SRPI

Today I wanted to take some time to talk about link building with relevant sites. I wanted to start off with a couple of questions, concerns, or push back that we tend to get from clients and people who just don’t understand link building. One of the things that I am told by clients is “that site is not relevant to my site! I don’t know why you are looking at obtaining links from sites that aren’t relevant to mine, because those links are worthless”.

Another concern we hear from clients is the links we are obtaining aren’t passing any page rank, or trust, or authority, or whatever you refer to it as.

First, I wanted to cover what’s relevant and what isn’t relevant in terms of link building. This will help us understand which links are good and which links aren’t the best use of our time to obtain.

The first thing to understand (that I think many people tend to overlook) is the fact that search engines rank pages, they don’t rank sites as a whole. When we understand that search engines will rank a page, and won’t necessarily not rank a page, because the rest of the website might not be relevant to your site; we can understand link building with relevant sites or pages a lot better than we could before.

I want to quickly go over what is not relevant in terms of link building. Two of the biggest factors that make a link not relevant are:

• Building links from pages that aren’t related to your website. For example, I have a website about MacBook computers that I am trying to get links to. I obtain a link from a page about fishing supplies. Having a link that says MacBook laptops from that fishing page is definitely not relevant and isn’t going to pass as much value compared to another computer or laptop themed website.
• Building links where you link is surrounded by other “non related” links. For example, if you are linking to your website from a page that has links about viagra, shoes, or jeans, or whatever… if those links surround your link that says Macbook Laptop, those links aren’t going to be the greatest links coming back to your website.

So, what is relevant?

Obtaining links from pages where you:

• Control the title tag
• Control the content
• Control the anchor text of the link
• Control where the link is on the page

These links are from relevant pages that are related to your website with links coming back to your website and are some of the strongest links you can obtain.

So, here are some examples of these types of pages where you control the aspects of the page:

• Hub Pages
• Squidoo Lenses
• Ezine Articles (other highly authoritative article sites that you can submit content to)
• Blog posts
• Some Directories

So again, it all comes back to what is relevant? Links are relevant when you control the title tag, content, anchor text of the link, and where the link is on the page, those are relevant links, don’t ever say that they are not.

So, when I tell clients this, I get back from them, “That’s not true”. Well, yes it is and here are a few examples of why it is true.

Amazon.com is the king of ranking for tons of different products. Amazon doesn’t have a specific theme around it and it can rank for just about anything. For instance, the search that I did in Google for Flip HD. Amazon ranks in position 4 and 5. The only site that is outranking it is the actual Flip website. Click on the image to enlarge.

Another example of a site that ranks well for many different search terms, Wikipedia.org. I did a search for Blink 182, Wikipedia shows up in the sixth position for Blink 182. Again, this website has so many different pages that aren’t related to Blink 182 and yet it ranks for Blink 182. You can also click this image to enlarge.

The next thing that I want to address is the statement, “That page is passing no juice to my website, why would you get a link there?” Ninety-nine percent of the time, you are definitely correct! Ninety-nine percent of the time, that link is going to pass very little value to you out of the gate. Here is the thing, ninety-nine percent of the time, it will pass link juice to your site in the near future. All new pages that come online, come in with zero trust and authority, but as those pages age and obtain trust and authority, they will start to build a reputation that will pass juice to your website. Those links will become extremely valuable in the future.

How can you make sure that those links will pass juice in the future?

• Look at other deep pages and category pages on the site and see if they have juice flowing to them. If they do, your page will eventually have it too.
• You will also want to make sure that the links on those pages are not no follow. That will ensure that you have maximum SEO effect from those links.

Originally posted here:
Why Aren’t You Building Links From Relevant Sites?

Almost everyone on the planet has heard of Twitter, but many businesses do not understand how or why they should be using Twitter.

1- Use Twitter to monitor the conversations about your business. Every business owner knows that word-of-mouth can have an impact on a business, good or bad, and the bad can spread like wildfire. This reminds me of a sign that was hanging in my grandparents’ camper. I would go camping once a year growing up, but the saying on that sign has hung with me for all of these years. “When I do something right no one remembers. When I do something wrong, no one forgets.”

