3 Common SEO Mistakes

I just read a great blog (via @DemetriosDallis on Twitter) by John McCarthy of WebMetro. In his blog, entitled “D’oh! Not-so-best SEO Practices”, he writes about 3 mistakes he’s seen businesses make on their websites. You can read the article here but I’ll summarize it below.

1. Domain names… lots of domain names. McCarthy doesn’t say that having lots of domain names is a bad thing. In fact, it’s a good thing. But what you do with those domain names is the real key.

2. Spider blocking. I had no idea that this was as common as McCarthy suggests. Apparently, lots of businesses accidentally keep their website from being indexed because of some incorrect code. Easy to fix (and devastating if you don’t).

3. Expiring domains. This one makes sense. Google tends to rank sites higher if their domain name or SSL registration is set to expire soon. The thinking is: The longer a website is registered for, the better.

Local businesses can benefit by carefully navigating these SEO pitfalls. Read McCarthy’s article to find out how to make sure that local buyers can find you.

The Evolution of Google’s Online Search

When Google swooped in a few years ago with their groundbreaking ideas and secret algorithm, website owners tweaked and adjusted their websites and slowly learned what was effective and what wasn’t.

The bottom line for Google was a very website-searcher-centric idea: Put the most authoritative sites first. The more authoritative it was, the higher it should rank. (Which makes sense for internet users who are using search to find something).

They measured authoritativeness by a variety of factors, including keywords, backlinks, and more.

Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz‘s CEO, wrote a very compelling blog in which he talked about how Google’s rankings algorithm has changed over time. He even provided a handy chart which shows an estimation based on Fishkin’s experience and observations.

Essentially, he says that authoritativeness is still key at Google and they measure 4 basic things:

• The authority of the domain
• Anchor text
• Keyword usage
• Backlinks

View his chart below and read the blog post here.