Best Practices

DO's and DON’Ts

Whether you are outsourcing SEO or you are doing it yourself, there are things you should do and should not do. Let’s take a look at a checklist of DON’Ts showing you 12 fatal mistakes that you must not make while with another checklist of 12 DO’S that you should bear in mind. Two separate lists of suggested DO’s and DON’Ts for search engine optimization are as follows.

The DO’s – 12 Tips & Techniques You Must Follow in SEO

After looking at the 12 DON’Ts, let us share another 12 things you should know and follow them in making your SEO strategies and tactics.

• 1. Be patient to wait for results. SEO’s results are not instant and often take months to see, especially for those that are small and new to online business.
• 2. Commit yourself to the SEO process. SEO is not a one-time event. Search engine algorithms change from time to time. Therefore, SEO requires a long-term outlook and commitment.
• 3. Get web analytics in place at the start. Clearly define goals for your SEO efforts, and get a web analytics software in place for tracking what’s working and what’s not.
• 4. Build a great website with great content. To be listed on the first page of search engine results, your site should be one of the best in this topic. It is important to make great and unique content. However, it’s a particular challenge for online retailers. If you are selling the same product as other 50 retailers are selling, you’d better give up the boilerplate descriptions from the manufacturer that everyone is using. Write your own product descriptions based on the keyword research you did earlier to blow the competition away. Great content is also a great way to get inbound links.
• 5. Create a site map page. Search engine spiders can’t index pages that can’t be crawled. A site map enables spiders to find all the important pages on your site and to understand your site’s hierarchy. It is especially helpful for a site with hard-to-crawl navigation menu. If your site is large, you should make several site map pages. Each one should keep less than 100 links (75 at most would be safe).
• 6. Make SEO-friendly URLs. Include keywords as part of your URLs and file names e.g. yourdomain.com/red-widget.html. A file with more than 3 hyphens looks like spam which would discourage users to click on it. Tips: Use hyphens in URLs and file names, but not underscores. Hyphens are treated as a “space” while underscores are not.
• 7. Take advantage of press releases. Getting media coverage on your industry or your local region is one of the great sources to get exposure. You may get links from credible media web sites. Disseminating press releases online can be an effective link building strategy and would get exposure on news search sites. Tips: Make sure your press release is newsworthy.
• 8. Place unique, relevant title and Meta description on every page. The page title is regarded as the most important on-page SEO factor. Ranking high for a primary term (2-3 words) without that term being part of the page title is rarely seen. Basically, Meta description tag can’t help you rank, but it often appears as the text snippet below your listing which should include the relevant keywords and be written to encourage searchers to click on your listing.
• 9. Place keywords in anchor text when linking internally. Anchor text helps spiders to know what the linked-to page is about. Links saying “click here” do nothing for your search engine visibility.
• 10. Create a blog and get involved with other related blogs. Search engines especially Google would like blogs for fresh content and highly-structured data. It is one of the best chances to join the conversations that are already taking place about your industry and/or company. Reading and commenting on other blogs are definitely ways to increase your site’s exposure and get new links. Tips: Put your blog at yourdomain.com/blog or blog.yourdomain.com, so your main domain gets the benefit of any links to your blog posts.
• 11. Make use of local search opportunities. Online research for offline buying is a growing trend, so you should get this chance to optimize your site to get local traffic with your contacts shown prominently. Create a detailed Directions/Location page using neighborhoods and landmarks in the page text. Submit your site to free local listings services offered by the major search engines.
• 12. Diversify your traffic sources. Google may bring you 70% of your traffic today, but don’t forget algorithm would change regularly. What if your site disappears from Google search engine suddenly? Newsletters and other subscriber-based content would help to retain traffic/customers no matter what the search engines do. Creating great content, starting a blog, using social media and local search will also help you maintain audience loyalty.

The DON’Ts – 12 Mistakes You Must Avoid in SEO

We’d like to present you 12 fatal mistakes that would lead to failure of your SEO and should be avoided.

• 1. Don’t decide your SEO Company too lightly. Make a thorough research on SEO Companies before you actually make a decision to hire the right one. Internet marketing is not as easy as you think - it can bring benefits to your business, and can also bring disasters if you are not choosing a good consultant. Selecting a vendor should involve a lot of research and questions with the companies you’re considering.
• 2. Don’t set yourself apart from the process. Even you have hired your SEO Company, you should know and understand as much as possible about the whole process. It is important to realize what strategies and tactics your SEO Company uses. Ask if there are any risks involved. If your SEO Company uses some high-risk tactics for your site, and once it gets caught, you’ll be the one paying the price.
• 3. Don’t submit your content to multiple domains. Using sub-domains or an additional domain might make sense only for user and content considerations, but not an attempt to get numerous domains/sites listed in the SERPs.
• 4. Don’t get your site “uncrawlable”. Uncrawlable elements include wrong robots.txt file, having session IDs or too many variables in your URLs, developing a Flash-based, graphical, or all-AJAX site, or using a convoluted navigation menu that spiders can’t (or won’t) follow.
• 5. Don’t target too general keywords. A property agency in Hong Kong has no shot at ranking for the phrase “property”; a lawyer in Hong Kong has no shot at ranking for the word “lawyer.” Choose and optimize for relevant, specific keyword phrases that will bring targeted traffic.
• 6. Don’t SPAM. Not to stuff keywords in your Meta tags, image alt tags or in your page footer with lightly-colored or hidden text; and plaster link all over blog comment or guestbook. Today, all these are regarded as ‘spam’.
• 7. Don’t let both www.yourdomain.com and domain.com to resolve to your home page. They are two separate addresses to a search engine, in other words, you have the same content at two addresses. Not to link to your home page with a URL like www.yourdomain.com/index.html — that’s also a separate address from www.yourdomain.com. They look like duplicate content.
• 8. Don’t overlook usability. Things such as a proper site structure, logical navigation, and descriptive link text are good for both users and search engine spiders.
• 9. Don’t give up creating great content. Add great (linkable) content to your web site. A glossary is an example to let your easily create a page of great, keyword-rich content. Others such as frequently asked questions page, a testimonials page, how to articles, product support manuals are also recommended.
• 10. Don’t create an unbalanced link profile. Even though links are important, trading links with any and every site you can find is not a good idea. Basically, reciprocal links are not bad, but won’t help much if most of your inbound links are the result of link trades. Reciprocal links should only be made with quality, relevant sites and as a fraction of your overall link profile.
• 11. Don’t apply the same exact anchor text on all links to your site. It is a kind of unnatural link building. Your link building should look natural using different anchor text.
• 12. Don’t check your rankings daily. Ranking fluctuation is normal. Better spending time to improve your site instead of watching it moving up and down the SERPs.

With the lists above, you should be able to develop a good plan of SEO for your business. The lists could go beyond 12 “DOs” and “DON’Ts”. Your additional comments are mostly welcome.