This really applies to the word of mouth concept. With Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites, the effects of word-of-mouth grew exponentially. The ability for someone to harm your business overnight is real. However, the benefit is that you can be part of the conversation and nip things quickly, when appropriate. There is a lot of strategy involved with this, but the key is that you login and see what people are saying about your business. Many Twitter apps can help you with this, but to start, you can go to search.twitter.com and type in the name of your business. You may be surprised at what you find.

2- Use Twitter to offer special “inside” deals. The best way to get your customer base to follow you on Twitter is to offer great inside deals that are only available through Twitter. By doing this, you will coax some of your customers onto Twitter that may not otherwise get onto Twitter. Why does this matter? Twitter can give you an unprecedented amount of access to your customers, so that you can get your message to them at anytime. This becomes a bit of the old school, “top-of-mind awareness” aspect. The more they see you, your business name, etc., the more likely they will contact you when they need a service you offer. In addition, with special inside deals, they will often buy something that they were not planning to purchase, but found too hard to pass up. Be careful to not be a twitter spammer by using deceitful practices.

3- Use Twitter to steal customers. This is a little like number one, but in this case you are monitoring the conversations in the industry to see where people are unhappy with your competitors. This allows you to be a hero and assist them. If you can find those opportunities and take advantage of them, you will have customers for life.

4- Use Twitter to keep your customers loyal. Just as you can use Twitter to steal customers from your competitors that are slow to reply, you can use Twitter to keep your customers loyal to you. When they can connect with a brand or a business owner, they feel like they have an open door to bring complaints to when something goes wrong. This fact can keep customers loyal as long as you use Twitter to reply to them and take care of business.

5- Use Twitter to find new customers. In the conversations that are happening on Twitter, you may be able to find circumstances when you can help answer a question. When you see a question that is applicable to your business, then you can respond and strike up a conversation and build a relationship. Because you reach out, you will have a lot of credibility with them that may lead to future business. For example, here is a tweet that would be relevant to businesses that do SEO and social media : “How does social media such as blogs, Twitter and Facebook help your SEO?”

6- Use Twitter to gain key connections. Twitter can be your key to unlock a relationship that you would never have obtained otherwise. Twitter enables you to talk with people who would not become a fan on Facebook, would not answer a phone call from you and would not reply to a letter. When you follow someone, reply to their post and ask questions to them directly, you have a chance to gain a relationship that would otherwise be impossible. Twitter can help you connect with the industry leaders as well as find some up-and-coming people in the industry.

7- Use Twitter to study industry news. Twitter search can be a very powerful tool to study what is going on in your industry. It helps you get a feel of how your peers in the industry feel about current issues. Doing Twitter searches on key industry terms can open your eyes to your industry in a way that you have not seen before.

8- Use Twitter to study trends and hot topics in your industry. By doing Twitter searches you can find out the news in your industry in a hurry, but you can also see what things are trending in the industry and the hot topics that relate to your industry. This will allow you to be ahead of the game and on the cutting edge of your marketplace.

9- Use Twitter to ask opinions. If you are wondering what your customers would like better, choice A or choice B, simply ask them. You never have to guess anymore which they would prefer. You simply ask them on Twitter for some feedback, then when they reply, take note. This will give you the ability to make better purchasing and marketing decisions. Of course, to ensure that you receive replies to your question, you could sweeten things by offering a little something for their time.

10- Use Twitter as a mini press release. While Twitter cannot replace the SEO effectiveness of a full-fledged online press release, it can be a mini press release for anything that you do online. It is a way to announce your most recent blog post, point traffic to your most recent video and even help drive traffic to a press release about you or your company. You may also be able to use your Twitter connections to help spread the word even further. When your followers retweet one of your Twitter posts, it reaches far more people.

