COMMENTS
Something that should be included in the Top 100:
- no duplicate content (maybe in addition to #9)
- no "Previous Page | Next Page" (like you and many others use), but numbers to reach more/some sites with one click, e.g. "First | 2 ... 5 | 6 | Last"
Well done!
I would also add "Overusing the Meta Keyword tag" to the list...
Great points, Matt and Stevie.
Agreed on all points. They should definitely be in the top 100.
Keep em' coming.
(Thanks for the comment, btw. This is my first post on the HubSpot blog.)
Excellent tips -- and very useful.
I would extend #9 to say that it is rarely a good idea to make the page title of your home page "Home" (or even include the word "home") -- unless this word describes your business.
Each word in the page title counts. The more words, the less influence each word has as a signal to the search engines. Don't waste this important real-estate on superfluous words.
Definitely, Dharmesh.
The old "home" titte tag. Love that one.
Thank you for yet again, another informative post from this web site. Right after I read today's entry, I fired off a new round of HTML changes to my web editor & Domain host, probably another $30 worth of changes, but they will bring me $3000 worth of additional revenue in the coming years.....THANK YOU from DJ MC
great information, it looks like we still have a lot to learn in finding better ways to optimize our website and attracting private equity investors!
Excellent article, ironically I was actually approached by an Seo company that actually had a complete flash website. Why do they do it!?? Why?
Completely agree about Seo being involved from the word go. Although it can be tricky when the client has an idea as to what they want. Normally flash based ;@)
As for title tags, my only comments are that too many prime key phrases weaken the overall effect and with that in mind I personally only ever use a couple of prime key phrases per page.
I'm sorry to sound offensive, but did you write this post in your sleep or something?
#9 -- What about branding? If you have a shortened website brand name in your title, it will show in search engine results. OK so you've got the URL, but where's there harm in:
"Top 10 Most Egregious SEO Mistakes | HubSpot"
Much better than the current title.
#7 Do you know what a header is? I think you're confused with headings maybe?
I won't even mention the last two.
OK so I only skim read this post, so maybe i missed something, like you were being sarcastic or joking when you wrote it, I don't know?
Thanks for pointing out the errors, ChrisJB. I've changed it say "headings" instead of headers.
Regarding #9 - the more words in a title tag, the more diluted your SEO efforts towards you target keyword phrase is. So, we usually recommend that our clients leave out their company name. If they are going to include it, we tell them to do it like you recommended: by having it at the end.
It'd be great if you could point out the other two errors. I'd like to fix or address those, for the benefit of the other readers.
Fair enough, it's an easy mistaker to maker.
I just think that people should consider the golden rule when it comes to White Hat SEO: Don't do it for the search engines, do it for the searchers.
By the way I'd like to re-iterate -- I didn't mean to sound offensive, although my comment does seem rather rude ; ) apologies
I think we need to recognise that it is the search engines that are failing, not the flash designers. Out of the two (search engine algorithms that do not accomodate flash properly and flash websites), which do you think will prevail in the long run?
I would stick to you first bolded point; after that it's just a case of good usability, common sense and creativity.
I see. You're a flash guy.
I think it's important to note that Flash can be used properly to make a site pop. It should be used as a visual element, not to manage navigation or to code an entire site. I have seen a lot of very well SEOd sites that use flash really well as an accent. But, I've seen one too many that use it at the detriment of "being findable" by search engines.
I don't know all of the technical stuff behind how search engines parse websites, but I don't think it's possible to parse flash like it's possible to parse html, just like *text* search engines can't really determine what an image is without some alt text associated with it.
Maybe there's smart ways to code flash so that it's indexable? Maybe there's smarter search crawlers that will eventually index flash websites?
You can use Flash and have a great rank.
Even if your entire site is in flash, create a HTML version of the site as well; use javascript to replace the HTML with your SWF. Search spiders don't parse the JS so they see the HTML; anyone with JS will see your Flash instead.
thanks for the info. it seems like a lot of extra work, though.
I forgot to include an example.
http://www.robwitzel.com/
Rob has his homepage in all HTML. Everything else is Flash.
When I started working with Rob, he had no real ranking. If I remember correctly, he showed up on page 8 or 9 for the term: gainesville wedding photographer.
