Four Site-Design Mistakes That Limit Search Visibility

Mistake No. 4: Missing SEO Basics

One of the most important factors when using SEO for Web sites is good keyword research. A unique title that matches your keyword as well as Web copy that supports your topic meet more than 50% of the requirements for most search engines. Adding related key terms in H1 tags also can be helpful. Many people seem to focus on keyword density, but "term weighting" is more important.

This is when data from your page and other related Web pages are included as a measure of relevancy for ranking. Add a call-to-action description tag and make it unique for each page.

Use keywords in your body text "early, often and naturally." This means: Don't think about SEO as if you were an engine trying to match density, prominence, proximity or synonyms in a perfect way. If you know density matters, but that term weighting is more important, then create an appropriate strategy. Adding synonyms will help you with more phrases and bring about ideas for content.

The industry knows that at least the first 200 words are vital in telling nonhuman visitors -- the search engine bots -- what your page is about. A solid structure and outline using these "on page" factors, with a natural internal link structure can be the first steps to moving you up in the rankings. External factors -- trusted inbound links from relevant sites -- have been, and always will, be a strong indicator for better search engine ranking. This is where unique content via articles can have a big impact.

I've seen my own sites rank for a brand-new domain with related content for the topic in less than a week using the above strategies. Of course, highly competitive key terms take a lot longer to get visible ranking, which means first page on the natural search results page. If you need help determining whether you're making any of these mistakes, ask the following questions:

• Can visitors immediately tell what the site is about?
• Can users easily navigate the site?
• Does the site provide a unique selling proposition, with testimonials?
• Does it clearly outline how to do business with you?
• Does it provide clear ways to contact you -- email, phone or chat?
• Is the site optimized for search engines? Is it optimized for keywords matching your site and pages?
• Did you structure the page well with title, description and SEO "on page" factors? Did you do the same for links?
• Do you keep content fresh?

If you answered no to any of these questions, there's definitely room for improvement.