How to Avoid Common Search Engine Optimization Mistakes

Unless you're a very strange person, you put your website up for the world to see. You want visitors for fun and profit! Why aren’t you getting them? There are lots of answers. The lack of an audience is not one of them. Do you like ray guns? Dinosaur jokes? If the Web has demonstrated one thing, it’s that there’s pretty much no topic that doesn’t have its share of devotees. Let's talk about the mistakes to avoid, step by step.
by California SEO

1. Optimize your coding if your site uses outdated HTML or generally wacky code. Examples include using the bold tag instead of the strong tag, visible HTML tabling, frames and anything else that makes the site look bad, you won't get as many visitors. Comply with the most recent universal HTML standards.

2. Use your titles. Search engines display your titles as links back to your site. If the title says “Index,” that doesn’t tell anyone a thing. Why should they click through? Search engines also give titles a great deal of weight when judging keyword relevance. Don’t stuff your titles with keywords but don’t avoid using them, either.

3. Use social media to promote your site. If your site doesn’t have any social media tools or connections, it’s automatically at a disadvantage. Get a blog, at least. Add buttons that let your visitors report interesting content to social aggregators like Technorati and Digg.

4. Include interesting, well-written content. You can have the most technically search-optimized site in the world, but if real people don’t want to read any of it, it will never improve by much. Search engines want sites that people want to visit. Ethical SEO is as much about increasing this “organic” appeal as good coding. You would think this step would be obvious, but unfortunately, the casual nature of web browsing (You can do it in your underwear!) lulls people into being a bit careless when they put content up.

5. Hire someone if you don't have skills. If you're considering hiring an full-blown SEO firm, see how their other clients rank and have responded to the company's services. Take this guys as an example: California SEO