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Seven
Deadly Mistakes That Can KILL Your Search Rankings
The Internet Marketing Center Team
Whether you're brand-new to Internet marketing, or you've been selling
online for a while now, search engine optimization is the one strategy you
can't AFFORD to ignore!
Earn high
rankings in the search engines, and you'll be rewarded with endless
streams of quality
FREE traffic heading straight to your website.
But neglect
your rankings, and you'll spend ALL of your time trying to convince
even a few
visitors to stop by your site (and chances are, they won't even be
interested in what you're selling when they show up).
Fortunately, optimizing your website for the search engines is neither
rocket science nor brain surgery!
Armed with just a few tried-and-tested techniques, you should have no
problem getting those coveted high rankings for your site.
The challenge,
though, is that the search engine industry changes more quickly than
most, so something
that used to be a sure-fire SEO strategy can suddenly become useless...
... and it might even get your listings demoted to the back pages!
So to make sure you don't get penalized by the search engines -- or
just plain IGNORED -- watch out for these seven deadly search
engine optimization mistakes:
Deadly
Mistake #1: Improper Use Of Your "Title" Tag
Not only does your title tag tell the search engines what your webpage
is about,
the title also
appears in the search results for your site, as well as at the top of
your visitors' browsers while they're on your site.
So this is DEFINITELY where you should put your best keywords!
But we routinely see site owners making pretty basic errors with their
title tags, costing them good rankings, and sometimes, even their credibility.
So avoid these common title tag mistakes:
a. Not including a title
tag at all
If you leave your title tag blank, your visitors will see "untitled
document" in the search results, and the top of the browser.
This makes you look careless and unprofessional. Besides, who searches
for untitled documents? You're squandering an opportunity for better
SEO, and you're missing out on sales!
b. Using your URL as the
title
Some site owners use the URLs of individual pages as the titles.
But, while a title tag like
"sallysbeautyshop/cosmetics/product123.html" does contain
the business name, the product category, and the product name itself,
it's not very helpful to your rankings.
Remember, your title tags are for keywords.
c. Using a friendly
greeting instead of a keyword-rich title
There's nothing wrong with a friendly greeting... in person.
But your title tag is the wrong place to say hello to your audience.
And again, who searches for welcome messages?
d. Stuffing the title tag
with single words
Don't take the shotgun approach and fill your title tag with a list of
words off the top of your head in the vain hope of attracting traffic.
Instead, use one or two of your TOP keyword phrases (but keep it under
70 characters so it fits on one line).
Your title tag is easy to find and easy to change in your HTML code. On
most web pages, it's right at the top, below your "head" tag, and looks
like this:
<head>
<title>Internet Marketing Course - Proven Internet Business
Strategies</title>
Deadly
Mistake #2: Misusing Your "Keywords" Meta Tag
Once upon a time, the search engines really cared about
keyword meta tags, and would determine your site's relevance based on
the content of this tag.
Well, those days are long gone, and a keyword meta tag -- even one
that's well-written and contains just a couple of your best keywords --
will NOT help you get a higher ranking.
BUT... a poorly written meta tag CAN get
your site penalized!
So our best advice is to use the meta keyword tag for what it was
intended: to help you quickly and easily identify, in one line of HTML
code, what keywords you've optimized that page for.
Meta tags only appear in your HTML code, not anywhere on your site.
They're usually placed very close to the top of the page, near your
title tag, and look like this:
<meta
name="Keywords" content="Keywords and keyword phrases you're optimizing
this page for, including applicable synonyms and misspellings, and keep
this tag under 170 characters">
Deadly
Mistake #3: Keyword Spamming Or Stuffing
The more keywords you have on your site -- and the more places you
repeat them -- the better your
search rankings will be, right?
Wrong!!
That may be the way it worked in the "olden" days, when the web was in
its infancy, but the practice helped websites get high rankings for
topics they didn't even cover.
So these days, Google's algorithm (the formula it uses to figure out
where to rank pages on the search results) is much more complex than
that, thanks to years of dealing with people trying to fudge the
results.
So don't
even bother with these outdated
tricks...
- Typing
your keywords over and over again in very small font at the top and
bottom of your page -- blocks of tiny text either in the copy or the
header tags don't improve your relevance
- Increasing
your keyword density above about 10% -- you end up with a page full of
text that doesn't make sense to anyone reading it
- Using
"invisible" keywords (white text on a white background). This one is SO
frowned-upon that it can get you delisted
from Google altogether!
The
only foolproof strategy is still to find out what kind of quality, relevant
information your customers are searching for, and then
give it to them. In the long run, it's by far the best strategy.
