Having Poor SEO can be worse than having no SEO at all
When considering Search Engine Optimisation for your website, you need to look at it as an investment. Good quality SEO is neither free nor quick. However, some “black hat” SEO companies still like to try several little tricks which can have a pretty speedy effect on your website’s ranking for particular key phrases. Whilst this is all well and good in the short term, Google has been developed to recognise these processes, and now has procedures in place to punish websites which employ them.
Here are just a few common mistakes made by SEO rookies:
• Irrelevant Keywords – When it comes to keywords, most people think that more is better. This certainly isn’t the case. The more keywords you add to your website, the more likely you are going to be distracting from the subject at hand. As soon as you start losing focus and mentioning keywords with less relevance to your subject matter, you’ll start going downhill fast. Optimising your website for the wrong keywords (without carrying out proper keyword research) can result in a loss of website visits, enquiries and even customer / sales conversions.
• Hidden Links – Having internal links is good for SEO purposes, especially when you optimise the anchor text. However, there are still people out there who hide such links behind images and other media, so that they can add as many as they like, without interfering with user experience. Whilst this may have worked many years ago, Google can now detect the use of hidden links, links which appear in the same colour as the background so as not to be noticed, and many other similar tricks.
• Duplicated Content – We all know that the volume of content within a website is an important factor of SEO. Ideally, each page within your site would have at least 300 words, containing the perfect amount of keywords and related information. This is not, however, an excuse to copy and paste information around your website, in order to increase your word count. Duplicated content is one of the biggest mistakes made within SEO.
All of the above (and many other quick fix SEO tricks being used today) are severely disliked by Google and a number of similar search engines. Whilst they may or may not work for a short period of time, your website will be caught, you will lose your ranking – and you can also be banned from Google.
For successful, long-lasting SEO, you need to do your research. You should always spend time looking into the options available, the latest Google Algorithm changes and more. If you are looking for an SEO company to do the work for you, you need to ask for references from previous clients. You should also understand that proper, “white hat” SEO can take a while – but it’s definitely worth it in the long run, when done correctly.
For more information on other SEO mistakes, how to avoid being banned by Google, and professional, “white hat” advice on Search Engine Optimisation, please contact the SEO professionals at Varn. We look forward to hearing from you.