Twitter has continued to gain steam. I watched a GACTV show last night in which they asked some of country music’s biggest stars about Twitter at the beginning of 2009. They had no idea what it was and said that no one would like to know what they were doing all of the time. However, those same people are now big Twitter users and have discovered plenty of good business uses for it.

Some business will say that Twitter is a waste of time and not worth two minutes. However, my 2010 prediction is this: Some companies with this attitude will go out-of-business because of what customers will say about them on Twitter. They may never even realize that Twitter was the cause of their demise. Will this be your business?

Read more:
10 Business Uses for Twitter

Almost everyone on the planet has heard of Twitter, but many businesses do not understand how or why they should be using Twitter.

1- Use Twitter to monitor the conversations about your business. Every business owner knows that word-of-mouth can have an impact on a business, good or bad, and the bad can spread like wildfire. This reminds me of a sign that was hanging in my grandparents’ camper. I would go camping once a year growing up, but the saying on that sign has hung with me for all of these years. “When I do something right no one remembers. When I do something wrong, no one forgets.”

This really applies to the word of mouth concept. With Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites, the effects of word-of-mouth grew exponentially. The ability for someone to harm your business overnight is real. However, the benefit is that you can be part of the conversation and nip things quickly, when appropriate. There is a lot of strategy involved with this, but the key is that you login and see what people are saying about your business. Many Twitter apps can help you with this, but to start, you can go to search.twitter.com and type in the name of your business. You may be surprised at what you find.

2- Use Twitter to offer special “inside” deals. The best way to get your customer base to follow you on Twitter is to offer great inside deals that are only available through Twitter. By doing this, you will coax some of your customers onto Twitter that may not otherwise get onto Twitter. Why does this matter? Twitter can give you an unprecedented amount of access to your customers, so that you can get your message to them at anytime. This becomes a bit of the old school, “top-of-mind awareness” aspect. The more they see you, your business name, etc., the more likely they will contact you when they need a service you offer. In addition, with special inside deals, they will often buy something that they were not planning to purchase, but found too hard to pass up. Be careful to not be a twitter spammer by using deceitful practices.

3- Use Twitter to steal customers. This is a little like number one, but in this case you are monitoring the conversations in the industry to see where people are unhappy with your competitors. This allows you to be a hero and assist them. If you can find those opportunities and take advantage of them, you will have customers for life.

4- Use Twitter to keep your customers loyal. Just as you can use Twitter to steal customers from your competitors that are slow to reply, you can use Twitter to keep your customers loyal to you. When they can connect with a brand or a business owner, they feel like they have an open door to bring complaints to when something goes wrong. This fact can keep customers loyal as long as you use Twitter to reply to them and take care of business.

5- Use Twitter to find new customers. In the conversations that are happening on Twitter, you may be able to find circumstances when you can help answer a question. When you see a question that is applicable to your business, then you can respond and strike up a conversation and build a relationship. Because you reach out, you will have a lot of credibility with them that may lead to future business. For example, here is a tweet that would be relevant to businesses that do SEO and social media : “How does social media such as blogs, Twitter and Facebook help your SEO?”

6- Use Twitter to gain key connections. Twitter can be your key to unlock a relationship that you would never have obtained otherwise. Twitter enables you to talk with people who would not become a fan on Facebook, would not answer a phone call from you and would not reply to a letter. When you follow someone, reply to their post and ask questions to them directly, you have a chance to gain a relationship that would otherwise be impossible. Twitter can help you connect with the industry leaders as well as find some up-and-coming people in the industry.

7- Use Twitter to study industry news. Twitter search can be a very powerful tool to study what is going on in your industry. It helps you get a feel of how your peers in the industry feel about current issues. Doing Twitter searches on key industry terms can open your eyes to your industry in a way that you have not seen before.

8- Use Twitter to study trends and hot topics in your industry. By doing Twitter searches you can find out the news in your industry in a hurry, but you can also see what things are trending in the industry and the hot topics that relate to your industry. This will allow you to be ahead of the game and on the cutting edge of your marketplace.

