Sometimes, it’s more informative to know how to avoid going wrong than how to get things right, particularly when it comes to SEO. Newcomers often struggle with search engine optimisation due to its broad nature. There are no hard-and-fast rules, but there are certainly concrete examples of what not to do.
There are numerous factors playing on your ranking, and the hardest part of SEO is in getting them all just so. In successful SEO, the different aspects work together like a well-oiled machine. In unsuccessful SEO, a similar thing is true, except one or two cogwheels might be malfunctioning. Often, all other elements of a page can be working well, but just one thing out of place can ruin the effect. Here are six of the ways your campaign can be sunk by a single element:
- Badly written title tags. Title tags are a particularly tricky area, as they affect not only how the search engines first react to your page, but how internet users first react as well. Your title tag may be well-written in technical terms, but it can still prove to be a drag on your traffic unless it’s also pleasing to the human eye. It’s important to remember that if internet users are put off by your title tag, they won’t click on your listing in the SERPs, no matter how well it’s placed by your ranking.
- Irrelevant anchor text. How many times have you seen a hyperlink containing the words ‘click here’? This might be a simple way to call internet users to action, but it doesn’t work very well with search engine spiders. Your link anchors are a part of what establishes the relevancy of your pages to their keywords. Talk to our team at SEO Consult Australia about optimising link anchors.
- A damaging link profile. The links coming into a web page weigh in heavily in the rankings calculations. If your link profile is less than wonderful, your on-page efforts will not get you very far. Most site owners are aware of this, and do whatever they can to build up links, but this can actually be the problem. If your link profile contains suspicious links, or you’ve been detected buying links, your ranking could be suffering without you even knowing it.
- Keyword abuse. A lot of the problems sites experience comes from badly chosen or misplaced keywords. Due to the lack of specific knowledge about how the search engines treat keywords, companies try all sorts of tricks to get their keywords noticed. This can lead to keyword stuffing or simply badly chosen keyword lists. Thorough research is essential when choosing keywords for SEO and a light touch is needed in implementation.
- Impatience. This is possibly the number-one factor in ruined optimisation campaigns, particularly for businesses that are new to SEO. While businesses may be aware that optimisation takes time to work, they often aren’t aware of exactly how much time and patience is needed. Messing with elements of your page in the first few weeks after optimisation is a no-no.
