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Latest posts by Mitz Pantic (see all)
- Natural Link Building: Does It Work? - April 18, 2013
- The Best Websites To Imitate - April 11, 2013
- How To Steadily Increase Website Traffic - April 9, 2013
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Some of the most terrible mistakes might be the ones that go unnoticed and most of them are not even pointed out in your WordPress website checklist. However, the best part is that these simple mistakes are easily solvable provided that you follow this list and consider doing some necessary changes:
Mistake #1 – Crappy Post Titles
When an SEO writer pays attention to his content it shows specifically on his keywords and the headline he/she brings out. Unfortunately, boring titles never attract people and keep them away from clicking your link.
It does not matter how extraordinary your SEO strategies are, all your content is waste if people do not click on them, and you go down on your search engine ranking. People generally read content by looking at their titles and if this sounds uninteresting in your content chances are that you will never make it to their vicinity.
The basic truth is that a good and attractive title can bring you more traffic than any of your SEO strategies, and this is what is quite promising for most successful sites. Sure enough, this article shows you 5 common mistakes that stop your traffic while other titles might focus on “˜how to” top 10′or offer something for “˜free’.
Boring titles can push away all the potential traffic that might come to your site, but a strong headline or title is just what you need to pull in the right crowd. Hence it is extremely important that you check all your titles and make them catchy.
A perfect for example is when you see a great post title in the comments section left there as a CommentLuv link. When you are clicking on those post titles, think about why you have chosen this particular one and what attracted you to it.
Mistake #2 – Copied Text
In the past when blogging was newly introduced it was a common strategy for most bloggers to generate “pages of pages”. Software was used to combine all the post of a single website and amalgamate them into one single page view for fast and convenient reading.
If you are one among these bloggers and still use the software, you need to stop it right now. You could either switch it off or utilize robots.txt to restrict Google from seeing your copied content.
Having a website customized with such a facility can damage your reputation as copied content and Google will never promote such kind of content but would help searchers with their specific search results.
One of the most important aspects while you target your Google ranking is to not duplicate any content in your site. Also, it is highly significant that you look out for other websites that may try to whip your text as this can also be held against you as duplicate content irrespective of who published it first.
One easy way to handle this problem is to ask the site to take down their content as most of them generally agree to the same. You could also threaten a legal action by contacting the website’s hosting company. However, be careful of hackers as they might strike back. Another way of taking advantage of people who use your copyright is to include links in your text so that it returns backlinks to your website.
Major Mistake # 3 – Bad HTML
Some Webmasters have a bad HTML hidden in their content without them knowing. For example some Webmasters or maybe from a Microsoft Word document and pasted directly into their WordPress Post editor. This text might look fine in the visual section, but when you look deeper into the HTML you will see extra code that is not compatible with WordPress. There are many other examples of this but the best way to avoid bad HTML code hiding in your posts is to copy your text from a simple notepad file. This is the safest way to ensure that you have clean text going into your WordPress site.
Major Mistake # 4 – Copied Domain Names
It might be a startling revelation to you that website names beginning with www is entirely different from domains that do not have the same prefix. Google knows this extremely well and even realized that these two variations are used to fool users. While some websites use them for split testing, while others make it to scam credible websites.
This is the reason why Google considers a website that does not start with www to be entirely different from a website that starts with www. Hence, your site could come into view twice on Google index making mobile categorize it as a duplicate domain. To avoid this confusion all you need to do is to log into your tools account on Google Webmaster and set your primary domain name. Once you do this Google give you instructions on how you could verify both www and regular version of your website.
The simple truth is, you might be building links using the www and the no www which will water down your SEO efforts and give you less traffic. You must decide on what team you want to bat for.
Website Traffic Mistake # 5 – No Link Building
If you have a website then you must be creating links pointing to this website. You also must do this continually, creating links from inside your own website and links pointing into your website from other sites. Link building is a major part of building a website and if you are not taking part in this activity, you are missing out on a huge amount of traffic. I recently published an article detailing a link building tutorial which is now turned out to be over 3000 words long. This is an extensive subject that needs to be covered and this article is not even finished yet!
