SEO - What Not To Do    

We have collected a few of the common pitfalls that business people make when trying to get their web sites to become more popular.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with the Search engine optimisation, in layman's terms its the equivalent of taking your web site from the back street and putting it on the high street. While its written primarily for South Australian small business, anyone can gain benefit from following this "what not to do" guide.

SEO is not an exact science. The search engines (the ones that matter) make it as difficult as possible for someone to work out how their algorithms and selection criteria for ranking web sites works.

No company that makes concrete promises about ranking web sites at a certain point within a certain timeframe should be trusted. There is also a little thing called the ageing delay which many have not heard of. Its basically a holding pattern for new domain names on the Google search engine.

Don't expect any results for any of your pages for at least 6 months to a year which is how long the ageing delay could last. Not as bad as it seems as to get decent content on your site will probably take you that long anyway, plus it will ensure you are not a fly by night job.

"Try our fragrant pink jasmine candles, they are the best fragrant pink jasmine candles. The candles which consist of fragrant pink jasmine are of very high quality. So if you are in the market for fragrant pink jasmine candles, contact us on the phone number below"

The above is painful to read, and even if it was to work (which it won't) Would anyone actually stay to read it, doubtful....

Update**** I have been made a liar by Google, I am currently ranked 7th on the planet for Fragrant pink Jasmine candles, maybe I should change professions!!

These are the strips of writing at the very top of the web page. Their importance should not be overlooked. When searching, it helps the potential visitor work out what the web page is about.

Ensure your web designer goes through with you the title tags. Make sure they write the title in such a way as to make sense to your audience as well as getting one or two choice phrases in.

Don't make the mistake of not putting a title on your web page. You will end up with the title of "untitled" this looks unprofessional and makes it unlikely visitors will click on your link.

Its easy to cut and paste someone else's work or fill your pages with junk because it was easy to come by.

The hard part is writing about subjects that are of interest to your customers. It takes time, and most people would rather be doing other things.

Just remember not to publish rubbish.