SEO Pitfalls Can Prevent Your Site Getting Ranked

Avoid these Pitfalls in Website Design and Marketing

Many years ago there were all sorts of tricks you could use to get ranked in Google. For example, people put alt (alternative information) tags in images that were stuffed with about 20 keywords. That has not worked for years, but some designers still want to put a few keywords in the alt tags.

Another thing that is a waste of time is filling the keyword tag with every relevant keyword you can think of. Google ignores these tags, but there is not harm in putting your main keyword in it.

There are two other important tags: title and description tags. Again, don't stuff these with keywords. The title tag should have a keyword in it, but the description tag should be a sentence describing your page. Ideally, it should be a complete sentence.

The description tag is worth very little for rankings, but it is what people read when they find your site in Google. If you don't have a description tag, Google just takes some text from the page, which may be of no interest to the reader. Therefore, you need to write a description that encourages people to visit your site – not out and out sales talk, but something to get them interested. For example, if you are a plumber, you might have a description like: 'Find out what to ask a plumber before you choose one.' Of course, you have some questions and answers on the page, and your site offers all the questions well.

Here there are two important points: Do not make the keyword tag more than 65 characters in length, or the description tag more than 149 characters. If you do, the extra characters will just be cut off, so your carefully crafted title and sentence won't make sense. This is very important.

Another trick was to put loads of keywords, repeated many times, in a small font at the bottom of the page in the same colour as the background so they were invisible. For years now, the Google Bots have been reading invisible keywords and acting accordingly – mostly they just ignore them.

Nowadays, people often put a list of their services at the bottom of the page. This is quite legitimate, so long as nothing is repeated. For example, a list like this is OK:

Lawyers, solicitors, personal injury law, conveyancing, leases, wills, trusts

Better would be:

ABC Lawyers: Solicitors offering a range of services including personal injury law, conveyancing, leases, wills, trusts.

A good rule to use is this:

If you think of something, or see something, that looks a bit cunning, don't do it! You can be pretty sure – like 101% sure – that Google knows about it, and either ignores it or considers it spam!