If you have a website then you already know the importance

of traffic. Traffic is to Internet marketing as location is

to real estate. It's the only thing that really matters. If

you cannot generate targeted visitors to your site, you

will not make any sales.

Usually the owner or designer of the website is the person

designated to drive traffic to the site. The chief

ingredient in generating traffic is the search engine. Of

coarse, you can use advertising, but it's going to cost

you. Using the search engines to generate targeted

(interested in your product) traffic is the least expensive

method known.

Unfortunately, many website owners do not understand the

importance of search engine visibility, which leads to

traffic. They place more importance on producing a "pretty"

website. Not that this is bad, but it is really secondary

to search engine placement. Hopefully, the following list

of common mistakes, made by many website owners, will help

you generate more targeted traffic to your site...after

all, isn't that what you want.

1. Not using keywords effectively.

This is probably one of the most critical area of site

design. Choose the right keywords and potential customers

will find your site. Use the wrong ones and your site will

see little, if any, traffic.

2. Repeating the same keywords.

When you use the same keywords over and over again (called

keyword stacking) the search engines may downgrade (or

skip) the page or site.

3. Robbing pages from other websites.

How many times have you heard or read that "this is the

Internet and it's ok" to steal icons and text from websites

to use on your site. Don't do it. Its one thing to learn

from others who have been there and another to outright

copy their work. The search engines are very smart and

usually detect page duplication. They may even prevent you

from ever being listed by them.

4. Using keywords that are not related to your website.

Many unethical website owners try to gain search engine

visibility by using keywords that have nothing at all to do

with their website. They place unrelated keywords in a page

(such as "sex", the name of a known celebrity, the hot

search topic of the day, etc.) inside a meta tag for a

page. The keyword doesn't have anything to do with the page

topic. However, since the keyword is popular, they think

this will boost their visibility. This technique is

considered spam by the search engines and may cause the

page (or sometimes the whole site) to be removed from the

search engine listing.

5. Keyword stuffing.

Somewhat like keyword stacking listed above, this means to

assign multiple keywords to the description of a graphic or

layer that appears on your website by using the "alt=" HTML

parameter. If the search engines find that this text does

not really describe the graphic or layer it will be

considered spam.

6. Relying on hidden text.

You might be inclined to think that if you cannot see it,

it doesn't hurt. Wrong.... Do not try to hide your keywords

or keyword phrases by making them invisible. For example,

some unethical designers my set the keywords to the same

color as the background of the web page; thereby, making it

invisible.

7. Relying on tiny text.

This is another version of the item above (relying on

hidden text). Do not try to hide your keywords or keyword

phrases by making them tiny. Setting the text size of the

keywords so small that it can barely be seen does this.

8. Assuming all search engines are the same.

Many people assume that each search engine plays by the

same rules. This is not so. Each has their own rule base

and is subject to change anytime they so desire. Make it a

point to learn what each major search engine requires for

high visibility.

9. Using free web hosting.

Do not use free web hosting if you are really serious about

increasing site traffic via search engine visibility. Many

times the search engines will eliminate content from these

free hosts.

10. Forgetting to check for missing web page elements.

Make sure to check every page in your website for

completeness, like missing links, graphics, etc. There are

sites on the web that will do this for free.

This is just a few of the methods and techniques that you

should avoid. Do not give in to the temptation that these

methods will work for you. They will do more harm than good

for your website.

Not only will you spend weeks of wasted effort, you may

have your site banned from the search engines forever.

Invest a little time to learn the proper techniques for

increasing search engine visibility and your net traffic

will increase.