Mistake # 6 – Do You Have A Problem With Spamming?
Spam is considered to be one of Internet’s greatest problems, and if Google categorizes you as a spammer -you are up for great trouble.
While writing your content, if you concentrate too much to pull traffic through search engine ranking and ignore to what people want to read, you are likely to clash with Google’s identification as spam, something you surely don’t want to do.
It’s unclear how Google detect spammers but it is evident that the system is very effective. This is why spammers who managed to get the first rank on search engine results today will vanish without a warning some other day.
As long as you do not deliberately posts spam on your website, the only way to get associated with spammers is someone hacking to your website or getting your content written from a “˜spammy writer’ who extensively uses keywords – stuffed to be precise.
A hacking is serious security threat and Google will immediately ban your website which in turn affects your traffic and whole livelihood.
Mistake # 7 – Presuming Blogging is Easy
This it is a big mistake that many new Webmasters make. They presume that blogging is easy because some people have told them that this is true. Building a WordPress website from scratch is in fact easy, but building a WordPress website to become successful is not so easy. I would be lying if I told you that creating a successful blog was an easy task. I see many new Webmasters complaining about not seeing any website success yet, however it takes longer than most people think. The ones that stick at it often eventually see great success.
These are the seven major mistakes that you should keep an eye on. They all could be costing you website traffic right now and crippling your blogs success rate. It can happen to anyone at any time and the only way to stay away from these is to constantly be looking out for them.
Please let me know what other mistakes could cripple your blog?
Twitter: postboxesuk
Hi Mitz
Sound advice and ultimately basics which a lot of bloggers still don’t do. But I’ve a quick question.
Re: spammers, if your site doesn’t give do follow links, then how can you be penalized for this. Essentially aren’t you just the messenger and you’re asking for the links not to be considered? Also with respect to copied content, surely the odd word change here and there in a body of text could minimize this – this is an issue which could affect my site so I would be glad to hear your thoughts.
Regards
Chloe
Chloe recently posted..Post Boxes UK live!
Twitter: buildwebsites1
About copied content: I have created success on original content. I have tried every other way to get content over the years and nothing beats original stuff. You can get away with dup content but why not do it properly so you are guaranteed not to get hit later.
Re Spammers: A link is still a link and it is on your blog regardless. Yes it has less value but you are still associating with spam. It’s like inviting a person to a birthday party but clearly stating they are not your friend. Then why did you invite them only to say that? The association has already been created by their presence.
These are my opinions only.
Mitz Pantic recently posted..WordPress Website Maintenance Checklist
Chloe,
I am glad you asked that about the spammers, I was wondering the same thing.
As I get more and traffic I get more spam, it is so annoying. I just announced on my blog that I will no longer take comments that do not have a Gravatar, along with other qualifications. Nothing great commenters there don’t already do but spammers have a hard time doing.
It is good to know I am doing the right thing, I don;t want to be associated with spam.
~Allie
Allie recently posted..Blogging Success: Failure Is Success
I have always been curious about this as well. Is it enough to just nofollow the spammers comment but accept it?
How do you deal with comment linking back to spam sites but contain a legitimate comment? Do you just remove the link and allow the comment to stay?
Sarah recently posted..How to Make Alkaline Water at Home
Twitter: Elena__Anne
Hello Mitz,
One more mistake I think, is that sometimes when we add content or make changes in wordpress, don’t organize the steps we want to take, and as a result we press publish button over and over again. An experienced and successful blogger, advised me not to “publish” so often and use the preview, cause Google considers the blog as not reliable and someone does this to show that updates the website by purpose without any changes, just to fool Google.
Thank you for sharing
Twitter: buildwebsites1
Interesting idea and I can see this as true.
Twitter: Make_Money_IM
This is a good point Elena.
I don’t believe Google wouldn’t want you to refresh and update your posts, it actually makes more sense and show your blog is active and dynamic.
