Link Spamming

This is poison for your site. OK, you'll have thousands of links, but not quality links. Google loves links if they are authoritative but will penalise you if you have loads of crap pointing to your site. Forget the business of getting thousands of links to your site. Spend your time instead enhancing your site and you will be much better off in the long run.

Choosing Bad Keywords

Anyone can rank well for bad keywords, but the real trick is ranking for popular keywords that will bring traffic to your site. So do your keyword research and don't pick obscure or unpopular keywords. You may rank for "Canon SLR d300 buy at Hopkins", but if no one searches for the term, then what good is ranking for it?

Nondescript Anchor Text

Google uses anchor text to navigate around your site. Avoid unimaginative anchor text such as 'Click here' and ''Read More' as they do not describe your pages in a way that is descriptive. Try to use them as imaginatively as possible for example, for a link to a holiday review use text like 'Read our Monaco Hotels Review', not 'Monaco Review'

Writing for Google instead of your Readers

This is a real waste. In the early years of the internet writhing for search engines worked a charm and you could guarantee front page listings for your targeted keywords. Search engines are more sophisticated these days and can easily spot text written solely for web crawler consumption and will penalise sites that try this trick. Instead, write content that will engage your readers and make them return. This may sound repetitive, but it is the only thing that really works in the long run.

Not keeping track of your SEO

This is one of those tasks that often gets forgotten in the drive to push your site to the top of the organic listings. Every time you make changes to the site or add articles, it is very instructive to see the effectiveness of these changes. Tracking your SEO will show you the road to better traffic and organic listings and what works for your site.

Not keeping your site Accessible

Keeping your site accessible is a critical consideration because your site should be navigable to all users including those visually impaired and hearing difficulties. Always make your link text as descriptive as possible and make sure you fill in your alt tags for your images. Other considerations are how your site behaves when a user increases the font size. Will this cause overflow problems? Have you tested this on all the main browsers?

Failing to have a SEO plan

This is always hard to do, epically for newcomers who just want to dive headlong into the world of SEO. Pace your strategy and mark out important waypoints along the way. Remember, this is a marathon, not a sprint.

Eamonn Murray is a SEO marketing specialist and internet consultant. Read more about design and optimisation atTecReviews.net