JeffAshby.com

I have compiled this list of 10 of the most common SEO mistakes I have noticed over my years of experience. Make sure to avoid these mistakes and you shouldn’t have any trouble getting decent rankings.

1. Flash

   Avoid building your website completely in Flash.  Search engine spiders cannot read flash content just like they cannot read content from images.  Many developers don’t realize this as they build a visually appealing website.  A small amount of flash is okay as long as there is a text version of the content as well.  In the SEO world, content is king.  If content cannot be read, it is isn’t worth much.

2. Text as Images

   Just like Flash, your website will have considerable SEO content issues if you embed important text in images.  Make sure important content is inside the HTML, as it is the only way it can be read by the spiders.  If you must use images, make sure to use the ALT image attribute to give some description to the image.

3. Frames

   I have been programming websites for over 12 years now, and in my honest opinion, frames are lousy HTML elements and shouldn’t be used.  However, since I started learning SEO, I have found that frames can spell disaster for ranking a website.  Content inside a frame or an <iframe> is loading from a seperate source, and therefore cannot be crawled by the spiders.

   This can especially be a problem for real estate websites who usually frame in their MLS listing from a separate source.

   If you already have a website with frames that you want to SEO, the task will be very long and difficult to move that content to a frame-less site.

4. Splash Pages

   This is one of the most common problems I have seen when trying to SEO a website.  Splash pages usually have very little content (many times it is actually flash) then facilitates the user entering the website.  The first page the search engine spiders see should be the most important.  A splash page usually doesn’t have much navigation and basically just creates an extra barrier for the spiders.  If your splash page is flash, there is no way for the spiders to find the rest of your site as they cannot read flash.  Please…Please…Don’t use a splash page.

5. Menus that Cannot be Spidered

   Flash menus look cool, but they cannot be followed by the spiders.  Your navigational menus are the most important highway for the crawlers, keep them open and able to be followed.

6. Too much AJAX

   Many web developers like to impress website visitors (and perhaps increase site functionality) by adding AJAX to the website menus and navigational tools.  Search engine spiders will have a difficult time crawling the dynamic content that is loaded in AJAX.

   Another problem of AJAX is that the URL doesn’t refresh when content changes on the website.  This means there aren’t unique pages on the site that can be easily linked to.  This will greatly disadvantage your viral marketing.

   Keep AJAX to those elements of the site that don’t have to do with navigation or loading of separate pages.  Only use it for smaller elements.

7. Non-Friendly SEO URLs

   If your website is built with a CMS, or is otherwise dynamic, you’re URLs will also be dynamic.  This means your page will pull a query in the URL to determine which content to load.  Using your CMS, or the URL rewriting functionality of the .htaccess file (more on that some future post), you will be able to make your URLs SEO Friendly.

   Instead of the dynamic url of: www.domain.com/?a=123
   You will have SEO Friendly URLs of: www.domain.com/page-title

   This will not only help your search engine rankings (keywords in your URL are always a great idea), it will also increase the user experience on your website.

8. Keyword Stuffing

   META tags used to have more importance in search engine rankings, however due to spammers and keyword stuffers, they are not as important.  Actually the META Keywords are completely ignored by the big three search engines.  Keyword stuffing is loading your title tags, meta tags, and content with too many keyword phrases that either aren’t relevant to the site, or make the content unreadable (due to high keyword density).  Keep your keywords within moderation, and remember to write for the user, and not for the search engine.  You will find higher rankings this way.

9. Poor Anchor Text

   Anchor text is the actual text that someone clicks on to enter your website.  When you are building links, avoid anchor text such as “Click Here” or “Find Out More.”  Anchor text is used by the search engine as one way to find out what your site is all about.  Build links with anchor text that is keyword rich.  Instead of “www.jeffashby.com,” try “SEO Strategies.”  That way, you will rank better for those terms.

   Also makes sure to vary your anchor text with a variety of targeted keyword phrases.  The last thing you need is to get marked as spam by the search engines because your anchor text is all the same over hundreds and thousands of links.

10. Not Using ALT Attribute

    All important images you use should have an ALT attribute used.  This text will describe what the image is to the search engine spiders who cannot see the content of your image.  This gives another method for the spiders to see what you site is about and will supplement the other content on the site.

    Also, properly using ALT text will help ranking your images in the search engine’s image search results.