One thing that you need to remember when you are optimizing your site for search engines is that you must not do anything that would not look natural. This is a topic that is often debated by SEO experts, with some saying that Google and other search engines would not really be aware when webmasters are trying to manipulate their content to get a good page rank.
But to stay on the safe side, let us just assume that yes, Google is aware that there is some manipulation going on. Now to make sure that these search engines will give you their time of the day, you have to avoid three major mistakes that may work against optimizing your site:
1. Link Building Abuse
Although, it is a numbers game, meaning the more links you have pointing to your site, the better chances you have of beating your competitor, you should not do massive link building, as this would actually work against you, not for you. You can’t really fool the search engines which have a clear idea on how much time it really takes for a website to get to a good number of links.
There are some link builders for hire that promise you thousands of links for your site instantly, but search engines know that unless your website is being announced all over the major media outlets or being talked about in the blogosphere, it is not really possible to get that many links to your site in such a short time.
Link building is something that you need to do on a slow, but sure manner. At least two or three links a day should be enough to get your site crawled, rather than putting links all over thousands of sites in a few days.
2. Same Old Anchor Text
There is some value to using your desired keyword in the anchor text when you are link building to your site. However, not a few webmasters have already realized that using the same old anchor text over and over can actually work to their disadvantage through time. Most of these sites that overuse the same anchor text get pushed down the page, or worse, even get banned.
A more natural way of link building should be used and you can do this by using words that other people may use to link back to your site, such as “click here” or “more information here”. Use a variety of anchor texts that other people would naturally use.
3. Instant Site Content
Beware of those selling pre-made websites that come with hundreds of pages of content. Keep in mind that websites grow through time and a legitimate website would normally have only a few pages to start with. Even sites that have been around for quite a while would normally get only a maximum of 500 pages.
The key is to keep things natural so that search engines would not ban your site or push you down the search engine results. These are just some things you need to remember when optimizing your site for search engines.
