Knowing exactly how to carry out search engine optimisation can be considered a bit of a minefield. Seemingly it is easy to make mistakes that can result in not only losing rankings but also in total de-listing from search engine rankings. Here are ten of the most common bad ideas when undergoing a process of search engine optimisation.

Do not rely purely on your keyword Meta tag information. While this may have worked in the past, since around two years ago the importance of this factor has lessened. Nowadays search engines read the visible test on your website when ranking. The keyword Meta tag is not visible by users and hence its importance has dropped greatly. That is not to say that you will not need them, they are still necessary, just as not as important as they used be.

You should create a title and description Meta tag however, these are still user visible and hence regarded as relevant by the search engines. While this optimisation strategy may not in fact improve your rankings, the description and title tags are usually the first thing seen by users and hence their importance is guaranteed.

One of the worst optimisation ideas is to utilise invisible text boxes that are stuffed with keywords. This optimisation strategy can get your site banned and hence is highly unadvisable. This includes creating text that is written in the same colour as the background; understandably the search engines still see this as hidden text. These ideas can be considered as ’spammy’ and as such should be avoided.

You should never purchase links; despite its popularity, search engine regulators frown on the practice. By purchasing links you may be able to improve your site rankings in the short term but as the search engine algorithms actively work to hunt down this optimisation strategy, the chances of keeping that rank for long is seriously questionable. The algorithms will in fact evaluate your links and look for patterns that may indicate you have bought links. If you have, you may see your site de-listed. A better idea is to find links that your site actually deserves, in the time you spend buying links, you could quite easily build up relevant links instead.

One of the major optimisation mistakes of developers is to develop an extremely pretty site in Flash. Unfortunately no matter how attractive it is, a search engine has no use for Flash and cannot read the information it presents. Remember that the search engine is looking for text, not lots of pretty images that jump around on the page. The same can be said for JavaScript; once again the search engines have trouble reading this format. You can use it sparingly but the best way to design your site is with text only. Make sure this text is unique so the search engine spiders find it relevant.

You should definitely avoid the optimisation process labelled cloaking. Fundamentally this involves showing the search engine spider a different page to the one that human users see. In the past this has been an extremely popular form of spamming and hence the powers that be are highly suspicious of any site that employs cloaking, no matter what your motives. Transparency is essential when trying to achieve high rankings.

By avoiding these techniques it is possible to achieve high rankings. Ultimately if you employ these ‘black hat’ methods you will feel the wrath of the search engines. Find yourself an optimisation firm that avoids these methods and pursues ethical SEO, this is the only true way to rankings success.

internet marketing expert thomas pretty looks into some of the biggest search engine optimisation mistakes and ways to avoid them.

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