10 Tips to Avoid Over-Optimizing Your Website

If you read my blog you know I write a lot about SEO.

Why? What’s the big deal? Why am I obsessed with SEO?

On the personal side, I write about optimization because, well, I really enjoy helping businesses grow.

This leads me to my next question!

Is your website suffering from too much of a good thing?

Well, if you are reading this blog post, its very possible you are suffering from over-optimization!

If, you are pressed for time, the fix for your over-optimization is simple.

The best way to make sure your website does not face future Google penalties is by doing things the proper way and with good intentions.

If you are writing good content people will find your website. If you are spending more time trying to game the system, versus researching your content, then you should rethink your motives.

Google is going to always improve on offering their customers the best and most relevant search results.

Gone are the days of easy traffic for little or no effort. The amount of content on the internet is mind boggling and its only going to increase.

But despite that, remember, the cream will rise to the top.

In order to further help people with their search engine questions I offer a free SEO reporting tool. Scan your site in 45 seconds and see critical SEO ranking factors.

7 Signs Your Site is Over-Optimized

People quickly learn the shortest distance between two points. We thrive on instant gratification. This leads people to find and exploit loop holes in the world of search engine optimization to save money and please clients.

Don’t let inexperience or cheap SEO have a negative effect on your business website’s performance in search engines. The best time to fix the problem is right now. Below are a few signs that your website could be over optimized.

1. Elevated Keyword Density: If your content has a keyword density greater than or equal to 25%.
2. Bad/Automated Content: Your content doesn’t sound like a human being wrote it
3. Manipulated Titles: If your meta descriptions look manipulative or overdone that gives search engines the wrong idea.
4. Massive Footer: Your footer should not look like your sitemap. Overly targeted links in the footer and sidebar pointing to exact match pages can be a bad thing.
5. Low Quality Backlinks: If your back links are primarily from press release websites or directories, you might have a problem.
6. Irrelevant Landing Pages: You have multiple web pages describing the same product
7. Poor Images: If you have bad stock photography or design elements your site will have a higher bounce rate.

Tips to Improve Your SEO

The best way to attract the attention of search engines is to write great content. In the early days of the internet we were writing and designing websites to please search engines. Our main focus was “getting more clicks”.

Now our focus is on Awareness, Bounce Rate, Retention, Conversion and Social Shares. All of these can be accomplished by writing great content.

#1: Develop Great Content: Your current SEO company should be coaching you on how to develop great content. If they are not…ask them what they are doing.

If they say “We are Making Back Links”

then say “I would like to visit the websites linking to our website.”

The way that I often think about SEO is that it’s like a coach. It’s someone who helps you figure out how to present yourself better. – Matt Cutts

#2: Check Your Back Links: Maybe you want to learn more about your website. Maybe you want to spy on a competitor. SEMrush allows you to do both. Regardless of the website, this tools gives you a clear picture of its overall level of health.

If you are questioning the legitimacy of your search engine marketing visit www.semrush.com and run a search on your website.

Conclusion

We have clients, who previously worked with phone directory companies. on their search engine.

I was shocked at the number of shallow links originating from questionable origins.

So, don’t be fooled! It’s a false assumption to assume the big company knows what they are doing.

Many times they have novice people actually doing the work.