9- Use Twitter to ask opinions. If you are wondering what your customers would like better, choice A or choice B, simply ask them. You never have to guess anymore which they would prefer. You simply ask them on Twitter for some feedback, then when they reply, take note. This will give you the ability to make better purchasing and marketing decisions. Of course, to ensure that you receive replies to your question, you could sweeten things by offering a little something for their time.

10- Use Twitter as a mini press release. While Twitter cannot replace the SEO effectiveness of a full-fledged online press release, it can be a mini press release for anything that you do online. It is a way to announce your most recent blog post, point traffic to your most recent video and even help drive traffic to a press release about you or your company. You may also be able to use your Twitter connections to help spread the word even further. When your followers retweet one of your Twitter posts, it reaches far more people.

Twitter has continued to gain steam. I watched a GACTV show last night in which they asked some of country music’s biggest stars about Twitter at the beginning of 2009. They had no idea what it was and said that no one would like to know what they were doing all of the time. However, those same people are now big Twitter users and have discovered plenty of good business uses for it.

Some business will say that Twitter is a waste of time and not worth two minutes. However, my 2010 prediction is this: Some companies with this attitude will go out-of-business because of what customers will say about them on Twitter. They may never even realize that Twitter was the cause of their demise. Will this be your business?

More here:
10 Business Uses for Twitter

It is that time of the year again. You can feel it in the air and see it everywhere you go. The lights are on the neighbors’ houses and the stores are getting more and more crowded as we get closer to the 25th. For children, Christmas is a magical time where they dream every night about that special thing they hope Santa will bring them when he visits on Christmas Eve.

You may also feel some of that Christmas magic hoping for a miracle of your own. Perhaps you are a business owner who has launched a new website this year and that one thing you want for Christmas is to see it rank on page one in Google for some targeted search terms. Here is some advice to help you see that Christmas miracle come true.

Create an XML Sitemap and Submit it to Google Webmaster Tools

Google has given webmasters a great way to tell Google about their website. In Google Webmaster Tools there is a place where you can submit a sitemap in XML format. The sitemap will tell the Google crawlers about the pages on your site and help them to index everything much better. I have seen brand new sites get indexed within a week of submitting an XML sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools. Just be sure to update the XML sitemap whenever you add or remove pages from your site.

Submit to Social Bookmarking Sites

There are several social bookmarking sites on the web that can give your site a quick link and help others discover your website. Create accounts on sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious and Reddit then submit your website to them. Include a social bookmarking widget on content or product pages of your site so visitors can quickly and easily bookmark the pages of your website on their social bookmarking profiles.

Submit to High Quality Paid and Free Web Directories

Submit your website to DMOZ and a few high quality paid directories like Yahoo, Business.com and Best of the Web. Since these directories have been around for a long time and have established a good reputation, they will give your site some good credible links. When you submit to DMOZ try to find the most relevant category that has an editor. Getting a submission approved in DMOZ can take a long time but the waiting time can be shortened if you submit to a relevant category that has an editor.

Optimize Content Using the Most Relevant Search Terms

Make sure the pages of your site are optimized for the most relevant search terms to the content of each page. Don’t get distracted by high volume search terms that might be partially relevant to the site content. It is the content that will help Google to determine what keywords to rank your site for, so consider the long tail search terms when optimizing the content. The long tail terms are often the ones that are most relevant and will have better conversion rates when the site ranks for them. Include the keywords in the HTML elements like the title, Meta description, heading tags and the content body.

Allow Google to Index the Site

Often people might block Google from indexing their website without knowing they did. Check your robots.txt file and make sure you didn’t disallow the entire site. Check the pages of your site and if you are using noindex Meta tags, make sure they are only on the pages you don’t want to show up in the search results.

Getting more organic search traffic to a website might be the one thing that many business owners are wishing for this year. If you are one of those business owners then this advice will help that wish come true in 2010.

Read more from the original source:
All I Want for Christmas is Some Organic Search Traffic

As I write this, I’m fuming about pet peeves. It’s been one of those weeks where it seems fate, the universe, or whatever, is barraging me daily with its pet-peeve arsenal.

