9 Biggest SEO Mistakes - Bloggers Often Make

In my earlier post “ 13 Tips To Make SEO Friendly Web Design “, I mentioned a shocking fact that nearly 24% of the Web Designers don’t even know What SEO is. SEO is (and should) be an integral part of webdesign. If you don’t get any traffic to your website/blog, then what is the point to create one.

Before becoming an SEO expert and starting infinite ways to boost your traffic, I think it is more than necessary to first know “WHAT SHOULD NOT BE DONE”. After all it is just like learning without falling, ask them who have learnt these facts the hard way.

So following are the 9 Biggest SEO Mistakes – Bloggers Often Make

1. Messy Design

If your site or blog’s design is messy, sloppy, hard to navigate, a rainbow of colors that don’t match or are hard on the eye, or full of errors, you will instantly go down the drain. Make sure that your navigation is proper i.e each page is linked to every other page.  Avoid using too many colors. to make design SEO friendly you can see this .

2. Using 3rd Party Domain

If you are using 3rd party domains like Blogger, WordPress etc. First of all you are aways at their mercy,that is you can’t customize your own way. They also have plenty of limitations. Moreover if you have your own domain people will more easily remember your URL. And I bet that if you have your domain, you will get more traffic.

3. Messy URL’s

If you’re using WordPress and are using their messy URLs (Like www.yoursite.com/?p=123) , you’d better get this plugin to switch to the URLs that include the date and post name in the link. Using that plugin will not make you lose your search engine stats or anything, it is a redirect.

4. Writing Posts Full of Texts

When a post is full of just text, it can get boring. However, (and this depends on your niche). But just be careful because you don’t want to get too cluttered.

5. Using Images Without Tags/Attributes

When you have an image in your post, it should always be tagged properly. Make sure the width and height are clearly defined. But most importantly, fill out the alt and title tags with the image’s keywords. Otherwise Search Engines won’t be able to identify it, moreover by doing this you will increase your keyword density .

6. Using Java Script Menus

Using JavaScript for navigation is not bad, but search engines do not read JavaScript. So if you have JavaScript menus you can’t do without, you should consider build a sitemap (or putting the links in a noscript tag) so that all your links will be crawlable.

7. Lack of Keywords in the Content

Once you focus on your keywords, modify your content and put the keywords wherever it makes sense. It is even better to make them bold or highlight them. But don’t overuse it. Keyword stuffing in the Title Tag is looked at as search engine spam (not good). But it might be smart to repeat the same word in different ways:

“Photo Tips & Photography Techniques for Great Pictures” “Photo” and “Photography” are the same word repeated twice but in different ways because your audience might use either one when performing a search query. According to many bloggers the ideal keyword density is around 3% to 10%.

8. Exceeding 65 Character Limit of Post Titles

Many bloggers write very long post titles. So what? In search engine result pages, your title tag is used as the link heading. You have about 65 characters (including spaces) to get your message across or risk it getting cutoff.

9. Writing Just For Money

Yes its true “Never Write for Money” rather write for humans. Here I might sound like a Spiritual Guru giving some philosophical advice and  it might  also sound quite contradicting, but its true. Many bloggers often forget that they are writing for humans.

What I am trying to say here is that if in all your posts you sound extremely business-like, never mention yourself, only talk about the same thing all the time, or are 100% perfect, it could actually send people away. I’m not telling you to be sloppy, talk about yourself all the time, stray from your topic, or make a lot of mistakes. But let your readers know you’re like them too and that you have some things in common.

Why Your Blog is Bound to Fail

Do you know that there are over 152 million blogs in the blogosphere? That stat is a little bit old, and there are a lot of stats out there boasting how much blogs there is in the blogosphere. The reality is that the one thing most of those blogs could measure is the number of those blogs that are failures. A lot of people who start new blogs quit in their first year, and this is due to a lot of reasons. When I started my medifast and nutrisystem diet blog I did a lot of things to ensure it becomes a success, but over time, I came to realize that no matter how much you try to make your blog a success, without the vital elements mentioned below, your blog is bound to fail.

If you’re a new blogger who is thinking about quitting, or if your blog is currently in a stage that you aren’t proud of, this article will be sharing with you the reasons why most blogs are bound to fail, and by ensuring your blog is improved based on these you will be able to increase your chances of success.

Your Content has a Poor Rating

The number one reason your blog might be bound to fail is due to the fact that your content has poor rating. Have you ever tried to rate your content? If you were given a scale of 1-10, and you are asked to rate your content in comparison to some of the best bloggers in your field, how will your content rate? It is very important for you to realize that being mediocre is not enough and that you need to take your content to the next level by being outstanding. Your content is the most important ladder on your road to success as a blogger so make sure you spend your time crafting the best of it.

Your Design is Missing the Vital Elements

Another thing about building a successful blog is that great design matters. There are a lot of things you can do to take your blog to the next level, but it will be a grave mistake to ignore your design. There are a lot of things you can improve about your design to increase your blog’s chances of success, but there are some vital elements that should never be ignored. You need to ensure your site is fast loading; you need to ensure it is easy for readers to locate important aspects of your blog and subscribe to your content, and you need to work on making constant upgrades to make your content more presentable. Make sure you don’t ever ignore your design; it is a very important part of your blog.

You’re Not Building a Subscriber Base

As a blogger you also need to realize that your subscribers are the most important readers of your blog, so you need to work hard on building a subscriber base. Your subscribers will always get your new content whenever it is published and daily visitors might stop coming at anytime. The more efforts you put into building a strong subscriber base, the better your chances of success.