Even Jesus Can’t Plead Forgiveness for These 7 SEO Blunders

Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.

Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.
These were the last seven words of Jesus at the cross. Those people who crucified Jesus did not realize their blunder. However, I am taking these words at the face value. Reality is that those people who claim to know the intricate world of search engine optimization, they know nothing. They consistently make the seven blunders and this is why businesses struggle. If you don’t realize what you are doing, even Kind Jesus will refuse to help you. Below is the seven SEO blunders that you should avoid at any cost.

Avoid Splash Page

This is simply irritating for search engines. Splash pages are aesthetically appealing, but do not add value from the point of view of search engine optimization. Mostly, you see such pages on the home page which contains and image which says to enter the website. This is counterproductive for SEO point of view. This forces you to click an extra link before visiting your site, but it has no text.

To understand it more clearly, the Home Page of a website is the most important page of the website. When a Splash Page is created, it replaces the Home pages and all external links points to this page which is not targeted to main keywords terms. This is recipe for the disaster. The thumb rule is that you should avoid using splash pages in your website.

Doing Keyword Stuffing

Again I would say that Father! They don’t know what they are doing. The search engine optimization was much easier before the Google’s Panda and Penguin updates. You just had to do keyword stuffing and your page would have ranked higher. This is changed world now. The method is actually counterproductive. This is relatively keyword free world, so stop worrying about the keywords and in fact think more about user engagement.

Failing to Produce High Quality Content

Every business owner understands the importance of quality content, but they don’t know how to measure the quality of content. You can ask whether this content adds value to the reader. The indicator of quality content varies by industry, but here are few most important ones that Google uses:

• No grammatical and proof related mistake
• Authoritative content
• Properly researched article with reference to other sites
• Proper use of infographics, charts and videos
• How often you are referenced by others

Creating Fake Links

The biggest blunder you are going to spoil your business is that hire some cheap SEO service provider who will do some fake link building to increase traffic. This will be later penalized by Google. The strategy will surely backfire and prove counterproductive. Link building holds important part of SEO campaign strategy, but not everybody knows how it should be done. If link is being built –up from some authority, then it is great. But, if your SEO service provider is buying link from some site whose bread and butter is dependent on link buying and selling, it will badly affect you.

Ignoring the conversion rate

It will cost you dearly. A London based hotelier came to me seemed worried. His problem was something unique. His site was getting lot of traffic, but conversion rate was very poor. You might have great content, but it is compelling enough to convert your potential customers to buy your product. There should be effective calls to action in your content. My suggestion is that you should avoid using few phrases or words specific to the industry. For example, ‘luxury’ word has lost its significance for real estate. Similarly ‘state of the art’ has lost relevance for corporate. You should avoid using these words in your content.

Duplicate Content on Your Site

There should not be multiple pages with same content. This creates confusion for search engines. Why this is important? Since, this will create confusion among the users, Google won’t consider it a good thing. For detail, read this article (http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.in/2008/09/demystifying-duplicate-content-penalty.html)

Broken Links

A user click on a link: To look 10-years younger, click here. And ah ! When user clicks in great anticipation, he gets an error message. This is very bad. Do you expect the user will ever return to your site, as you have broken his heart? You should know that websites keep accumulating broken links and Google does not like them at all. Bad links means ill reputation of your site. I can say this with personal experience.