SEO: A Tool For Boosting Your Ranking, Not A Silver Bullet

There are lots of people who have a rough understanding of the way the Internet and search engines work to know that SEO is essential, but not enough understanding to realize that it will not fix all your website’s ranking issues. SEO is not something you can apply and after that sit back and wait on searchers to visit your site. Yes, it is necessary and it is an exceptionally creative principle, but the incorrect application of SEO will no more increase your website traffic than giving out complimentary balloons will make an ice cream shop’s revenues go through the roof. Yes, it can assist; no, it is not the entire deal.

It is no good setting up a site and paying lip service to the fundamentals of SEO – throwing up some back links in other locations, using keywords and creating a sitemap – and after that, when the doors are not beaten down by enthralled readers, grumbling “but it is SEO’d! Clearly SEO isn’t as good as I was informed it was!”. Correctly applied, SEO will definitely improve your site’s Google ranking. Whether it will get you to the first page or not, time will tell – however it is vert useful.

The significant error people make is in treating SEO as the silver bullet that will make all the difference! If that were true, then Google ranking would be totally meaningless because everybody would have SEO done on their website. It needs to be ingrained in your mind that great SEO and good content is the most powerful combination for your website’s Google rankings.

The Seven Deadly Sins of SEO: #6 “Title Stacking”

When it comes to search engine optimization, one of the most useful tools in a web developer’s arsenal is the < title > tag within HTML code. Unlike articles, which must be based around keywords (a procedure which is never easy), the < title > tag is a section of code which you can pack with your keywords – all without having to add context, readability, and all the other things that an article needs. The extra bonus is that you can have your main page have a < title > tag full of keywords, and keywords are often hard to find on a simple “welcome to this website” page.

The usefulness of the < title > tag is also one of its major problems. The tag becomes so powerful, so influential, and so easy to use, that those employing shady black hat SEO techniques quickly learn how to manipulate it. They discovered that by using more than one set of < title > and < / title > tags in an HTML code for a web page, they could fit in many more keywords – and thus raise up the search rankings. Using many sets of < title > tags is, understandably, known as title stacking.

Get caught doing it by search engines, and you’ll be dropped from the search results quicker than you can say ‘jack rabbit’. It might work for awhile, but the overall quality and reliability of your site will soon be called in to question – because you will get caught. Use one set of < title > tags only, and keep the keywords relevant to your site.