However, you should try and prevent pinging the search engines whenever an update occurs.
Have a look at cbnet Ping Optimizer wp plugin, it gives you control over the pinging frequency and prevents you from being precised as a spammer, when updating your site.
Twitter: faqspedia
most of the bloggers are not aware of “links building” ,they don’t know about how the external back links can drastically improves their rankings and search engine visiblity
shyam jos recently posted..Top 3 free email clients for windows 7
You are right Shyam, most do not know the real impact links have on their rankings.
mitz recently posted..WordPress Website Maintenance Checklist
Hi Mitz,
I found your tips on these blogging mistakes quite helpful. Just to add that when we fail to integrate an opt-in tool into our blogs, then we’ll be losing a lot of potential visitors.
Very true Dann!
We should get the opt in box in order the minute the blog starts.
mitz recently posted..Content Is Not The Only King Of WordPress Website Building!
Great info honestly. Keep in mind, internal links are also very powerful. For example if you mention something in a new blog post that you discussed in a previous one, link back to it using your anchor text. You’d be surprised by the results you can achieve.
Keep up the great work!
Hi James
I agree with you! Internal linking is very powerful!
mitz recently posted..20 Often Forgotten Website Traffic Tips
The most important thing i consider is the Unique content in this blogging era.If you have the one,you can get success in it.If its in your blog,then you can go for link building etc. etc. to get some good output.
thank you for your new, i m french, even if is not in my language your advice are very helpful for me!
Nice post. I especially like #7. Blogging does appear from the outside to be extremely easy, but once you start trying to create useful content it can become just the opposite. I think it’s important to find something that truly inspires you (unless you are a stellar writer) if you want to engage your readers and provide them useful content.
Troy Jaggard recently posted..13 Best Premium WordPress Themes for 2012
yes i agree as i have blogs that do not inspire me and I leave them to die. I love working on the blogs where I have a passion for the subject.
mitz recently posted..Free WordPress Website Installation
Hi Mitz
Thanks for your post. It is important to don’t forget to be creative. And funny at the same time.
Twitter: davesnape
Hi Mitz, blogging is indeed hard work. of course that doesn’t just mean writing the posts but promoting your blog(s) and engaging other bloggers as well. Thanks for this post.
david recently posted..Credit Card Company Complaint Options
Yes blogging is crazy work but still not like having a full time job though!!!
mitz recently posted..Free WordPress Website Installation
Twitter: venturebees
some people use copy content but their website get a lot of traffic and generate lot of money like auto post blog. so is that?
issac recently posted..Cool And Funny Pictures Volume 1
I don’t know anyone that uses only copied content and is making money?? Everyone I know uses original content on their blogs. That did happen but not so often now.
mitz recently posted..Build a WordPress Website from Scratch
Another mistake is not evaluating why some articles are successful and why some are duds on your site. I recently looked at my top posts and learned a lot about how to improve my content. Improvements increased traffic and engagement of visitors.
BJ recently posted..20 Favorite Atlanta Trails, Parks & Places to Walk
Yes this is true BJ
You should always question why posts are popular and repeat what works best.
mitz recently posted..Build a WordPress Website from Scratch
Hey Mitz,
Great solid info there thanks for sharing.
I am fairly cool with most of these, although I did like number 4 and 5 and have bookmarked your back linking article.
Thanks for sharing Mitz.
Dan
Dan Sumner recently posted..Why should you Create a Free eBook?
Twitter: dennisknows
Blogging is easy until you really get into it. LOL.. I had to learn the hard way but luckily I had made my first bit of change online so I knew I was on to something.. I’m the type where i dont have to make must to keep me going. I just make a little and I turn it up a notch to make more..
The bad HTML is funny to me because when I first started, I borrowed like 10 HTML coding books from the library and never used them.. I didn’t know what i was in for with wordpress. Makes HTML coding effortless…
and you gave me a tip.. Im going and setting up a www subdomain right now and redirecting it to my site.. They won’t steal my name.. LOL..