And the pet-peeve thing reached its peak this morning when I got my oil changed. They told me it’d take a half hour. Two hours later, I drove away from the garage and was an hour and a half late to work. Needless to say, I won’t go back there for an oil change again. Waiting hours longer than expected is a major pet peeve.

Many websites similarly drive away customers with annoying Internet pet peeves. It’s the kind of thing that kills site traffic and conversion. Many businesses don’t even know their website doesn’t connect with their demographic, much less the human race.

So, in no particular order, here are a few Internet and website pet peeves that will cost you visitors, readers, customers, and, most importantly, money:

• Popups. These make me want to howl and then close my entire browser. It’s amazing to me how many annoying popups still exist. If you want people to stay on your page, please get rid of these.
• Intruding, drop downs, advertisements or graphics. I’m OK with ads – as long as they don’t cover the text, float across the page, or do something else extremely annoying. They often make me think my computer is coming down with a nasty virus.
• “Give us your email, social security card and bank account number to read this.” I hate it when companies hold content for ransom. Companies try to promote their stuff then try to make you give them all your contact information to get it, often in the form of registration log on pages. *However, in some instances I think it’s OK, such as Webinars, etc. For the most part, free content available to anyone is the way to go. If you want to capture emails, have a newsletter sign up box, but don’t twist people’s arms.
• Overly promotional social media updates and press releases. These make me gag a little, especially when I was an editor at a newspaper. With social media and PR, you are providing information and connecting with people. It’s for conversation and news. It’s not for exaggerated fluff.
• Ambiguous home pages. You have just a few seconds before a visitor leaves your site or clicks through it. If your site doesn’t have a clear direction, say, “hasta luego” to your potential customer.
• Confusing Navigation. If it’s confusing, I’m going somewhere else.
• Bad copywriting. Typos, cheesiness, too serious, too long, unclear, un-engaging, exaggerations, etc., will kill your website. A site is often all about the headlines, copy and call to actions. If the writing is bad, you’ll have no chance with a customer.
• “Install extra software to continue.” I hate this one. I fear getting a virus, and I don’t have the time to download new software.
• Slow-loading pages. Not only is this a pet peeve, it’s also going to be big for the future of SEO.
• Dead links. They are dead ends that force me to go somewhere else.
• Bad colors, graphics. Some websites make me want to scratch my eyeballs out. Many designs can be distracting, and the wrong background color can make it difficult to read the text.
• Flash and sparkly stuff. Flash can be pretty cool, but not usually in a conversion sense. Sometimes designers and CEOs like flash, because, it’s cool. But, it can often be flashy without any substance, and as a result, waste the viewers’ time. Some sparkly design stuff will make your site look like a used car sales floor. That is never a good idea.
• Ineffective site tools. Why do people launch websites that don’t work? Why, why why?
• MUSIC! Music on the homepage makes me do a mad scramble for the “X” button like it’s my full-time job to close out browsers. Music, and videos for that matter, that play without my approval, is a bad, bad thing.

Internet marketing is all about two things: (1) getting more traffic and (2) converting that traffic into sales. That involves good SEO services, and a website designed around simplicity, easy flow, clear direction and good content. Everything on the page should propel the user experience. If it doesn’t, it will make my pet peeve list.

Any pet peeves I missed? Please, rant with me below.

See more here:
Repel Customers with These Internet Pet Peeves

The title of this video post might get me in trouble because it might be a little bit misleading; but by purchasing “established” INDUSTRY RELATED websites and setting up a permanent 301 redirect to your main domain, you can quickly build authority and link equity. Enjoy the video!

For those of you who would rather read than watch the video, here is the recap.

This video is about a question that a few of us at SEO.com have received lately. The question is about purchasing websites and 301 redirecting those websites into your main domain to increase search engine rankings and increase link equity for your overall domain.

I’ve mapped out a website about snowboards. Your money site is where you are selling snowboards which is the home page of your domain. You then have your category or sub pages where you go into detail with each brand of snowboards like Burton Snowboards, K2 Snowboards, and Sims Snowboards.

