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While there are a lot of things you SHOULD do regarding your SEO efforts, there are also plenty of things you should NOT do as well. The Internet is rampant with advice; both good and bad and it is up to you to determine whether or not the advice is worth taking. The problem is that a lot of advice, regardless of what topic you’re talking about, is not exactly perfect and when it comes to SEO, well, just say that advice is all over the place, from the good and the bad to the downright ugly.

Here are some things that you should NEVER be doing on your website; I don’t care if it came from some self-proclaimed guru who charges thousands of dollars a month. If you don’t believe me, then just try these on your site and watch the negative implications that will happen. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

One of the biggest mistakes people make, first and foremost is not realizing that SEO is an ever-changing entity. What worked three years ago, may not work today. Case in point: meta tags. It used to be that all you needed to do was put your keywords within your keyword meta tag and the search engines would find you, believe you to be relevant, and rank you accordingly.

Today, you’re lucky to get a glance from a popular search engine at your meta tags.

Another method that is still used by websites today (most likely sitting in the back of the pack or, worse yet, not even indexed at all), is that of the “hidden link”. When you link to another site, you essentially give that other site a “vote of confidence”. This is still fine (within reason) but where the problem arises, is when you hide that link. I still can’t believe that to this day, hidden links are suggested to those who want to do legitimate SEO. When you have a link on your site that is the same color as the background of your site, meaning that regular humans can’t read it with their eyes but search engines can, you’ve just stumbled across a way to get your website penalized.

Another piece of advice that tends to find its way onto unbeknownst website owners sites is that of the pixel. This is a simple 1×1 pixel located on a site that contains a link. Fancier than the hidden link above but still against the rules.

Never, ever hide a link on your site.

Second, don’t create a doorway page. If you don’t know what the heck a doorway page is then if anything, read up on it so that you’re educated. Doorway pages are web pages created strictly for the purpose of housing keywords. The search engines see this prior to coming to your site, and once again, your visitors never even know it is there.

Third, exchanging links with anyone and everyone. It is important that you do exchange links yes, but it should only constitute a minority (less than 50%) of the overall links on your site. And above all, when you do decide to trade links with someone, make absolutely certain that the site you’re linking to is A) on a related topic as your site and B) actually offers up some value to your website visitors.

I personally am very, very, very picky about who I link to with all of my websites. If I look at your site and it’s poorly constructed, has ads all over the place, limited information and is just downright meant to do nothing for someone, then you’re booted. I’ve even run across sites that look very nice on the outside but when you click on one of their “interior” links are then taken to a different website all together. Nice try buddy, but no way am I even glancing your direction

Fourth, duplicate content. A LOT has been talked about this of late because there are two sides to each story. One group says that duplicate content penalties don’t exist because if that were true, then CNN, MSNBC, NY Times, etc., would all be penalized for showing the same Associated Press content on each of their sites.

While technically this is true (there are so many other factors that go into it), here are some things to consider.

First, a LOT of people get their content from eZine directories - these house articles that other people have written that you too can use on your site. If there are a lot of people who use the same article, one group says that you’ll get penalized by the search engines and the other group says that it doesn’t matter, all that matters is that you don’t have the same content on YOUR site.

I personally don’t use a lot of ezine articles myself, every so often I’ll find a really great one that I can’t resist but just like your links, balance it out. If you place one ezine article on your site then write two more of your own that are completely unique.

These are just a few things to avoid. My suggestion to you is that if you are considering implementing ANY kind of technique, REGARDLESS of who it came from, check the rules of each search engine. They don’t keep this kind of stuff secret you know.

Google’s Webmaster Guidelines
Yahoo’s Webmaster Guidelines
MSN’s Guidelines

SEO at a low cost is extremely hard to find. This is why some people opt to do it themselves rather than spend thousands of dollars for an SEO firm to do it for them.

Regardless of which option you take, you know that SEO is one of the absolute best ways to drive traffic to your site. The well-optimized site will yield far better earnings for you as the website owner if it’s done properly. But if you want it done right, you’re going to have to invest your time as well as a little bit of money using some kind of software.