I created a HTML version of his all Flash portfolio and used the method I spoke of above. A few months and some inbound links later he ranks #1.
Where we started with just a couple pages in the Google index (because of it being primarily flash), we now have 33. His site looks nearly identical (except for a <H1> I put on his index page)
Pete, you are very right, it is tons of extra work; a trade-off for sure.
Dave. Your site is a perfect example of how flash can be used successfully as an accent, while still using html for navigation and pages in order to be able to do SEO successfully.
Dave's site:
http://www.smartmarketingnow.com
Thanks Pete, we just launched that site, so there are still a couple things to fix but I think it turned out pretty nice.
I did like your article very much, especially #4, I think it is typical for people to start SEO after their site is built and you bring up a very valid point about this and other important issues. I actually laughed out loud when I read 'Our design firm "DID" SEO for us.'. I can't even tell you how many times I've heard this myself.
The best search engine placement specialist can blend art and science to direct the engines like baiting an animal with a breadcrumb trail. It is important to note that no two search engines work exactly the same way. Each company beats their chest with great pride touting the BEST mathmatical formulas to deliver the most relevant stuff. An old school way to lure great placement was by using the keywords, over and over on the page. This evolved to repetitious words but using the same font color as the background (i.e; white font on white background). This renders the words invisible but would trick the indexers. Sounds great, right? Wrong! Most engines know what you are up to and disqualify your page. You’re out! Marketing ClubSkinny jeans was quite a challenge. Greg Ventresca
@missy sorry for the delay. Typically, on wp installations, post titles are wrapped in title tags. You are right, WP does a great job of making it easy to optimize a site. Most blog software does.
@greg. We actually don't flaunt our mathematical equations as much as we should. We're tracking several hundred websites and several keywords and we make conclusions about what's important in SEO based on this data. So, our algorithms adapt when google's algorithms change.
We use this data to figure out what's important in the search engine's algorithms and then we teach our clients how to do SEO. It helps them avoid "the challenge" of making a lot of mistakes.
Brilliant article Pete and something SEO people can/could use to point their clients to for a read as it really does clarify a lot of things that elsewhere are er wll let's say not quite so clearly explained.
I would like to add a common mistake made by people RE SEO and links.
How mant times do you see the "Click here" links on websites? They still appear all over the place and people ought to know that "descriptive links" are much better.
The spiders can index a link that has more descriptive words that actually match up to the document that would appear more easily than a "Click here" hyperlink which offers no easily defined information.
I was so impressed by the above article I started a thread about it on my forum!
Nice to see someone who agrees with me that "text content" is the key.
"Great Written Content" is still
"the" thing when it comes to websites and will be for the forseeable future.
Write Great Content - I have said the same thing myself so many times it's not funny. I have even beem slammed on some forums for disagreeing with people over Google PR and stating that in fact "Great Written Content" is more important as the primary consideration as Google PR can be built by others for you when you write great content.
I get the impression from your article Pete that you would more than likely probably agree with me that indeed "Content is still King"?
Content is certainly still KING. Will be for a long time.
@Daniel
Are bots not capable of knowing when they're going in a circle?
Thanks Pete (and Hubspot)for a great post on SEO, again... though there is some things that bother me and one off them is your lack of knowledge in what concerns web design.
The use of images and/or Flash instead of text for displaying content or navigation should be only avoided considering the constraints of its use.
One of the rules of good web design is separating style from content and using CSS, Javascript, or Flash to "style" your website is just a case of choosing which is better for your objective.
Flash and Images CAN be used and should be used everywhere you need it.
Saying that it is impossible or that it is a lot of work to make a Search Engine Optimized Flash website is far from true it just needs to be done the right way just as with a (only) HTML website.
Great stuff otherwise.
"If you page title says Mozilla Firefox, you might need your SEO did again"...sorry for the bad paraphrase on the redneck comedian, good read and some funny points.
Great post guys! Simple stuff, but I couldn't count how many clients just dont get the importance of an seo friendly cms. They think that seo is something static "we picked our keywords" as if doing that will determine google ranks them number one.