I want to discuss the concept of purchasing brand new domains for the purpose of 301 redirecting those to your site to increase search engine rankings. For instance, I want to purchase a site about Burton Snowboards (www.burton-snowboard-reviews-by-greg.com), a site about snowboard tune ups (www.the-best-snowboard-tune-up-tips-from-greg.com), a site about snowboard boots, and a site about snowboard bindings. Each of these are all brand new sites that your purchased through a domain registrar like GoDaddy.

The question is, If I buy these domains and I permanent 301 redirect them to my main site, will that help boost my rankings? The answer is no. It’s not going to help you whatsoever with your search engine rankings.

This strategy can help you when the sites have been on the internet for awhile, have age, content and back links coming into to them from other external websites. This builds up the reputation and link equity of each of the sites. At that point, this becomes a valuable strategy. For instance, you have site A, or the site about Burton Snowboards that has 800 links coming into it. If you are buying this site solely for the purpose of building links to your money site, you would take that site and 301 redirect it to the home page of your website, thus passing through the 800 back links to your website. (If you didn’t notice in the video, yes, I said client links and looked away because there was a loud noise coming from the SEO floor.) This will help you because you are building up your link equity and the overall reputation of your website.

If you want to purchase the domains and keep the community that is already functioning, continue to work on the site and funnel the established link equity to your website with strategically placed anchor text links pointing to your main website.

Where the sub pages come into play is if site D, or the site about snowboard bindings, has sub pages about Burton Snowboards, K2 Snowboards, and Sims Snowboards and the sub pages have deep links coming into them, you will not want to take those sub pages and 301 redirect them to your home page; instead, 301 redirect them to the related sub pages on your main site. This will pass the appropriate anchor text and link authority to the right pages on your website and help those pages to rank for their keywords.

In conclusion, do not buy brand new websites in hopes to 301 redirect them to your website to achieve higher rankings. If you are going to pursue this strategy, you will want to purchase already established websites that have trust, authority and links coming into them and then 301 redirect.

Original post:
Build Links By Purchasing Websites & 301 Redirecting To Your Main Domain

Not only are we amazing SEOs, we are also singers, songwriters and performers. Enjoy our Broadway production below.

Read the original here:
Merry Christmas from SEO.com

Not only are we amazing SEOs, we are also singers, songwriters and performers. Enjoy our Broadway production below.

More:
Merry Christmas from SEO.com

Christmas comes just once a year, but terrible websites can be found all-year long! When it comes to SEO-friendly web design, here are a few practices that will have you asking Santa Claus for a new webmaster this Christmas. Feel free to sing along! (I would be amazed to see someone actually put this to music).

Credit goes to Jeff Call for the fantastic animation.

The 12 Days of Christmas: Website Disaster Style

On the first day of Christmas, my web guy gave to me:

A Website That Isn’t Ranking

The first, and biggest indication that your website isn’t SEO-friendly is a lack of rankings for the keywords that would drive traffic to your site.

2 Spammy Tags

Stuffing your page title tags with keywords may sound logical, but it’s considered misleading by search engines. It’s better to make sure the title contains your top 2-3 keywords and build page content around those words.

3 Dead Links

The quickest way to force someone away from your site is to send them to a page that doesn’t exist. Frequently run an internal link checker to make sure all of your links are valid. Create a custom 404 page so that visitors who do end up on an invalid URL have a quick and easy correction path back to your site.

4 Pop-up Ads

Hosting pop-up ads on your site may be profitable from an advertising standpoint, but they will infuriate your site visitors. There are more effective, less intrusive ways to advertise on your site.

5 Golden Rings

In addition to stuffing title tags with keywords, any similar practice in the body of your page content will also likely get picked up by search engines and will discount your rankings. Oh, and meta keywords are worthless.

6 Pages Flashing

Avoid flash animation on your site if you can. Written content that you would otherwise put in a flash animation should be turned into crawlable HTML text for maximum SEO benefit.

