Copyright 2006 Mark Nenadic

Though there are many different theories out there regarding what makes the best SEO technique, when it comes to some issues that will work against your SEO efforts, there are some issues where everyone agrees. Among these, the most prominent are:

* Not having a web page title
* Using too many graphics, images, or flash animation on a given web page
* Having a menu system that is prohibitively complex

It is extremely important that every web page on your site has a title. Without providing a descriptive title that is search engine optimized with the right keywords, you’ll not only hurt your ranking, but you’ll turn visitors away. Consider it the equivalent to owning a store without a sign and with blackened windows. To make sure that you’re doing your best on that level, make certain that each web page on your site has its own unique title that is specific to its content. Try to make sure that it includes the primary keyword for that page, to ensure proper SEO for search engine spiders.

By using too many graphics, images, or flash animation, you may be pleasing the eye, but search engine spiders won’t see it the same way. Search engines focus on the text content of your website. Their spiders crawl through your site looking for text, keywords, and other indications of purpose. They cannot, however, understand images or flash animations, nor will they ever understand their appeal. Therefore, though images are great ways to add appeal to your visitors, by adding too much to any given web page, you’re decreasing the value of your search engine optimization. To reduce this problem, try to create a balance on your page where the text content is given the true priority, and images, graphics, and flash animations are only a compliment, not a focus for the page. You can also help your website by adding alt tags to each of your images so that you are providing the search engine spiders with a bit of text, even when it’s an image that actually shows up on the page.

The menu system of your website is the key to being able to properly navigate around it. Search engine spiders are typically considered to be relatively basic programs and struggle with anything but the most primitive menu systems. For example, if your menu involves JavaScript or a Java applet, the search engine spider will not be able to recognize any of the features, and will not be capable of properly navigating the site. Certainly, these can be very appealing to people, but search engine spiders don’t have the same ability to interpret the features of a website as people do. For proper search engine optimization, a simple textual link is your best option as it is the easiest for a search engine spider to understand. It makes your site much more likely to be seen in full by the spider, and therefore receive the best indexing and ranking results. Furthermore, the majority of the time, an extremely complicated menu system can quickly be replicated and implemented using textual links and CSS. This will make an enormous difference in your SEO results, and will be welcomed by all of your visitors who are still using dial-up and other slow connections.

If you must use a complex menu or site navigation system, then make sure that you at least provide a site map that is readily available via a text link from the home page. This site map should use text to clearly link to every one of the other pages of your web site. This way, even if a spider is unable to use your regular menu system, it will be able to reach all of the pages by way of the site map.

By carefully watching to make sure that you’ve avoided these mistakes, you’ll be making a big difference in your odds of achieving high ranking due to your search engine optimization efforts. You’ll refrain from working against your own SEO efforts due to simple errors, and will enjoy much larger amounts of traffic to your website.