It’s one thing to create and upload a wonderful new website to your web hosting account, and it’s entirely another to have it rank well. There are a number of mistakes that many people make when optimizing their sites for SEO, and avoiding these should be a major focus of your activity going forward. Let’s take a look at 5 of the most egregious mistakes beginning webmasters often make, and some ways to correct them.

1. Title Tags and Domain Names – These days at least, the search engines are placing an inordinate amount of importance on the presence of keywords in the title tags and also in the domain names themselves. Having one or two of your major site keywords in the site title tag, as well as in the title tags of the sub pages is easily enough accomplished. Getting them in the domain name can be a trickier task, but if possible, should also be considered. After all, if you were searching for a midnight blue widget, would you be likely to check out a site named MidnightBlueWidgets.com? Probably.

2. Proper Selection of Keywords – There are a number of factors to consider. While you want keywords that are entirely relevant to your content, you also do not want to optimize your site too generally. If you have a weight loss site, going only after the keywords “weight loss” or “diet” will avail you close to nothing. They are far too competitive. However, far more targeted, “longtail” keywords can bring you a lot of visitors by virtue of the fact that not as many web pages are optimized for them. Another factor to consider is the “intent” of the keywords. Words associated with buying phrases, such as “buy”, “purchase”, “coupon” are definitely associated with people ready to reach for their wallet.

3. Flash and Javascript – Many designers and beginning webmasters are very enamored of flash and javascript. While they are great visually, one thing they don’t do well is play nice with the search engines. Search engines can’t read either of these without assistance, and unless that’s not important to you, you’d do well to at least provide an alternative page, or in the case of javascript navigation, making sure you have a sitemap that will enable the spiders to reach and read all your fabulous content.

4. Consider Your Site Architecture – Structuring your site can have a tremendous effect on how well your site is ranked. Try to stay on topic as much as possible, and to have a site structure that flows logically from one category or subject to another. For example, a classic mistake that many site owners commit is to put up an affiliate page for a great new weight loss product that is really hot right now on their site about Parakeets. It’s something of a stretch to make a connection there.

5. Not Creating A Backlink Strategy – Today’s web world is nothing if not competitive, and despite putting up the most gorgeous site you can imagine, without some outside “votes” for it, in the form of backlinks to your site, you won’t be found. Try to acquire as many relevant, one-way, keyword anchor text links to your site as possible. Make sure they are quality; don’t fall for link farm schemes and buying links. They are extremely low-quality and you won’t fool anyone.

Avoiding these 5 mistakes will put you miles ahead of many in your market. Don’t neglect to make sure they’re taken care of!