Keep up the good seo work
Flash AND an HTML version? Coding two versions? So that's not duplicate content then? And when Google starts picking up on JS and Flash, or someone files a complaint (your competition, perhaps?) you're blacklisted and can be penalized, losing all that "benefit" of having two sites.
Flash CAN be indexed, I wrote an article talking about it on my blog on seeing if Google is indexing your flash. It's possible.
It's also possible to write your flash to parse your XHTML and use it to build out the flash content (smarter) - building TWO versions of the same site independently is foolish and a waste of time - every update needs done twice.
Thanks for your comment, Keif.
I'm not an expert at flash. And I think very few flash designers are experts at SEO. You're a rare breed.
A lot has changed recently with SEs and flash. I still haven't seen many sites that are indexed, although I believe you that it is possible and "easier" now.
But, I'd still guide most people to build a site using other programming methods and use flash as elements in the page.
@keif It's only foolish if you've built your site so it needs two changes per update.
Database driven sites negate that need and data can be provided in various formats, for HTML and XML say, as needed.
Can you point to a site that has been indexed as well as you say?
"building TWO versions of the same site independently is foolish and a waste of time"
Not if they are both loaded from one set of the data in a db for example.
I think unless you embed the text directly into the SWF, that it can't index tho right?
I'm also not sure how it is a blackhat method as you describe. I thought flash was the exception to these blackhat rules with google. Is it now considered blackhat for flash?
As Keif stated above Flash is indexed by Google.
You can read more here: http://www.ultrashock.com/forums/news/google-learns-to-crawl-flash-109252.html
According to: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=72746
"We currently do not attach content from external resources that are loaded by your Flash files. If your Flash file loads another file - such as an HTML file, an XML file, or another SWF file - we may index the contents of those files, but we won't consider that content to be part of the content in your Flash files."
That seems like it would be a problem for most flash sites.
and a bit later the article says:
"Note that while Google can index the content of Flash files, other search engines may not be able to. Providing text equivalents of these files will help other search engines crawl and index your content."
A good post I saw about the intent of a designer is at: http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/browse_thread/thread/7f4991b9324f6179/4619f6c344feb15f?lnk=gst&q=flash#4619f6c344feb15f
@Dave:
The problem with Google's answer "Providing text equivalents..." loans itself to the whole duplicitous content. As we've been discussing, if you use a DB to deliver content so it generates valid XML or XHTML is optimal so your content is the same in terms of wording, while not in presentation (unless you're slick with JavaScript as well as flash).
Why would it have to be the same in presentation? I'm curious because I haven't heard this described as blackhat before as long as the content matches.
If you have the same exact content on both, they don't consider it deceptive from what I've read.
They talk about it more here: http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/browse_thread/thread/96683bd086a01675/b22f66ab527a069a?#b22f66ab527a069a
@Dave:
I'm meaning same content - technically, you should (as a *best practice* - again opinions may differ) give the End User the content in a palatable format so so no matter who arrives (or how) they get the same content.
I.E. Video feed? Give a text version so the deaf can read it.
Flash file? Give them a text version so those without flash can access the same content.
That's what I mean - I don't mean that "the menus must match color, effects, placement" I mean the *words used* should be the same.
And you're right - if you have the *exact same content* it's POTENTIALLY viewed as the same content, but if your flash is being indexed as well as your HTML, you're polluting your site with duplicate content regardless - and what happens if someone updates one and not the other? (Assuming, worse case two different versions being presented).
Now if you're using a DB it *shouldn't* matter, but as Google can change their minds in a day and back again (along with every other search engine) doing things "because it works right now" could cost you more in the long run.
YMMV, IANAL, etc. etc. - I just shy away from things that people do "just because it works right now."
True - good point - just because it works today doesn't mean it will be acceptable tomorrow.
Ah sorry for the misunderstanding, thought you meant everything on presentation =)
For image header or navbar; using 'alt' HTML tag is a good idea. Sometime search engine put description on their search result from image 'alt' or 'longdesc' tag.
I'm wondering if you should add "not realizing that inbound links are critical to your site's SEO performance." Believe it or not, there are people who don't know this.
Now, that was an "eye opening" experience. Thanks for the heads up !