Overoptimization of Your Website is a Traffic Killer! Here Are Four Ways to Eradicate this Problem

When optimizing your website for a high ranking in Google, most SEO specialists will always recommend including a lot of links to larger websites to help with a higher overall rank for your business. But having too many outbound links and not enough inbound links can destroy your chances of getting a high search engine rank. You should always have more inbound links coming from credible websites than the ones you have outgoing to disreputable ones. Here's what do if you are caught in the worst case scenario of overoptimization:

1. GET RID OF YOUR WEB PAGES THAT ARE KEYWORD STUFFED
Including a keyword or phrase any more than 10% of your total text in one of your website's articles is considered "keyword stuffing". For instance, if you include the word "Microsoft" as a keyword in your text that only has a total of 500 words, but you put "Microsoft" in the page fifty times (10%) then the text won't even make any sense to a human being, much less a search engine looking over your web page for possible inclusion in Google. You must remove "Microsoft" from your content so that it is used no more than a rate of 7% of the total text in your web page.

2. DELETE UNWANTED KEYWORDS AND REPLACE THEM IN THE BEST POSSIBLE AREAS ON YOUR WEB PAGES
For great search engine optimization to really work, most of your keywords should be included in your title, headings and in the first paragraphs on your main home page. If you have a page that has a higher density percentage for an overly used keyword, then you should replace those keywords with synonyms. Also, never put your keywords in bold or italic, as that will not look natural to the reader, and will not do a thing to boost your ranking score with the search engines.

3. DELETE ALL "DOORWAY PAGES" FROM YOUR WEB PAGES
A doorway page is essentially a page built not for humans to read, but instead is used for the sole purpose of getting search engines to rank that page higher, thereby giving your entire site a higher ranking. A similar tactic that SEO companies are known to indulge in is creating "hidden text", which are keywords that are embedded in the HTML code of the page. These techniques are nothing more than cheap manipulation "black hat" tricks, so if your site is using any of these cheap tricks on your main pages, get rid of them now.

4. DUPLICATE CONTENT IS DEFINITELY NOT A GOOD THING
Duplicate text on your site could have been put there by a mistake, and if it is in there you are risking a much lower rating in the search engines the longer you let it stay on your web pages. Duplicate content is defined by having the same text used on one page as it is on another different page on the same exact site. This effect can even be brought on by your "sister site" that is linked to your main site, or if you happen to be linked to a very similar site that has almost exactly the same text as your main web page has. There are many software tools available to you so you can check for this kind of bad link, so I would highly recommend you do so immediately if you do own more than one other site similar to your main one.

Like anything else in life, the problems that overoptimization bring to your site can be overcome by attending to specific techniques like these to make sure your online business garners further success.

Increase Link Popularity With One Way Link Directories

Many search engine optimization experts say creating artificial link popularity for higher search engine rankings is dead. While there is some truth with reciprocal link trading being for the most part dead, one way links still work. Granted they work better with MSN and Yahoo, but I still personally see results with Google.

The dilemma with acquiring one way links in your niche is that there are not many sites lining up to link to you. For the most part you have to pay for good one way links. A lot of these sites charge annual or monthly fees and the money can add up fast. For some sites it's worth it, but to the small entrepreneur it can eat into your profits and some times cancel out the benefits.

The secret to a good search engine ranking is really no secret at all. Build a quality content rich site that people love with and you'll find a lot of websites and blogs will naturally link to you and the search engines will reward you with good rankings and plenty of free traffic. But this isn't practical for everybody. Some sites are static and should be. They're commercial. Set up to capture leads, sell products and services. They're not there to provide the general public with free content. They're run by busy people trying to make money. While you should do your best to provide a quality site for your customers and the future of selling is in social networking and intimate relationship building, it just isn't practical for some. If your site is strictly commercial you will not get as much natural linking into your site as you'd like.

If you want to save money, don't have time to create loads of free content and want to improve link popularity without shelling out lots of money try submitting your site to general one-way link directories. They should be SEO friendly, meaning the directories should link directly to your website, not go through any kind of redirect. It's important to make sure they have a Google Page Rank. That way you know Google has indexed them and finds the directory to be a worthy site for inclusion. And lastly, make sure they require no link back and that they're free.

There are getting to be a lot of one-way link directories and they're fairly easy to find. Simply use Google or MSN to search for directories. You'll find lists made by SEO writers and you can take it from there. Make sure when submitting to a directory that you submit to the appropriate category related to your niche and make sure your submission title is a key phrase or word you're trying to get a ranking for. It's that simple.

Don't go out and submit to thousands of these directories at once. I recommend anywhere from 5-30 per month depending on how much time you have. Anything over that becomes spam in the eyes of the search engines. Don't get greedy… play it smart and you will be rewarded with greater search engine rankings and more traffic.