SEO is a huge topic that covers a wide range of duties and tasks. Once you get in the groove, it can be easy to overlook some of the simpler aspects of maintaining client SEO such as metadata, page tags, etc. Besides making a simple oversight, there are also some SEO practices that are outdated and should be avoided moving forward in order to ensure that your website doesn’t get penalized. The following is a list of things to double check in order to make the most of your SEO practices.
Image Alt Tags
Make sure that when you upload images, you always remember to include the image alt tag. According to Google, image alt tags are going to become even more important than they were in the past. Just last month Google updated image search, giving results a more sophisticated and user friendly layout that’s awesome for web visibility.
Cross Linking
Cross linking is an outdated practice that won’t get you anywhere so if you’re doing it, it’s time to stop. Although you won’t get penalized the way you will with reciprocal linking, cross linking won’t do anything to boost your SEO.
Build Authority Before Placing Ads
If you can afford not to have ads on your website, don’t. Wait until you’ve established authority before you start to place ads on your site. Advertisements negatively affect user experience and since that’s the number one thing Google looks at, your site isn’t going to perform as well if it contains a lot of ads and has no established authority. If you can’t afford to host your website without running advertisements, think of creative ways to display them that won’t take away from the user experience.
Get Rid of iframe and Other Outdated Content
Iframe content doesn’t get indexed and therefore shouldn’t exist. Unless the content is invaluable to users, you should remove it all together. If your site is running flash, make it stop! Flash is impossible to index because of its structure and will never be compatible with SEO.
If you are just starting out in SEO, this is a good jump off point when it comes to improving your site structure. Making a few simple changes to your website can make a world of difference if you’re still using old practices and outdated content.
