It is quite common for a new web site owner to put together a site without having any real idea of what it takes to make the site rank well in search engines. Ideally, an SEO professional should be involved in the planning and site-building stages of a new web site project, because it is their job to assure that common mistakes that may negatively impact the site’s search engine rankings are not made.
The most common mistake that we see is when keyword research is not performed prior to starting the project. A key element of SEO starts with an understanding of which keyword phrases should be used for the focus of the articles and content. The keyword focus for a page is called the keyword theme. The content should not be written until the site owner or team understands the nature of the content that will work best for drawing in the type of traffic that is searching for the products or services that the site offers. The idea is that you need to know where you are going before you take off running. When keyword research is not performed, lots of content re-writing may be inevitable.
The second most common mistake is when the content itself is not unique, but rather has been “borrowed” from other web sites. Ideally, each and every page in a site should have absolutely unique content. Using content from other sites will almost certainly result in the those pages failing to rank well due to Google’s duplicate content filters. The numerous Panda updates that took place in 2011 were focused on identifying duplicate content pages and reducing the ranking opportunities for those pages. Make sure that all of the content in a site is unique and focused on specific keyword themes.
The third most common mistake is when the internal linking structure allows pages to become easily lost or buried in a site because they are too many “clicks” away from the home page. Ideally, no page in a site should be more than three clicks from the home page. As a site gets larger, this becomes more and more of an issue. Some web sites, such as sites built with WordPress, have a multi-path, built-in linking structure that makes it relatively easy for search engine spiders to find pages. When the planning calls for a very large site, there are workarounds, such an XML sitemap that help spiders find all of the pages.
The fourth most common mistake is when there is not enough content, either on individual pages or in the site itself. A good rule of thumb is to develop at least 250 to 500 words of unique content for each page. Small, 5-page “brochureware” sites almost never rank well these days due to the overwhelming amount of competition on the web. Plan to start with at least 15 to 20 pages for a small site.
The fifth most common mistake is when the site is not developed with future expansion in mind. A site needs to evolve and grow over time. Search engine ranking algorithms prefer sites where the content periodically changes and new pages are added regularly. They send spiders to visit those sites much more often. Static sites that do not change for years tend to become stagnant and may lose their ability to rank well. One of Google’s latest updates now prefers sites with more current information and fresh content.
