The 10 Steps To Get Into The SEO “Hall Of Shame”
Introduction
Most people have heard of the hall of fame, but to many, the hall of shame may not be as well known. My goal in this article is to help ensure that you never have an opportunity to be in it, not even from a distance! Here are some ways that a website owner or webmaster can get in trouble with some of today’s major search engines. This article is another way of saying: ‘The 10 steps to avoid at all times’, in preventing a site penalty or ban from the search engines.
Step 1: Build your entire site using graphics
One of the best ways to secure a front-row seat in the hall of shame would be to put all your links in Java script or use images or graphics for the links. Today’s search engines cannot ‘see’ or index sites that use such linking strategies. Make certain all your links are text links, using the standard H REF HTML reference. And while you’re at it, it’s always a great idea to include a sitemap of your site. A well-designed sitemap will ensure that all the pages in your site will be fully indexed.
Step 2: Design your site using Flash technology
Even today, I still encounter some websites that were entirely designed using Flash as its exclusive technology. No search engine can index or ‘read’ a site that was entirely created in Flash, since there is no text to crawl. Search engines only seek out one thing and that is content’ and then only in the form of text. You can use a bit of Flash, for example in a Flash banner or header, but make absolutely certain that there is lots of HTML text to crawl on that page and throughout your site.
Step 3: Use invisible text
One of the safest ways to ensure the Number One spot in the hall of shame is to use invisible text on your pages. Today, search engines are becoming more and more clever and can detect that sort of thing. For as long as I can remember, invisible text has always been prohibited by all search engines and you are almost certain of securing either a permanent ban, or a temporary penalty (which could become permanent). Stay away from invisible text and you will never get in trouble.
Step 4: Use doorway or gateway pages
A doorway or gateway (similar) page is a page that was designed specifically for search engines, and not humans! This happens when a website makes use of deceptive software or a script that relies on the IP address of a search engine robot to serve a specially written page for that robot. This process is called ‘cloaking’ and is another way of ensuring you a prominent spot in the hall of shame. Stay away from doorway pages and cloaking mechanisms. They are bad news and are forbidden by most major search engines today. Write your pages for real humans and fill them with good content and the search engines will rank your site with good marks.
Step 5: Forget all about your title tags and H1’s
If there is one element that will rank a site well it is the careful use of properly written title tags and H1 tags that are rich in keywords and key phrases. Neglect to do this and you will do well in the hall of shame. Search engines today rely on the keywords that are written in title tags, and the words that are contained in H1 or H2 tags. It’s also a good idea to use one or two headlines on your pages. These headlines of course need to contain the keyword (or keywords) used in that page for your maximum benefit.
Step 6: Be inconsistent and too vague
Another way where you can fast track your site to the hall of shame is to use themes that are irrelevant or inconsistent to the overall topic of your site. If your site sells blue widgets, red widgets and black widgets and nothing more, then it’s safe to assume that your site’s theme is ‘widgets’. Don’t talk of anything else but widgets and you will have an extremely relevant site that is entirely focused on widgets. This important step should steer you away from the hall of shame.
Step 7: Don’t ever use Wordtracker
A safe way to get an invitation to the hall of shame is by never using Wordtracker! Optimize a website for the wrong keywords or key phrases and you will end up with a site that has no or very little visibility in the search engines, plus you might even get enquiries or questions for products or services your company doesn’t even sell. Spend the time to properly research the real keywords people are using when searching for the products you sell. The only way to do this is by using Wordtracker.
Step 8: Link to bad neighbourhoods or link farms
One sure way to end up in the hall of shame is to link to what is called ‘bad neighbourhoods’. You obviously can’t control the people that are linking to you, but you certainly control whom YOU are linking your site to. If some of the sites you are contemplating linking to have been banned or penalized by Google or other search engines, you might incur the very same treatment.
Step 9: Build your site using frames
If your site isn’t built yet, using frame technology could place you in the hall of shame, since most search engines today have a hard time trying to index sites that employ frames. Although you can use the ‘no frames’ tag, building a site with frames is old technology and almost nobody uses them anymore. Design your site using HTML coding and stay away from frames if at all possible and it may help you to stay out of the hall of shame.
Step 10: Ignore what’s going on in the SEO industry
Today more than ever, the search engine industry and the SEO profession are evolving at breathtaking speed. Witness the many changes in the past 12 months. There has been (and probably will continue to be) mergers, acquisitions and buyouts in the search engine field. Combine all this with the constant modifications done to search algorithms, such as the huge changes implemented at Google in the past 2 to 3 months, and you start to get the picture. Keep informed by reading all the news in this industry and you might avoid a front-row seat in the SEO ‘hall of shame’.
Author:
Serge Thibodeau of Rank For Sales
