Search Engine Optimisation Pitfalls
Submitted By: John Hill
On page factors - Is your website search
engine friendly?
So you have a website but where is it
on Google? Have you fallen foul of a penalty
or have you overlooked one of the many
common search engine optimisation pitfalls
when designing your site?
Understanding what works for the search
engines and what doesn't when it comes
to the content on your website can have
a crucial impact on the relevance and/or
page rank of your pages from a SEO perspective.
Here we highlight common mistakes that
could affect your ranking on Google and
other search engines.
Optimising for the correct keywords -
Basically 'Get real' about what keywords
you feel your website can be ranked for.
If you have a ten page website in a highly
competitive market then ranking naturally
for the major terms will be close to impossible.
Use the Overture keyword tool together
with the number of results on Google to
find out what keywords are searched for
and how many other websites are targeting
them. If you are lucky then you might
even find a popular keyword that not many
other websites are optimised for. Alternatively
a good tool for this job is Wordtracker
from Rivergold Associates Ltd.
Code validation - If your html code is
not valid then this could make it very
difficult or even impossible for a search
engine to separate your page content from
your code. If the search engine cannot
see your content then your page will obviously
have no relevance.
Frames - Even though most, if not all,
major search engines now index frames
and even with the use of the NOFRAMES
tag you run the risk of your pages being
displayed in the search engine results
out of context. As each individual page
is indexed separately, it is likely that
your website visitors will not see your
pages within your frame and will effectively
be stuck on the page they arrive at.
If you must use frames then create a
'Home' link on each of your individual
content pages and point the link at your
frameset index page.
JavaScript navigation - If you use JavaScript
to control your website navigation then
search engine spiders may have problems
crawling your site. If you must use JavaScript
then there are two options available to
you:
Use the NOSCRIPT tag to replicate the
JavaScript link in standard HTML. Replicate
your JavaScript links as standard HTML
links in the footer of your page.
Flash content - Currently only Google
can index Macromedia Flash files, how
much or how little content they see is
open to debate. So until search engine
technology is able to handle your .swf
as standard then it would be advisable
to avoid the use of these. Again if you
must use Flash then offer a standard HTML
alternative within NOEMBED tags.
Dynamic URLs - Although Google and Yahoo
are able to crawl complicated URLs it
is still advisable to keep your URLs simple
and avoid the use of long query strings.
Do not including session IDs in the URL
as these can either create a 'spider trap'
where the spider indexes the page over
and over again or, at worst, your pages
will not get indexed at all. If you do
need to include parameters in the URL
then limit them to two and the number
of characters per parameter to ten or
less.
The best SEO solution for dynamic URLs
is to use Mod-rewrite or Multiviews on
Apache.
No sitemap - A sitemap is the search
engine optimisation tool of choice to
ensure every page within your website
is indexed by all search engines. You
should link to your site map from, at
least, your homepage but preferably from
every page on your website. If your website
contains hundreds of pages then split
the sitemap into several categorised maps
and link these all together. Try and keep
the number of links per page on a sitemap
to less than 100.
Excessive links - Excessive links on
a given page (Google recommends having
no more than 100) can lower its relevance
and, although it does not result in a
ban, this does nothing for your search
engine optimisation strategy.
Be careful who you link to - As you have
no control over who links to your website,
incoming links will not harm your rank.
However outbound links from your website
to 'bad neighbourhoods' like link farms
will harm your ranking.
As a rule ensure as many of your outbound
links as possible link to websites that
are topical to your field of business.
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