5 SEO Pitfalls To Avoid In 2012

Last updated 12 hours ago

In an ideal world, search engine results would show the most relevant websites on a certain topic. However, companies try to game the big search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing, in order to raise their search engine rank through prohibited practices. These are known as black hat search engine optimization (SEO) tactics, and can hurt your business? online success.

Google and its competitors are cracking down on these black hat SEO methods through consistent adjustments to their algorithms. Here are five pitfalls to avoid in 2012, when optimizing your company website for search:

1. Do not hide links in your source code.

A website contains two sets of data: the information you see, and the behind-the-scenes code that dictates the visible part of the page. A common black hat SEO trick is to hide links inside the

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), HTML or JavaScript code. Due to recent algorithm updates, some web browsers may penalize sites that stuff keywords into source code. If your site used this tactic in the past, you may want to have an online marketing professional update your code.

2. Avoid excessive links in page footers.

The bottom of every page of your website should contain your contact information and copyright data. Flooding the footer with excessive links and too many keywords can throw off search engine crawlers. When in doubt, keep the bottom of every page simple. Don?t abuse this space to create internal or external links.

3. Stay clear of copied, spun, or scraped content.

Search engines frown on online plagiarizing. The best way to create high page rank and increase relevant page views is to publish relevant and unique content. If another news source published a relevant article, link to them and include a very small excerpt. Copying work or using article spinners can result in duplicate content, which may demote your site if search engine crawlers tag you as a copycat.

4. Avoid Broken Internal Links

From a usability standpoint, every company website should aim to eliminate broken links to other parts of its site. This is also an important housekeeping item from an SEO point of view, as search engines can identify un-navigable pages, which may lower your site?s rankings.

5. Do Not Over-Optimize Your Site

Some companies figure that over-saturating their website copy with keywords will help them show up higher in search results for all kinds of different search terms. Web crawlers can now tell if your content does not make grammatical sense or is just too stuffed with key words. Industry experts currently recommend a 3 to 5 percent keyword density per page.

If your business wants to rise in the search engine rankings, then contact Brad Sharenow.? Brad is an experienced digital marketer who can assist your small New York City business with SEO, social media, and more! Call Brad today at (877) 411-3777 for a free internet marketing consultation.

Source: http://www.onlinemarketingconsultantnyc.com/528521/2012/08/23/5-seo-pitfalls-to-avoid-in-2012.html

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