Dont's in SEO

Small Business SEO Checklist: The Don’ts

1. Don’t reply to the SEO spam you get via e-mail. You don’t need to submit to 1,000 search engines or 500 directories. You can’t buy 2,000 quality links for $50. And no reputable SEO can guarantee a number one ranking on any search engine for keywords that matter. The kind of SEO company you want to hire doesn’t send out spam.

2. Don’t wait too long to implement SEO. Whether you’re launching a new Web site or upgrading your current site, SEO considerations should be part of the discussion from day one.

3. Don’t take your decision to hire an SEO company too lightly. Hiring an SEO company is not like choosing a company to service your copy machine. Online marketing can make or break your company, so choosing a vendor should involve a lot of research and questions with the companies you’re considering.

4. Don’t hire an SEO company and then divorce yourself from the process. It’s your job to know and understand as much as possible about the strategies and tactics your SEO company will be using. If your SEO company uses high-risk tactics and your site gets caught, you’ll be the one paying the price.

5. Don’t spread your content over several domains. There are times when sub-domains or an additional domain might make sense, but those occasions should be dominated by user and content considerations, not an attempt to get multiple domains/sites listed in the SERPs. Know the pros and cons of using sub-domains and additional domains.

6. Don’t waste your time submitting your URL to search engines. The crawler-based search engines will find your site more quickly as soon as you get a link from another web site already being crawled. Search engine submission died a few years ago.

7. Don’t make your web site uncrawlable. This can result from an incorrect robots.txt file, having session IDs or too many variables in your URLs, using a convoluted navigation menu that spiders can’t (or won’t) follow, or developing an all-Flash, all-graphic, or all-AJAX site.

8. Don’t target overly general keywords. A real estate agency in Wichita has no shot at ranking for the phrase “real estate;” a lawyer in Fresno has no shot at ranking for the word “lawyer.” Optimize for relevant, specific keywords that will bring targeted traffic.

9. Don’t stuff keywords in your meta tags, image alt tags, etc. That is so 1996-97. Today, it’s called spam.

10. Don’t stuff keywords in your page footer with lightly-colored or hidden text. That is so 1998-99. Today, it’s also called spam.

11. Don’t have the same title element on every page. Variety is the spice of life and, combined with relevance, is a pre-requisite to avoiding duplicate content issues and Google’s supplemental index.

12. Don’t allow both www.yourdomain.com and domain.com to resolve to your home page. Those are two separate addresses to a search engine, and that means you have the same content at two addresses. On a related note, don’t link to your home page with a URL like www.yourdomain.com/index.html—that’s also a separate address from www.yourdomain.com and will also look like duplicate content.

13. Don’t ignore usability. Things like proper site structure, logical navigation, descriptive link text, etc., are good for both users and search engine spiders.

14. Don’t give up on creating great content because you think your customers don’t need or want it, or because your product or service doesn’t lend itself to great content. No matter what business you’re in, you can add great (linkable) content to your web site. A glossary is an easy way to create a page of great, keyword-rich content. Also consider a frequently asked questions page, a testimonials page, how to articles, product support manuals and so on.

15. Don’t develop an unbalanced link profile. Too many small business owners, knowing links are important, immediately begin trading links with any and every site they can find. Not a good idea. Reciprocal links aren’t bad by default, but if most of your inbound links are the result of link trades, they won’t help much. Reciprocal links should only be made with quality, relevant web sites, and should only represent a fraction of your overall link profile.

16. Don’t request the same exact anchor text on all links to your site. This is an obvious sign of unnatural link building. Your link building should look natural, and varied anchor text will help.

17. Don’t plaster your link all over blog comments, guestbooks, etc. That’s called spamming, not SEO.

18. Don’t fret over keyword density. Yes, your target keyword and closely-related terms should appear in the page title, description meta tag, and page copy. No, a calculator is not an SEO tool.

19. Don’t obsess over Google PageRank. What you see in the toolbar is several months old, and doesn’t affect rankings like it used to. PageRank is now more about crawl frequency and depth, and whether a page is stored in the main index or supplemental index.

20. Don’t check your rankings every day. They’re going to change whether you look or not. Better to spend time improving your web site rather than watching it flutter up and down the SERPs.

6 Sticky SEO Facts All Marketers Should Know

1) 75% of SEO is off-page and 25% is on-page

There are two key elements to improving your SEO: attracting links and making your content relevant for the word people are searching for. These elements are known as off-page (on someone else’s site) and on-page (your site).

It’s important to first make your content relevant by including the words you are hoping to rank for in key areas of your page. This technique however only takes you so far. Secondly you want to create content others want to link to. Search engines view these links as “votes” telling the search engines that your site is a valuable one for people searching for an answer.
2) 91% of US Internet users search every month

Search traffic is thus the first place most new or potential customers will first find out about you. If you are not optimizing your site, you do not exist in their minds.
3) Page titles are the most important on-page element after content

The biggest mistake most websites make is not having an effective page title. As the second most important on-page SEO element (after relevant content), it is essential to have a targeted page title.

The page title is at the very top of your browser on the tab (screenshot is from the Chrome browser). It also is what shows up on Google when people search.

In addition to editing the page title, it’s important to include the keywords in the H1 text, alt tags and paragraph text on the page.
4) Persuasive meta descriptions under 155 characters increase click through rates

The meta description is the brief preview that shows up underneath a link on search engines. This gives readers an idea of what’s coming if they click. Thus, a tempting meta description will increase clicks even though it does not influence your rank in the search results.

Make your meta descriptions unique on each page. This will attract clicks depending on each searcher’s interests. In fact, Google’s own Matt Cutts noted recently that it is actually better to have no meta descriptions than to have duplicate meta descriptions.

How do you know what your best meta description is? Test it! Use Google or Facebook ads to test what copy is most appealing. Then use that text as your page’s meta description.

Just remember: Make your meta description snappy because there is a 155 character maximum before Google will cut it off with ellipses.
5) The top 5 results get 75% of the clicks

As you build your gum wall, it’s not good enough to be one of many. You need to be one of the best.

In the search engine world, the top 5 results get 75.7% of the clicks so focus your efforts on a few valuable words and build content around those terms. Don’t spread yourself too thin or you’ll find yourself the jack of all trades and master of none.
6) Google+ is the highest correlated social factor for SEO ranking

As social media has become a primary form of communication, search engines have begun to factor your social network in to the results you see. This is called “social search.”

In social search, content that has a social connection to you in some way is prioritized. A social connection could mean someone you are linked to via Facebook, Twitter, or any other major social network.

What this means is that you should connect to people who are influential on the words and topics you want to rank for. If they share, like and most importantly +1 your content on Google+, it will be more likely to show up for other searchers.

In fact Search Metrics is already measuring the presence of active social media and finding content shared socially shows up higher in search. Moz notes that Google+ is the highest correlated factor to SEO. This of course brings up the chicken and egg question: are pages that rank well shared more frequently or are pages that are shared frequently then ranked higher? There is much debate around this topic, but the end result is clear: social influences search.

Second, make a list of the keywords for which you want to rank highly. Does the content you share on social media and your blog cover those keywords? Zero in on one or two of your most desirable keywords and find ways to make content under those keywords more shareable

You too can make your website an attraction for searchers the world over. It takes a combination of optimizing the pages you have, creating unique content that will attract links and sharing your content via social media.