Great post Mitz…
Dennis Marshall recently posted..iB4D 001: How To Make Your Blog Better
Its funny, how you borrowed 10 html books, when theres sites like w3schools.com
Plus, even at worst you have html editor that codes for you.
James recently posted..How to sell anything in this hard economy
I think I did something like that too! But years ago W3shcools was not heard of… I also did an on-line course for HTML and I am glad I did that now.
mitz recently posted..Elegant Directory WordPress Theme
As a relatively new blogger I’ll be the first to admit that I have been guilty of all of the mistakes, at some point. #4 was a startling revelation to me regarding copied domain names. Thx for the tip on how to set the primary domain.
NishikaJG recently posted..Generate New Business With the 10 Most Effective Lead Generation Strategies
Twitter: grandmainternet
Thanks for the copied domain tip. I will be checking my sites immediately. In 2012 isn’t link building one of the most important things that you can do? I would also like to ask you – I read recently that more than 3 links from any one site could dilute the value of these links in Google’s eyes. Have you any ideas about this?
Pat Tate recently posted..Affiliate Marketers Bootcamp
Hi Pat
Yes link building is important just as it has always been. To not link build is a crime!
I really do not know how anyone can confirm that more than 3 links from one domain then gets diluted. I personally do not agree with this as I have absolutely have no problem building links on the same domains.
mitz recently posted..WordPress Sidebar Etiquette
Twitter: ITSergioFelix
Hey Mitz,
I still keep seeing the same mistake over and over with #4.
Common folks think that having the HTTP protocol present on their links is the same exact thing as not having it there and they are not aware that they’re hurting their SEO with it.
Great points!
Sergio
Sergio Felix recently posted..Moving from Thesis to Genesis
Yes this is true. I have even made this mistake myself..But I have made so many mistakes over the years, I had to learn the hard way.
mitz recently posted..Build a WordPress Website from Scratch
Hi Mitz,
Thanks for this post. It sounds basics advices but many bloggers don’t know what are the good practices. I will check all the tips for my website today.
For the validation HTML, you can use the website http://validator.w3.org/ : very useful.
Regards
Ludovic
Ludovic recently posted..How Facebook will help me organize ?
Cool thanks for the great tip!
mitz recently posted..Build a WordPress Website from Scratch
Twitter: Prevucare
Really good points there. I’ve made a couple of Youtube videos with my business name in the title and description not long ago and noticed within days these autoscraping blogs embedded the video and copied all the text from my descriptions. I noticed they’ve been copying text from a lot of other blogs. Unfortunately there isn’t much you can do without a big legal budget!
I’ve been working with websites for a few years, but I just recently found out my about page link was wrong – and has been for months. There is nothing more frustrating on the internet than seeing a 404 page.
Great article, Mitz!!
Ryan Smith recently posted..Tyler Perrys Good Deeds (Review)
Twitter: Vemma Brisbane
Hi Mitz
I agree with your last point blogging isn’t easy, not that it is difficult but it definitely requires a lot of consistent and hard work.
I have seen what you said a couple of times about the “copied domain names” and had forgotten about it but now being a bit more confident in what I am doing it is a reminder to do it!
jan recently posted..Is fish safe to eat?
Right on target!! the domain one was new for me..
Latha recently posted..How to Create an Effective Social Media Marketing Plan
Twitter: BlogSEOLady
Writing about things you have no real authority in will kill any blog!
L J recently posted..How to Change Facebook Background Color
Twitter: esther96
I think another way to cripple your blog is to abandon it completely. Some people start blogs and never post on them. If you have subscribers who see that you never post, they won’t want to support anything else you do.
Great post.
Anne recently posted..Declutter Your Home In 1 Weekend
Yes I agree Anne.. You need to keep at it to get anywhere.
mitz recently posted..WordPress Sidebar Etiquette
It’s more than just the subscribers that give up it is google itself – if you don’t have fresh content often enough say bye bye to your traffic. I’ve learned this the hard way more times than I’d care to admit.
