What NOT to do when optimizing your website

So many times when we are trying to optimize our web pages for the search engines, we over do MANY things that we would think would help in our ranking but, the exact opposite thing happens. We get our website BANNED from the search engines. Now this is not what any of us want right?

As we should all know, a top ranking website for specific keywords that you want to be ranked for, could bring you thousands of free targeted traffic to your website.

In this article, I am going to tell you a few things that you should NOT do while optimizing your website so you don't get banned from the search engines.

Hidden Text:

SO many times I have seen websites that use hidden text on their pages to try and rank higher in the search engines for their keywords, but doing this could actually destroy your rankings, and get you banned.

Hidden Text is simply text that users can't see when they visit your web page. Some webmasters will do this so that they can add keywords throughout their web page without it interfering with what the visitors actually see. Yet, the search engines can still see hidden text and most, if not all, have caught on to this little trick.

For example, let's say you have a white background on your website. If you wanted to hide text, you would simply make the color of your text white (#FFFFFF) and users couldn't see it. Then write a paragraph or just a list of all your keywords.

Alt image tag spamming:

This is another way that people will try to cram keywords into their website, allowing search engines to see their keywords, but not allowing visitors to notice any difference in their website.

The real purpose of an alt image tag is if a user visits your website and the graphic will not load, or is disabled by their web browser, text will appear instead of the graphic. This is often used for blind people.

Alt image spamming is something you want to stay clear of. Using alt image tags are good, but you can overdo it.

I am not trying to scare you in to not using alt images tags. You should and actually need to use them for many different purposes, just try not to over do them and stuff them full of your keywords.

Meta Tag Stuffing:

What I'm referring to here is when people throw in dozens of the same exact keyword into their meta tags. ie: another keyword spamming technique.

For example, the following website is trying to rank well for the keyword "tents".

meta name="KEYWORDS" content="tents, TENTS, Tents, tents tents tent supplies, tents, tents tent, tent, Tent, TENTS, tents, Tents,tents, TENTS, Tents, tents tents tent supplies, tents, tents tent, tent, Tent, TENTS, tents, Tents,tents, TENTS, Tents, tents tents tent supplies, tents, tents tent, tent, Tent, TENTS, tents, Tents,tents, TENTS, Tents, tents tents tent supplies, tents, tents tent, tent, Tent, TENTS, tents, Tents tents, TENTS, Tents, tents tents tent supplies, tents, tents tent, tent, Tent, TENTS, tents, Tents"

This is obviously ridiculous. Google, and other search engines no longer use Meta Tags to rank websites.

Google WILL penalize it, and it WILL NOT help you... so, why would anyone do something like this?

Well, many times, these people just don't know about SEO(Search Engine Optimization) or how the search engines work or what they look for while crawling their site and indexing them.

The best thing is to just not stuff your meta tags like this and only put relevant keywords in them. Stay away from this tactic and all should be fine.

Title Tag Stuffing:

The title is what appears in the top left hand corner of your web page and is also what people see when they do a search on the search engines web site.

Enter ONLY your main three(3-4) keywords in your title tag and do NOT repeat any keywords multiple times. You only need to include your keyword(s) one time in your title tag.

Entering your keyword anymore than one time will dilute the effect and get you severely penalized and dropped in rankings, or even worse, banned from the search engines all together for keyword spamming.

One way to use your title tag to increase your ranking, is to separate your keywords with (This button key is located on the right side of your keyboard above the enter key. To use it, press and hold your shift button while pressing that key.)

These are just a few of the things that people are continuing to do online. These things WILL eventually get your website banned or penalized and WILL NOT help you rank well. It's just a waste of time and effort, plus it's just plain ignorant to waste your time on something that doesn't work and will get your website banned from the search engines anyway.