These are some of the biggest mistakes I have seen people make when trying to optimize their websites to rank well in the search engines…

1. Bad titles. Titles are literally the first thing that search engine spiders see when they look at your website, and often your customers too. They are a great way to tell a search engine what your page is all about, and they play a significant role in ranking if used properly. Place your keywords in the title, but don’t go overboard. Here is an example of a good title for a page optimizing for Phoenix real estate: “Phoenix Real Estate, Phoenix Homes For Sale - John Smith Realty”. Also, don’t forget to change your titles. Each page on your site should have a different title optimizing for that particular page.

2. Bad Content or No Content. Do you have one of those cookie cutter real estate websites that comes with pre-written “how to” articles on real estate? Dump ‘em. They look good on a new site, but they are worthless because there are 1,000 other agents that have the same content. Learn how to write. Start a blog. The key to good ranking, and a sticky website is content. Make it useful, make it readable, and make it fun.

3. No incoming links. This should be a no brainer, but you’d be surprised at how many people think they can rank well just with their keywords on the page. Just because you create a page doesn’t automatically give you access to search engine nirvana. You have to work at it, and creating incoming links is probably the hardest part of SEO.

4. Attaining poor incoming links. Learn how to quickly point out good links and bad links. A good link comes from a page that has keywords, titles, and outgoing links that relate to your subject matter. Whenever possible match your keywords exactly, and place the keywords in the anchor text. A page with a high PR, and less outgoing links always helps. Attaining 100 links from casino related pages will not help your real estate website rank higher. Use common sense.

5. Poor internal linking. Links from your own websites are your greatest assets because you can control the outcome. When linking to one of your own pages: Titles, content, and anchor text should match the keywords on the page you are linking to.

5. Misuse of internal pages. Your internal linking structure is very important to maintain good Page Rank and proper indexing of your website. With proper techniques, your weaker pages can support the PR, and page strength of the pages you want to rank well. There are many ways to do this, the most popular include using a site map, but you can also use javascript, and mini sites to achieve your desired result.

6. Getting Cocky. this one may be less obvious, but I have seen so many webmasters think that they have somehow “arrived”, since they have top ranking for their favorite keyword. In my experience, there is always going to be someone working harder than you, and just because you are on top today, doesn’t mean that you should stop working.

7. Choosing the wrong keywords. This is a very common mistake with beginners. You think you’ve chosen the right keyword by optimizing for: “california mortgage”… but, let’s examine this for a minute. Who is actually searching for “California mortgage”? Sure, there are alot of searches, and alot of competition for that keyword, but does that mean that it is going to translate into leads for you? No. And here is why: there have been many studies that prove that specific keywords almost always out perform the more general terms. A term like: “San Diego mortgage loan” is going to generate more quality leads every time. I’ll bet my house on it.

So, when you are researching your keywords, stay as specific as possible. There will be much less competition, and the quality of leads will be better. If you need help, I suggest using a site like wordtracker, or Hittail. I also read an article recently that was one of the best I’ve read on SEO dealing with this subject.

8. Over using Keywords. Your Phoenix real estate website doesn’t need the word “Phoenix” to appear 20 times on each page. Keyword stuffing may have worked in ‘98, but it won’t work now. Let your keywords flow naturally with the content. They shouldn’t appear more than once in a paragraph.
9. Linking to Bad Sites. A link is sort of like a vote. And if you “vote” for sites that are banned, aren’t related, or are full of ads & spam… what is the benefit to you?? There is none. In fact, it may get you penalized yourself. It’s pretty easy to identify one of these pages. This shouldn’t be a problem for most as there would be no reason for the average person to link to crappy pages, but if you are a part of areciprocal linking program, this will immediately become relevent.

10. Not Blogging. You should have seen this one coming… You can’t deny the amazing ability of blogs to rank well in search engines. They are search engine magnets, they create easy to index content, and they attract links like crazy. Create a directory from your main site and start asap…

Hope this was helpful… I’m going to be publishing my “SEO Quick Tips of the Day” into a .pdf format soon so that anyone can download it for free to get help with basic SEO. Let me know if there are any topics you want covered.

Related posts:

• Follow-Up Post on Building Incoming Links to Your Site
• Is Your Website Eating Itself Through Keyword Cannibalization?
• SEO Quick Tip of the Day —> #6
• SEO Quick Tip of the Day —> #5
• Healthy Website Linking Practices