Have you been giving it all you’ve got just to gain your site a few ranks when it comes to the search engines? Why aren’t you getting ranked higher, then? Many new webmasters who try to optimize their site for the search engines forget the basic rules that they need to keep in mind. The ranking rules search engines use are always being reworked and so the ways to get websites optimized for ranking well are never the same. If you want to stay ahead of the crowd and see your site on the first page of Google, you need to avoid making the following mistakes. Avoiding these mistakes will increase your chances for success, even if you don’ t have money to invest.

Broad Keywords

The first mistake many webmasters tend to make when trying SEO is they stuff their content with too many vague keywords. It is a true statement that SEO requires keywords, but too many keywords can get you penalized by the search engines because they’ll think you’re just spamming with your site. This will cause your website to decline in the rankings and that also means you will achieve fewer visitors to your site. It’s also not appealing to your visitors because they only like sites that make sense and are helpful.

Choosing the wrong keywords is another mistake that webmasters make. Keywords are important because they are the searcher’s way of telling you what he is looking for. The traffic you get isn’t much targeted, which means it doesn’t convert and give results. Your focus should be on keywords that are popular among searchers. You have to learn to do keyword research correctly because without it the rest of your SEO efforts will not hold up. All you need to do is find keywords that are being searched for and give preference to ones with less competition. To assist you with your keyword research, several companies have keyword tools that you can use online for free to compile a keyword list for free.

Unethical Practices

Avoid shady SEO consultants who indulge into unethical practices. There are lots of companies that offer SEO services. Some of these companies are definitely worth working with since they use practical ethical SEO methods, but many others depend on unethical or blackhat SEO to get sites ranked. Search engines are notorious for banning sites with no notice. Therefore, if you want to hire a person or company for their SEO abilities, work only with those people who are reputable and will update you often on the results. Nothing should ever be hidden from you when it comes to them.

Overall, successful SEO methods can be boiled down to several small elements and tactics designed to work well together to provide you with results. While so-called ‘blackhat’ tactics might promise you instant results for improving your search engine rankings, they’re not considered long-term methods that you can count on. Try to focus on using Whitehat SEO techniques that are more reliable in terms of improving your search engine rankings, bringing in plenty of targeted traffic and won’t get you banned for your efforts.