Webhosting News

There are millions of websites out there that don’t manage to get any traffic. Some of them even have some great content too. What are they doing wrong? Maybe they did follow some SEO tips and tricks. Maybe they did work hard to optimize their website. However, that alone is not enough. There are many mistakes newcomers to the webmaster community make that lead them to failure. Keep reading to find out what mistakes other people make, and learn from them.

Cheating search engines

Cheating search engines looks fast and simple on paper. Many people have found ways to trick or cheat search engine robots in order to get a better rank faster. Many people got quite a big amount of money selling these “black hat” methods, while others did them themselves. In the past, these techniques actually worked, and still do, but nowadays practicing them can lead to seriously negative consequences. These methods include, but are not limited to doorway pages, invisible (or hidden) text, unusually massive amounts of back links from other websites (which meet some sort of characteristics that make search engine robots suspicious), etc. What are those serious consequences? Well, you could will end up getting blacklisted by search engines, which means you’ll probably never get listed again. Is it worth it? No. There is no quick method to appear at the top of search engines (aside from PPC SEO), so it’s better not to try.

Poorly written content

By poorly written content can lead any website to oblivion. The main thing search engine robots check out is the content of a website. Some people confuse this with the first thing search engine robots look for, which is the title, but the most important aspect of a website in a robot’s eye is the content. You might have great and helpful information, but if it’s badly optimized for search engines, getting listed will be difficult. Goof content is the key to good SEO, and good SEO needs the right keywords, which brings us to the next mistake.

Choosing the wrong keywords

When users perform a search, they will type a small phrase (generally about three words) related to what they are looking for. For example, if someone is looking for good SEO methods, he will type “good SEO methods” into the search box. These are the keywords you should place around your website, and within your content. Many people choose the wrong keywords, and it’s understandable: after all, how can you know what people type into search boxes? Well, you can find out using some online keyword tools that will tell you what people type when they search for something. Try looking online for them, there are plenty to choose from.

Sitemaps

Sitemaps are probably the most overlooked feature of a website by newcomers. Sitemaps are not only made to facilitate the navigation of a website on the user end of things, but they are also great for SEO, because it makes search engine robots’ work a lot easier. By using sitemaps, search engine crawlers can easily identify every page of a website, resulting in a more successful listing. You could make your own sitemap, but it’s recommended that you use Google Sitemaps instead. Not only is it easy to use, but it’s also great for Google SEO, and it can be easily implemented in just about every website (for example, there is a Wordpress plug in that automatically generates a Google Sitemap for your website).

There is one last big mistake “newbies” make when creating a website, it’s…

Creating a badly designed website

This is a more technical aspect of SEO, the design of a website. Search engine crawlers not only look at the surface of a website, they look at the inside of it as well. Having badly organized code makes their work more difficult, and we all know that’s not good. Poor design includes, but is not limited to intense graphics, unclear navigation, etc. Try organizing your code a little, it pays out well.

Those are the biggest SEO mistakes people make when starting a website. Just keep in mind all of them, and stay away from cheating, and you should be fine.

A website is nothing without traffic and users, and getting it is harder than it looks like. Find out about the most important source of traffic, and how to take part of it, right here.

If you’ve ever done an online search through Google, Yahoo, Live, or any other search engine, you’ve probably noticed that the best results appear first. Search Engine Optimization, or SEO does exactly what its name says: it optimizes your website in order to climb up the search results ladder, and get listed among the best.

Among the things search engine “robots” look for, back linking is probably the most important and influential of all. Back links are all the links pointing towards your site found on other websites, and the bigger the linking website, the better. The more readers you have, the more back links you’ll get, because they will start promoting you on forums, or blogs.

Now, there are many ways to achieve this, and one of the most important steps to take is to revise your content. It has to be good and useful, and useful content keeps visitors interested, which in turn might become a back link from another website. Let’s see some tips that will help you out:

1.    Use descriptive, keyword-rich titles:

Descriptive titles are very useful for catching people’s attention, and avoiding unnecessary bandwidth loss. A title like “How to replace a computer hard drive easily” is much more search engine-friendly than a title like “Replacing hard drives”.  Try to use titles that are both descriptive, and keyword rich.

2.    Keywords

Keywords are also very important for SEO. To choose them correctly, you have to know what people type in the search boxes when they look for something. For example, a traveler looking for cheap hotels would probably type “cheap hotels” in the search box. Once you find out, include these words in your articles or content, making it more accessible by search engines. Also, try to use these keywords at the beginning of your post, article or piece of information, because search engine robots look for the words placed at the beginning, and they offer a preview usually composed by the first phrases. It helps catch users’ attention, thus turning into another visit.

3.    Get listed

Search engines sometimes buy information from web directories in order to have as many websites as possible. The most important directories are the Open Directory Project (http://www.dmoz.org) and Yahoo. If you get listed in the DMOZ or Yahoo, you will get listed in major search engines, including Google and Yahoo.

4.    Modifying the inside

If you use a publishing engine such as Wordpress or Joomla, there are many SEO plugins available that will modify the inner part of your website (the code, etc.) in order to make it more search engine-friendly. Search for plugins containing the word SEO in each engine’s plugin directory to find out which ones you can use.

5.     Sitemaps

Sitemaps are useful for SEO because it allows search engine robots to list every page of your website more easily. There are many plugins that will do them for you, just look around for them in your publishing system’s plugin directory.

6.    Some things should be off-limits

Sometimes allowing search engine robots crawl all over your website is not a good idea. For example, if you have a membership website, or a paid download, there is a chance people will be able to get through without paying through a search engine. This is easily prevented by using a “robots.txt” in your database that will tell search engine robots not to list that part of your website. Try searching for “how to create a robots.txt file” to learn how to do it, it’s very easy to do.

These are the most basic aspects of search engine optimization that you should be aware of, but remember that this is not all there is to SEO. There are many other things you should do, but these should be good enough to start out before getting into the more technical aspect of SEO. Also, remember that getting to the top doesn’t happen overnight: it takes time, patience, and a lot of back links.