SEO Compliance: Improve Rankings & Avoid Penalties

» Articles » Marketing Articles » Article

March 23, 2016


SEO Best Practices

• Are the keywords you are targeting relevant and popular with searchers?
• Do your page titles lead with your targeted keywords?
• Does your page copy engage users and answer their queries?
• Do you have high quality links pointing to various pages within your site?
• Do you employ links from your home page to your most important secondary pages?
• If you must have graphical navigation, do you use the CSS?
• Does your Web site have an XML Sitemap, as well as an HTML site map with text links?
• Does your site present one and only one version of each important page to the search engines?
• Do the URLs of your dynamic (database driven) pages look simple and static?
• Does your home page and other key pages of your site have sufficient link authority and trust?
• Does your site have an optimized internal linking structure? And a flat directory structure?
• Do your pages have meta descriptions with a compelling call to action?
• Does your site have a custom error page that returns the correct "status code"?
• Does your site load quickly for all browsers?
• Is your site mobile friendly?
• Do you have the correct semantic markup on your pages where appropriate?

SEO Worst Practices
• Primary navigation requires Flash, Java or JavaScript to function
• The website is done in Flash, or overly graphical with very little textual content
• URLs of pages include numerous ampersands
• URLs of pages include session IDs or user IDs
• Unnecessary redirects (e.g. when users hit your home page, enter your site from a search engine, etc.)
• The same content is duplicated across multiple subdomains (e.g. load balancing)
• Content is duplicated across pages within the main subdomain (e.g. www.)
• Content is duplicated across http and https
• Title tags the same on all or most pages
• Pop‐ups with important content are on the site
• Do you have error pages in the search results ("Session expired," etc.)
• The “File Not Found” error page returns a 200 status code
• The site uses "Click here" or other superfluous copy for your anchor text
• The site has superfluous text like "Welcome to" at beginning of your title tags
• You are blocking important pages from the search engines
• Your site has a large numbers of pages with very little meaningful content

SEO Worst Practices: Spamming
• Hidden or small text meant only for the search engines
• Engaging in "keyword stuffing"
• Pages targeted to obviously irrelevant keywords
• Incorporating your competitors' brand names in your meta tags
• Buying expired domains with high link authority scores to use as link targets
• Duplicate pages with minimal or no changes
• Content reads like "spamglish"
• “Doorway pages" on the site
• Machine‐generated copy
• “Pagejacking” / scraping others’ content
• “Cloaking“
• Splogging, comment spamming, guestbook spamming
• Linking to “bad neighborhoods”
• Hiding links
• Unnatural link structures
• Buying links
• Getting links from sites built just for giving links

Mobile SEO

• Google is now degrading sites’ rankings on mobile search if they are not mobile friendly
• Mobile searchers behave differently. Adapt your mobile content to what they want the most
• If your site doesn’t have a large, complex taxonomy, use responsive web design, and use the Vary HTTP header to hint to web caches
and Googlebot about mobile content
• Otherwise have separate sites, and use “bidirectional” tagging with rel=alternate, and rel=canonical to avoid duplicate content, consolidate URLs and help them rank higher in the SERPs
• Make extensive use of diagnostic tools to audit your site and identify potential problems
• Optimize your mobile sites for speed


The material appearing in this web site is for informational purposes only and is not legal advice. Transmission of this information is not intended to create, and receipt does not constitute, an attorney-client relationship. The information provided herein is intended only as general information which may or may not reflect the most current developments. Although these materials may be prepared by professionals, they should not be used as a substitute for professional services. If legal or other professional advice is required, the services of a professional should be sought.

The opinions or viewpoints expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of Lorman Education Services. All materials and content were prepared by persons and/or entities other than Lorman Education Services, and said other persons and/or entities are solely responsible for their content.

Any links to other web sites are not intended to be referrals or endorsements of these sites. The links provided are maintained by the respective organizations, and they are solely responsible for the content of their own sites.