Sometimes you think of a brilliant idea for a website and it actually turns out being a flop. Though you might be the most innocent of white hats, Google has branded you a black hat and now you’re no longer showing up in a search. I suppose it’s possible to accidentally be a black hat, though few are so innocent. If you’re in this category, try avoiding the following SEO strategies and you should be just fine. Remember content is king and not silly SEO tricks.
1) Keyword Stuffing – Yes you have made the target list of keywords that your site should be ranking for, so they’re used all over the copy, meta tags and page titles… no. This can get you banned so be careful and creative. It’s great to optimize your content but don’t over do it. Try to limit your use of a specific keyword, so it doesn’t show up in every sentence. Who actually wants to learn about the keyword topics on your site, if your site is not actually informative? Always evaluate your copy to see if you’re being informative and truly engaging your readers. Check your high ranking competitors and go one step above what they’re doing. Your visitors will thank you, maybe even Google will show you some love with a higher ranking.
2) Link Building – While this is still a viable strategy, assuming you’re going for high quality sites, always evaluate your source. You may unintentionally be asking for a link from a spammer or be linking to a spam site that has been banned, which will definitely in turn hurt your rankings. The easiest way to check is to do a Google search on the site. If there’s no results, then consider them banned…. or just irrelevant.
3) Funny Looking Text – Does it blend in to the background or is it tiny and hard to read? If you answered yes, don’t use it! Make sure any content you want crawled is visible and given proper formatting. Though if you haven’t hidden anything you will probably be fine.
4) Fancy Redirects – If you’d like someone to visit your new domain, do it properly with a 301 redirect or by modifying your .htaccess file. If a developer has chosen to do this with a JavaScript or some other type of script, just kindly say no. You might really like the animated GIF that plays in the background while your visitor is being redirected, but it can get you banned.
5) Purchasing Your Page Rank – Buying your friends or page rank is never a good strategy. Eventually someone will find out or the money will dry up and your page rank will be gone. You may be wondering how any one will know? Truly anything is possible online, and you don’t know who may be your next frenemy.
Don’t fret, if you think you may have troubles, check the webmaster guidelines. Also check your Google Webmaster Tools, if Google has a problem they’ll likely tell you. Lastly if you think you’ve been wrongfully accused or have made an innocent mistake ask Google if they’ll have you back. They really are nice people who want nothing more than to index your content.
