read More

4 Tricks For Lightning Fast Indexing

The biggest problem that most are running into seems to... Read More

Over Optimization and the OOP - Does a Penalty Exist?

If you have questions about whether or not the Over-Optimization... Read More