Common Mistakes When Promoting Your Website

There are

a lot of articles and blog posts online that will tell you plenty of tips and tricks when it comes to promoting your website. There are also some resources that discuss various challenges that you will encounter in site promotion, then guide you on how to overcome these obstacles. In this article, we are going to do something different. This will explain the things that you must avoid doing.

Many people and organizations that attempt to promote their websites have made countless mistakes in the past. There are even those who are new in website promotion that still do these same mistakes on a daily basis. Hopefully, this article would help you find out about the common mistakes and errors that these people do, and learn about how you can prevent yourself from doing the same mistakes instead of having to go through them on your own.

1. Mistakes In Search Engines

A vital part in your site promotion strategy is the search engines. Because of their popularity and utmost importance, you will hear a lot of rumors, myths and even techniques that are already out dated in relation to search engines and how they work.

Invisible Text

A very good example of these techniques that should be forgotten about is the invisible text method. This is when web masters add texts on their pages that would contain the relevant keywords, but the text would be in the same color as the background of the web page. This is because of the notion that the search engines can see it, but actual Internet users will not and perhaps never realize that it’s there.

This technique have been widely used a long, long time ago, during the dawn of search engines, but you will be surprised that there are still a lot of websites that use this technique. However, search engines are more intelligent now, and have already dealt with this method. If the search engines catch you still doing this bad technique, expect to see your rankings drop because of the penalty. In worst cases, the particular search engine will ban or block your site from appearing in the search results pages. Do not make use of the invisible text method.

Small Texts Stuffed With Keywords

Another similar method that people have used back in the days was to use very small text stuffed with keywords, making it almost unreadable by the site visitors. It uses the same principle: prevent the users from seeing it but let the search engines detect it. This technique is not worth it at all. Aside from compromising your website design, it might cause your site to be penalized by the major search engines.

Unrelated Keywords

Many webmasters that have just started with website promotion also commit this next mistake very often. Everyone knows that there are particular keywords that millions of people use on a daily basis to search online, and these are often related to celebrities or the adult industry. Therefore, even if the website is about log cabin holidays, which has nothing to do at all with celebrities or the adult industry, these webmasters stuff their websites and the meta tags of their sites with search terms that are unrelated to their site. They do this in the hopes of getting the huge amount of visitors that use these search terms everyday.

However, this is not a good and effective method at all. Even they were able to fool the search engines, as soon as the Internet users or website visitors realize that the website that they are in are not related at all to what they are looking for, they will simply leave and browse a different site right away. That is why it is highly important that you only optimize your website using keywords that are relevant to what your website is all about. Otherwise, these visitors will not convert to actual customers, if that is what you are trying to achieve.

Over Optimization

Remember not to overdo putting your keywords on your site when optimizing your pages. Many web masters, in the hopes of getting the attention of the search engines, stuff their pages with keywords and phrases by mentioning it a lot of times, to the point that the texts on the page no longer makes sense. Making your primary keyword appear on your site or page a hundred time will not earn you a high ranking on search engine results page. In fact, it may do just the opposite. Use the keyword in moderation and appropriately, by distributing them evenly on your site and pages.

2. Mistakes In Building Your Site

There are also several things that you can do even at the stage of creating your site that will harm your website and not help you promote it the right way. Read more about them here.

Free Hosting

Do not put your trust on free website hosting. Many website owners commit this mistake of using free hosting to save on costs. Although they are an excellent option if you are low on budget, your Internet service provider does not offer you enough space, or if you simple want to build a simple page to have an online presence. However, if you plan to establish a serious and useful website to drive sales and brand consciousness to your business, then you might want to invest on a paid domain name and hosting. You will be able to buy hosting space and domain name nowadays at an affordable price unlike before, and every dollar that you spend on it will be worth it in the long run.

There are benefits that you can enjoy when you use paid hosts. First, they are more reliable than the free ones so you can ensure that your website is always up for your visitors to see. Having a domain name of your own also gives your website some sort of authority. It tells people (and search engines) that you know what you are doing, you are serious about it and that you will be here to stay for a long time. If you are trying to increase sales, then this is an important thing to have. It is crucial that your customers or visitors are comfortable to spend their hard-earned money on your site.

It is also easier to promote a site if you have a domain name of your own. Search engines and directories will most likely be happy to index your site on theirs, which will not be the same if your website is built on a free host. You can still submit your site and promote it even if it uses a free hosting service, but why make it more difficult? Promoting a website is already a challenging field to meddle in so you should not make it any harder. A paid host and domain are an investment that will pay for itself in time.

Bad Submission Services

While we are on the subject of spending money, do not waste your dollars on horrible submission services. Many web masters that are new to site promotion are enticed to invitations that promise to submit their site to thousands of search engines for a very low fee. Do not be one of those web masters that fall into this trap.

Most of the places that they claim to submit your site to will not even drive traffic to your website. Besides, I doubt that there are more than a hundred reliable and significant search engines in the Internet right now, globally. There is no need for you to pay for these services. If there is an option for you to go on a free trial first to see what it can do to your site, then do so. Make sure that you only spend your money if you get the results that you desire.

If you have enough time, you might also want to try and research for the most reliable search engines online, and submit your site on your own. This task is time consuming but it can ensure that your website can receive the highest amount of quality traffic from these reputable search engines that people actually use.

In Summary

It does not mean that you should not pay for other site promotion services at all. All I am saying is that you have to be careful where you put your money. There are a lot of site promotion tools that are clearly worth the investment. Also, you can even hire experts in the field to do the dirty work of promoting your site. What you need to do is to perform your own research even before you purchase anything. You can ask other people for reviews and feedback about their experience with the service that you are looking at.

Bottom line is that you should avoid these mistakes when promoting your website. Your main goal is to drive traffic and visitors to your site, and not to get it banned by major search engines. You also want the visitors to stay and perhaps even share your site to their friends and family so do not mislead them into thinking they found what they are looking for just because you want people to get to your site. Quality is key in the world of web promotion. Avoid these common errors and you will be on your way to getting the traffic that your website needs.

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