Four Site-Design Mistakes That Limit Search Visibility

This article was written by Jon Rognerud of Entrepreneur.com. Jon is a recognized authority on the subject of search engine optimization who has spent more than 15 years developing Web sites and marketing solutions at companies like Overture and Yahoo!

To me -- and many I know in the search engine optimization field -- SEO is really just good old hard work. It contains no real secrets, per se.

I see a lot of "search engine optimization secrets revealed" white papers in the Internet marketing space. To be honest, it's a killer headline and as a call-to-action, it works. However, Google's true SEO secrets are contained within the brains of allegedly two engineers and a triple-gated secure safe deep inside a Google mountain.

If Google's PageRank -- one of more than 100 factors in Google's search algorithm -- was the only secret to rankings, that would be too easy. Yet many people focus on PageRank, a minimal metric to watch.

In trying to get at this closely guarded secret, the industry has produced mountains of information and resources, including SEO tools, books, courses, downloads and more. It's up to you to find what works for your company. With search engines changing all the time, this can be difficult, but there are some basics. If applied right, you should start to see movement in your rankings.

Of a recent list of Web sites I looked at, more than 90% of them were guilty of at least one of four main SEO mistakes. I was even guilty of these in the beginning. Now I've been listed No. 2 on Google out of 115 million competing Web sites for the last year. To start moving your way up, make sure you aren't making any of the following mistakes.

Mistake No. 1: Poor Site Design

If you designed your site using FrontPage 97 and haven't updated it recently, you're definitely guilty of this first error. I'm not saying that a less-than-optimal design can't sell a message or product. One of the best providers of information in the Web site usability field -- Jacob Nielsen at useit.com -- has a very basic site. But it's intentional. If your site, however, is poorly designed and not related to your industry, you need to reconsider what you're doing. Think about user experience, stickiness and conversions.