You can find nearly all of the information you need on the Internet but it’s difficult to ascertain if the information you’re receiving will actually help you out at all. There are hundreds of different methods suggested by just as many people it’s often hard to put it all together. Here are some tips that are guaranteed to get you started in the right direction.

1. Participate in Link exchanges

One very low-cost SEO method you can use is to participate in link exchanges with another website. This will get you those links back to your site that are absolutely needed for proper search engine optimization. This costs you nothing at all out of pocket but will cost in terms of the time you spend on the project. If you find a website that is complimentary to yours, send them an email or check to see if they already have a links page. Simply asking them if they would like to exchange links is one method you can begin to use today.

2. Start writing or buy keyword rich articles.

When you write articles pertaining to the content of your website, and they contain a keyword or keyword phrase that is geared towards your audience, you have an extremely viable way of getting that ever-needed traffic. You can either write the articles yourself, hire someone to do it for you or purchase articles.

4. Your site’s navigation

When you provide a navigation that is easy to use on your site, it will make it easier for the user to find the information they’re looking for. You don’t want folks heading to your site and then turning right around and leaving. Give them a way to find other useful information that they may be looking for by making it easy to find.

SEO at a low cost doesn’t come without its price - even if it is in time alone. There are many effective methods that can land you on the front page of a Google search result. Using these methods above will certainly help you in the long run when you’re trying to optimize your site.

When optimizing your web site, there are many things that you should avoid if you don’t want your page to get devalued within the search engines. You’re looking to raise your status and your rank of your site, not upset the search engines by making small mistakes that can be easily remedied. If you make enough mistakes, your site could fall in its rankings or worse yet, get delisted all together within the search engines. So it is important to know what to avoid while optimizing your website for search engine rankings.

First, text in your graphics

It is often recommended that you use a descriptive term within each of your images. What I mean by that is that you place words related to the photo within your images alt tags. While this is perfectly legal, you need to be very careful when doing so. An illegal technique is to place lots and lots of keywords related to your topic within each alt tag. This is considered “keyword spamming” and is frowned upon by nearly every relevant search engine online. When you do use words within your images alt tags, use them in a way that is helpful. Typically these words and phrases are used in order to describe the image in the event the image does not load on your page. So if you’ve created a web page about “flowers” and you have multiple images on your page relating to flowers, it should specifically describe that image. For example, “flowers button image”.

Moving a page having a PR

If you decide to “fix up” or “enhance” your website, you may end up moving some high ranking web pages. These are pages that have already been indexed in the search engines and that have received a decent amount of PageRank. If you do move a page that’s already received good rankings or a high PageRank, and the search engine pays a visit, it will not be able to locate that page and it will then end up losing whatever ranking it had. Try to avoid this at all costs.

Dead ends

Every last page on your site needs a link to another page somewhere. Whether this be on your own site or to someone else’s site. You must give your site visitor a way to leave your web page if they desire. Not offering this option can be very detrimenal to your website as a whole.

Artificially increase a page’s keyword density

If you decide to follow someone who is not very well-versed in proper SEO techniques, you may inadvertently end up following some advice that will hurt you more than help you. One example is that of filling your web pages with keywords related to the topic of your site. This is considered keyword stuffing and will get you penalized and quite possibly banned when it comes to the search engines.

Using hidden text or links

Another piece of advice that might be followed by those unfamiliar with proper SEO techniques is that of hiding links from view. If you’ve ever been instructed to place text on your site that is the same color as your background, thus rendering it invisible to readers, you need to fix that right now. The search engines will penalize you for such a tactic. Additionally, you should never place an image on your site that hides a link. This too will result in penalties and possible banning in the search engines.

Links from link farms and non-relevant sites

Link farms are sites that exist online whose sole purpose is to provides links to other sites. These are also often called FFA or Free For All sites. The best when it comes to getting links to your site is to get links from places that don’t already have a lot of them.

And lastly, don’t use the same text for all of your incoming links. If all of the links that point to your site have the same link text, it sets off red flags for the search engines. Links that contain varying related terms that link to your site are best, they look more natural and thus will not be viewed as something to be concerned with when the search engines come to visit.