If you have a website then you already know the importance
of traffic. Traffic is to Internet marketing as location
is to real estate. It's the only thing that really matters.
If you cannot generate targeted visitors to your site, you
will not make any sales.
Usually the owner or designer of the website is the person
designated to drive traffic to the site. The chief ingredient
in generating traffic is the search engine. Of coarse, you
can use advertising, but it's going to cost you. Using the
search engines to generate targeted (interested in your
product) traffic is the least expensive method known.
Unfortunately, many website owners do not understand the
importance of search engine visibility, which leads to traffic.
They place more importance on producing a "pretty"
website. Not that this is bad, but it is really secondary
to search engine placement. Hopefully, the following list
of common mistakes, made by many website owners, will help
you generate more targeted traffic to your site...after
all, isn't that what you want.
1. Not using keywords effectively.
This is probably one of the most critical area of site design.
Choose the right keywords and potential customers will find
your site. Use the wrong ones and your site will see little,
if any, traffic.
2. Repeating the same keywords.
When you use the same keywords over and over again (called
keyword stacking) the search engines may downgrade (or skip)
the page or site.
3. Robbing pages from other websites.
How many times have you heard or read that "this is
the Internet and it's ok" to steal icons and text from
websites to use on your site. Don't do it. Its one thing
to learn from others who have been there and another to
outright copy their work. The search engines are very smart
and usually detect page duplication. They may even prevent
you from ever being listed by them.
4. Using keywords that are not related to your website.
Many unethical website owners try to gain search engine
visibility by using keywords that have nothing at all to
do with their website. They place unrelated keywords in
a page (such as "sex", the name of a known celebrity,
the hot search topic of the day, etc.) inside a meta tag
for a page. The keyword doesn't have anything to do with
the page topic. However, since the keyword is popular, they
think this will boost their visibility. This technique is
considered spam by the search engines and may cause the
page (or sometimes the whole site) to be removed from the
search engine listing.
5. Keyword stuffing.
Somewhat like keyword stacking listed above, this means
to assign multiple keywords to the description of a graphic
or layer that appears on your website by using the "alt="
HTML parameter. If the search engines find that this text
does not really describe the graphic or layer it will be
considered spam.
6. Relying on hidden text.
You might be inclined to think that if you cannot see it,
it doesn't hurt. Wrong.... Do not try to hide your keywords
or keyword phrases by making them invisible. For example,
some unethical designers my set the keywords to the same
color as the background of the web page; thereby, making
it invisible.
7. Relying on tiny text.
This is another version of the item above (relying on hidden
text). Do not try to hide your keywords or keyword phrases
by making them tiny. Setting the text size of the keywords
so small that it can barely be seen does this.
8. Assuming all search engines are the same.
Many people assume that each search engine plays by the
same rules. This is not so. Each has their own rule base
and is subject to change anytime they so desire. Make it
a point to learn what each major search engine requires
for high visibility.
9. Using free web hosting.
Do not use free web hosting if you are really serious about
increasing site traffic via search engine visibility. Many
times the search engines will eliminate content from these
free hosts.
10. Forgetting to check for missing web page elements.
Make sure to check every page in your website for completeness,
like missing links, graphics, etc. There are sites on the
web that will do this for free.
This is just a few of the methods and techniques that you
should avoid. Do not give in to the temptation that these
methods will work for you. They will do more harm than good
for your website.
Not only will you spend weeks of wasted effort, you may
have your site banned from the search engines forever. Invest
a little time to learn the proper techniques for increasing
search engine visibility and your net traffic will increase.
If you would like to use these article's you must
enclude the resource box at the bottom of each page.
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