Basic SEO Tricks and Tips

I wrote an article recently about what search engines hate the most when they are combing through a site, trying to decide whether or not to index it. Well, hate was probably too strong a word. It should have been more along the lines of what search engines find annoying. This article, on the other hand, will delve into what they truly hate – namely, when web developers try to trick them. We will then get into ways to add content to your site. Tricking a search engine generally involves showing the searchbot a different web page from the one shown to the visitor. Unfortunately, searchbots are not that sophisticated when it comes to what they will or will not read on a web page. However, as search engines have grown over the years, they've gotten a lot better at recognizing when tricks are being used. Getting caught can result in a much lower ranking or an all-out ban from the search engine. Either way, it's important to know what techniques are considered deception so that, if anything, you'll know what to avoid. Some of the most ubiquitous techniques involve manipulating keywords in some way. Keyword stacking (or stuffing), in which the same words or phrases are repeated over and over, or using keywords that are unrelated to your site are fairly obvious methods. Granted, these are very old and barbaric techniques, but they have proven to be effective in the past. For example, hiding keywords is usually done by making the text the same color as the background and using a very small font size. You can also use hidden fields , hidden layers (use a style sheet to put a text layer under or outside of the visible layer), or simply place text inside of a