10 Things To Avoid When Trying To Optimize Your Site

Author : Gerald Thomson

When it comes to SEO there are hundreds of tips and tricks you can use to get more traffic to your website or blog. And while the list of things you can do is fairly wide open, the search engines do have rules and regulations that if broken will penalize your site or possibly get it kicked off that search engine all together.

Here is a list of some of those things you should avoid when trying to optimize your site.

1. Don't link to sites that are considered "bad neighbours". These are sites that have either used black hat seo, spam, or some other scam that got them flagged or kicked off the search engines. Linking to these kinds of sites will put yours in the same category even if yours is legit and follows the rules.

2. Don't use invisible text or text that is so small visitors can barley read it. This is an old trick used to try to add more keywords and content per page. And while it's okay to have different sized text keep it readable and easy to see.

3. Don't use duplicate content on your website to make it appear larger then what it is.

4. Avoid using doorway pages.

5. Don't have the same title for every page of your website. As well don't use the same description for each page.

6. Don't use irrelevant keywords. Your keywords should fit the content of your website. If it's about fixing computers don't use keywords about cutting flowers, it's just not smart.

7. Don't stuff your keywords. This means keeping your keyword use to about 5 percent of your pages text content. There are tonnes of free keyword density checkers available to calculate how dense your keyword placement is.

8. Don't over stuff your inbound links. While it's always good to have inbound links connecting your web pages, it looks sloppy to have every other word as a link to another page on your site.

9. Don't use black hat SEO. Sure using black hat SEO tricks will work for you in the short term, the reality is that the search engine bots are getting smarter and they will find out eventually and your site will suffer for it.

10. Avoid scams, you've probably seen those sites that promise thousands of visitors to your website in minutes for a small fee, avoid them their garbage and a scam. While there are legitimate sites that do offer things like this it's important to do your homework and go with your instincts. Chances are if it feels to good to be true, it is.

Article Source : 10 Things To Avoid When Trying To Optimize Your Site