7 Keywords Hiding

Making links the same color as your page background or hiding them behind images is a serious black hat SEO practice that will only get you penalized. If your visitor can’t see the text, you’re better to leave it off the page.

8 Farms A-Linking

Don’t get sucked into massive networks of promised links. While tempting, these link farms are often associated with black hat practices and spammy link building tactics that will penalize your site.

9 Pages Cloaking

Trying to deliver different content to a search engine spider than your visitors is just stupid. Cloaking is considered grounds for delisting by most search engines.

10 Links A-Buying

While some paid directories offer value, most take your money without providing substantial value. Search engines like Google are on the lookout for purchasers of paid links, which are often tied to networks of link farms and other bad SEO practices.

11 Blogs A-Spamming

Blog spamming is one of the least effective ways to build links. Most blog comments use no-follow links anyway, so do yourself a favor and build higher quality backlinks.

12 Sites A-Scraping

Taking content belonging to someone else and putting it on your own website will get your site devalued in the rankings, even if it does provide free content. If you have to use content already found elsewhere on the web, like quotes or technical specifications, make sure you have plenty of unique content to surround it.

The End

View post:
The 12 Days of Christmas: Website Disaster Style

Christmas comes just once a year, but terrible websites can be found all-year long! When it comes to SEO-friendly web design, here are a few practices that will have you asking Santa Claus for a new webmaster this Christmas. Feel free to sing along! (I would be amazed to see someone actually put this to music).

Credit goes to Jeff Call for the fantastic animation.

The 12 Days of Christmas: Website Disaster Style

On the first day of Christmas, my web guy gave to me:

A Website That Isn’t Ranking

The first, and biggest indication that your website isn’t SEO-friendly is a lack of rankings for the keywords that would drive traffic to your site.

2 Spammy Tags

Stuffing your page title tags with keywords may sound logical, but it’s considered misleading by search engines. It’s better to make sure the title contains your top 2-3 keywords and build page content around those words.

3 Dead Links

The quickest way to force someone away from your site is to send them to a page that doesn’t exist. Frequently run an internal link checker to make sure all of your links are valid. Create a custom 404 page so that visitors who do end up on an invalid URL have a quick and easy correction path back to your site.

4 Pop-up Ads

Hosting pop-up ads on your site may be profitable from an advertising standpoint, but they will infuriate your site visitors. There are more effective, less intrusive ways to advertise on your site.

5 Golden Rings

In addition to stuffing title tags with keywords, any similar practice in the body of your page content will also likely get picked up by search engines and will discount your rankings. Oh, and meta keywords are worthless.

6 Pages Flashing

Avoid flash animation on your site if you can. Written content that you would otherwise put in a flash animation should be turned into crawlable HTML text for maximum SEO benefit.

7 Keywords Hiding

Making links the same color as your page background or hiding them behind images is a serious black hat SEO practice that will only get you penalized. If your visitor can’t see the text, you’re better to leave it off the page.

8 Farms A-Linking

Don’t get sucked into massive networks of promised links. While tempting, these link farms are often associated with black hat practices and spammy link building tactics that will penalize your site.

9 Pages Cloaking

Trying to deliver different content to a search engine spider than your visitors is just stupid. Cloaking is considered grounds for delisting by most search engines.

10 Links A-Buying

While some paid directories offer value, most take your money without providing substantial value. Search engines like Google are on the lookout for purchasers of paid links, which are often tied to networks of link farms and other bad SEO practices.

11 Blogs A-Spamming

Blog spamming is one of the least effective ways to build links. Most blog comments use no-follow links anyway, so do yourself a favor and build higher quality backlinks.

12 Sites A-Scraping

Taking content belonging to someone else and putting it on your own website will get your site devalued in the rankings, even if it does provide free content. If you have to use content already found elsewhere on the web, like quotes or technical specifications, make sure you have plenty of unique content to surround it.

The End

See original here:
The 12 Days of Christmas: Website Disaster Style