Deadly
Mistake #4: Using Irrelevant Keywords To Attract More Traffic
So, you found some great keywords with low competition and great
traffic numbers... but not quite on
target with your website?
For instance, when Sarah Palin broke big in 2008, she was one of the most
searched-for terms in the country. But if you'd put an
article about her on your website, it wouldn't have increased your
sales!
If people come to your page or website in search of a keyword phrase,
and find that your site has nothing to do
with it, they'll
just leave again...
... so all the traffic in the world won't help you if it's off target.
And you can even end up diluting the theme of your website and
irritating people so much that they report your website as spam to the
search engines. And that's not worth any number of extra visitors!
Deadly
Mistake #5: Creating Useless Content
The Internet is swamped
with low-quality articles and blog posts that are created for NO other
reason than to get better rankings.
But consider this: It can take potential customers 6 - 8 visits to your
website -- and significant exposure to your content
-- before they feel comfortable enough to make a purchase from you.
If the only content you've posted is just a few keywords repeated
without any real substance, why would anyone bother coming back to read
more?
This tactic can
harm your reputation and your credibility... and once
those are gone, it's almost impossible to get them back!
Deadly
Mistake #6: Using "Doorway" Pages
When was the last time Google or Yahoo purchased a product from you?
We're guessing NEVER, right? So why would you create pages on your
website that are exclusively for them? But
that's exactly what people do with "doorway" pages (pages with very little text, but
very high keyword density).
For example, if your page only has four words on it, and two of them
are "sailboat," that gives the page a keyword density of 50%, which is
great for search results...
... but if someone actually searches on the term "sailboat" and lands
on the doorway page, there's nothing there for them! They'll have to
click further into your site (and for each unnecessary
click you ask visitors to make, you lose a large percentage of them).
Doorway pages are really frowned upon by the search engines, because
they clog up the index with junk. It's just too easy to produce
thousands of these pages that have a very high keyword density, but no
real purpose, other than trying to build links and direct traffic to a
single site.
Before you put a doorway page up, remember to ask yourself if it's
actually providing useful information to your potential customers. If
so great. If not, don't do it!
Deadly
Mistake #7: Bait and Switch - "Magic" Pages, Redirects, and Cloaking
Search engines want to make sure that once they've indexed a page, the
visitors they send there see the same thing they did. However, this
isn't always the case.
Some site builders build two versions of their sites. The one for the
spiders is full of the kind of stuff the search engines like. The one
that regular visitors see is full of the flashy, off-topic effects that
look cool, but it isn't the relevant,
content-rich site it's advertised as.
This is a strategy that will end up hurting your business!
Your customers end up at a website that may not contain the keywords
they were searching for, and instead, get to one with animation and all
the bells and whistles that may not be important to them.
More importantly, the search engines
feel ripped off, too.
When customers start pointing this kind of fraud out to them, the
search engines are pretty good at delisting the offending sites. Is a
few weeks of increased traffic really worth
the risk of getting
booted off Google for good?!
Finally, don't use spammy redirects on your site. These redirects send
visitors from a page they think they're
going to (one that's been optimized for the search engines), to another
one altogether.
This deceptive method has been overused, and the search engines no
longer fall for it. It can get your site penalized
or delisted.
How
You Can Avoid Being Penalized -- Or Worse -- By
The Search Engines
These are just seven of the MANY search engine optimization techniques
that can have a harmful effect on your site's rankings, some of which
can potentially get you into hot water
with the search engines!
So why take a chance?
If you're going to save yourself a TON of
money by doing your own search engine optimization,
make sure you get ongoing advice from an SEO expert who can tell you
which strategies are working right now...
... as well as show you the strategies that you should AVOID.
If you're interested, we have our own in-house
SEO expert who can give you some advice (and we have TOP rankings for our
websites out of MILLIONS of competitors, so you know
we're doing something
right ;-)
You can ask our expert as many questions as you want about improving
your search engine rankings, and you'll get a personal, step-by-step
action plan, within 24 hours.
PLUS, when you work with our expert, you'll ALSO get access to a
special members-only website that's stuffed full of FREE tools you can use to
improve your search engine rankings... enjoy a
comprehensive learning center filled with videos and articles that will show you exactly how to optimize your site
(even if you have NO experience)...
... and once a month, you'll receive a newsletter updating you on the latest techniques and
strategies that are working right this minute!
If you'd like to see for yourself if we can help you improve your
search rankings and traffic, we have a handful of 21-day trials that
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For three full weeks, you can get UNLIMITED help for
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But we're only offering these 21-day trials for the next few days, so
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To your success,
The Internet Marketing Center Team
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