Things that are killing your SEO efforts that you probably didn’t know about is my topic today, hope you enjoy reading it:
- 1.) Duplicate content is bad! Yeah, I know it seems pretty obvious, but please take the time to write original copy. If you’re selling products and you’re using the manufacturers product descriptions then don’t complain that you’re not ranking high enough. Google released a few tips today for the first time with some great insights into their algorithm. It discussed the issue of giving preference to actual brands/official sellers. Meaning if you are selling Canon printers and are in the game of trying to outrank Canon.com then think again. If that is your intention then you’re going to need a lot more than just ripping off manufacturer descriptions.
- 2.) Too many ads can kill your rankings in all search engines. I’ll elaborate a bit further. If you are going to have a page with 10 ads and only 3 lines of text then you’ll never rank for highly competitive keywords. Even if you didn’t have the 10 ads, 3 lines of text isn’t going to get you ranked, I don’t care how many backlinks you have.
- 3.) Backlinks are great, but high engagement levels are better. If you have people clicking the back button seconds after landing on your site then you’re going to get docked no matter how many backlinks you have. Google knows how long people are on the site as opposed to trusting that the backlinks were developed naturally.
- 4.) Menu text doesn’t rank anymore.
- 5.) Hiding text to match the colour of the background still doesn’t work, please don’t try it.
- 6.) Stuffing keywords works so long as they are all related and are supported by a good body of text; for example, naming all the states you ship to. Then again, that’s not really considered keyword stuffing.
- 7.) Submitting your website to search engines is crazy. Submitting your sitemaps to search engines is smart. You can do this with Google via webmaster tools.
- 8.) Just because you read something on an SEO forum doesn’t mean it’s true. Take heed people.
- 9.) Promoting content that is a few years old isn’t as good as promoting something that is new. This might seem fairly straight forward but you will be surprised how much more receptive Google is to new content. If you have a killer article that’s been sitting on your home page for a few years, don’t delete it. Put it in an archive instead.
- 10.) Which brings me to point number 10…. Don’t delete old articles. I should really put this in bold it’s so important. Don’t delete old articles.
- 11.) Moving to new domains is cool so long as you 301 (permanent redirect) to the new site. Old articles from the old site should 301 to relevant articles on the new site. Don’t waste all that link juice the old site has earned.
- 12.) Make sure there are no spelling or grammatical errors on your site. Google doesn’t like content farmers. Bad English is a signal!
- 13.) If it was easy, everyone would be doing it right? Remember that next time you get frustrated that things aren’t working quickly enough.
- 14.) Don’t get too fancy. The sites that rank the best have a clean, fast, and easy flow to it. I have created a bunch of sites straight from notepad and they have ranked like kings. I can’t prove this, but I still have a sneaking suspicion html sites rank better than CMS sites like Joomla, and wordpress. Please feel free to call me out on that.
- 15.) Waiting for 2 days to go before you renew your domain. I had a site that’s rankings self-destructed on me a few years ago. I realised the domain only had 2 days to go before it expired. I planned to renew at the last minute as I had auto renew enabled. I decided to renew the domain name for 5 years. A few days later all my rankings were destroyed. This was a few years back in 2009 so I haven’t tested this theory in a while, but why risk it? It’s not worth it.
- 16.) Having a bad web host will kill your rankings. For example, if you have too many files on your server your host can decide to slow your site down. I know that with bluehost they start slowing you down when you reach 100,000 files. I know that 100,000 files might seem like a lot, but it’s not when you are hosting a bunch of joomla and wordpress sites. Check with your host. While I’m at it, make sure your host isn’t a reseller. Do you have 24/7 phone and live chat support? I want to know that if my site is to ever go down I can ring my web host up and get them to fix is ASAP. Google doesn’t like sites that have gone down and neither do I.
- 17.) Don’t expect customers to find you. Sometimes you have to hunt them down. What are people talking about on the web about your industry? Perform a simple discussion search using the advanced Google options. For example, I have been dealing with a laser eye surgery in Sydney, Australia.
Bingo! I am now clued into what is going on in the industry, who is talking about what and I can even use this opportunity to poach potential customers. For the laser eye surgery example, I had a meeting with my client and told him what was going on and how to clue in on it all. He now sits at the computer doing Google discussion searches and answering questions related to the field.
- 18.) Buying backlinks doesn’t get you far, but it doesn’t get you banned either. If you want a nice way to get backlink why not sponsor a local junior soccer team? Chances are they’ll put your link up on the website.
- 19.) Not everyone uses Google. Bing is the default web browser of Internet Explorer which is still the most popular web browser on the net.
- 20.) Over optimization! Natural is better. If the meta description, page title, URL, alt image tags, and headings are the exact same then you are in dangerous waters. Mix it up a little, make it natural looking as this strategy no longer works.
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed my 20 points, but now it is time for me to get back to what I do best – delivering awesome rankings for my clients. If you have a comment or a blog suggestion please contact me. I am also going to leave a slot open for a guest blogger.