Most marketers use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as a strategy to get more traffic. But some of these strategies can go too far and get a website banned by search engines. When this happens, you will not receive any organic (free) search engine traffic and will have to pay for every click you get!
Here are a few things that could get you banned, and a few things you should do instead:
Hidden or Tiny Text: This is an old technique and I’m surprised it’s still around. It involves hiding text from the human eye a few different ways: making the text the same color as the background; using an extremely small font size; hiding text behind pictures, etc. If you are still doing this, you have probably already been banned since search engine technology has been onto this technique for some time.
Keyword Stuffing: Some marketers will “stuff” keywords into their meta tags or use repetitive keywords in their content until it is almost unreadable. Not a good practice. It may get you higher SERPs for a while, but it will also put up a red flag to search engines. Instead, give your visitors quality content and concentrate on finding better keywords combinations.
Web Templates: These are pre-designed templates usually labeled as “AdSense Ready” or “AdSense Compatible.” The best way to identify these is by their hefty price tag. You can buy a regular web template for around $30.00, or use FrontPage or XsitePro to build your sites. The “special” templates sell for $97.00 - $147 or more.
However, not all of these templates are bad. They will save you programming time, and might help you make a sale. The bad thing is that they are also sold to thousands of other people. This will not give your site uniqueness or originality, and you may get a duplicate content penalty from Google if you don’t take some time to customize your site.
Doorway pages/Sneaky redirects: With doorway pages, the main goal is to attract search engine spiders that are looking for pages to index. They are really just spam. They give incorrect results for keyword phrases and then send users to a different page.
These may have attracted the spiders in the past, but Google has recently cracked down on these types of pages.
Here are a few basics that will keep that free traffic coming, and help you make a steady, increasing income every month:
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Start developing a subscriber list by sending your traffic to your newsletter sign-up page. Give your subscribers quality information as part of your marketing strategy so they feel like they are your friends.
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Write good content for your web sites and include links in the text to other pages on your site. If you offer affiliate programs, put these programs on the last page, so visitors have to click on several links to get to them. This will keep visitors on your site longer, and increase your quality score.
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Develop a blog or forum and let visitors participate in it. This will keep visitors coming back to your page and increase your traffic rank.
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Most importantly, focus on increasing your brand recognition by concentrating on natural search methods and pay-per-click traffic. Your brand is the one thing that will help you soar above the competition!
You’ve heard the quote that Mark Twain supposedly made famous: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.” Well, statistics don’t lie, but they can overwhelm us to the point that numbers attack us in our nightmares.