It is rather frustrating to have good content on a site but have no traffic because google thinks you aren’t relevant any longer.
Chris recently posted..Your Moshi Moshi Handset: A Retro Fad or Life Saving Technology
Mitz, thanks for posting, some interesting tips which I will put into action….there is light at the end of the tunnel:)
Amanda recently posted..365 Days of Colour – Flower of the Day 272 – 278
Twitter: kristinnw
Great list…and you’re correct in all of your points.
It’s worth noting the importance of editing your work before clicking “Publish.” For two reasons, really; 1) To make sure you put forth your best work possible…spelling, punctuation, capitalization, typos are a representation of your blog, your effort, and you, in my opinion. Plus, does the post even flow properly? Are you all over the place, or have you written a cohesive, concise post? 2) To make sure you are saying what you want to/should say. I’ve seen more than a few posts that are written in the heat of the moment or when emotions are running high. Big mistake. Huge.
Twitter: jenniferdrai
Thank you for sharing these great tips. I completely agree with you on trying to avoid bad hidden HTML codes. Many bloggers do not realize this and copy directly from Word, thinking they will get the same format. I appreciate you letting everyone know that it is important to copy to a text editor first, and from there to the blog generating program. Any additional formatting can be done using basic HTML codes directly in the program to render special effects.
Jennifer Rai recently posted..Why Should You Hire A Virtual Assistant?
Any blogger that tries to take shortcuts won’t succeed. You need to put effort and be real.
I totally agree Jamie!
If you try and take shortcuts it won’t work.
mitz recently posted..Build a WordPress Website from Scratch
Twitter: blognames
Nice Post, I completely agree with your post. Now a days everything should be done carefully. old linking methods are failed after Google new algorithms. also we have to give proper attention toward copied contents. Also tricky title for better ranking is bad method.
suraj recently posted..Top Blog Name Generators
yes, it all starts with the title
it needs to catch peoples attention..if thats mastered
then it onto the first sentence… if this also doesnt capture someones interest then the title was a was a waste of time
keep a reader on edge and wanting more
thanks
james recently posted..profile
Twitter: robboirun
Great tips Mitz. How bout getting too many bad back links from crappy spun articles. Don’t fall for SEO tricks to get low quality back links. There may be a science to getting these but if you don’t know the formula it’s best to stick with tried and true methods.
A client of mine recently paid outsourcers for a few hundred backlinks which was basically spun articles being posted on 100′s of blogs that don’t provide value other than getting a link. Within 2 days they received a message from Google about unnatural links found for the site. although their rankings have not changed, google at least knows what is going on with it and I don’t like unfavorable notices from big G.
Rob recently posted..5 Popular Downloads Every Mac OS X Owner Should Have
Yes this happens alot but it does depend on how it is done.. I would hate to get a notice from Google..
mitz recently posted..5 Basic Google Analytics Tracking And Researching Tips
The other item I would add to this list is crappy or no images. We are visual creatures, and adding visual aide to help illustrate your point communicates professionalism to your readers.
There’s a ton of sites offering free images, so spending additional 5 min to find something good will help give your blog yet another benefit readers will appreciate for sure.
Viktor Nagornyy recently posted..Retail Manifesto
Twitter: ajacwebdesign
Good list. I like to use a www redirect to combat the problems associated with #4. Keep from splitting the link juice from all that #5 work.
Charles recently posted..3 reasons your Michigan business should have a Twitter account
There is no shortcut of Success. So always go through the rules and guidelines and then work accordingly. Through this post great information has been shared which will help to avoid the mistakes which have negative impact on your blogs. Nice post.
Twitter: notebinary
Simple and effective tips to save our valuable blog.
rakesh recently posted..Serve Image media files from Cookie Less Domain
not only copying but also getting copied is very bad
manoj recently posted..LG Connect 4G Price and Specs
Twitter: vineetsaxena4
Hi Mitz,
I think that copying content must not be practised. It is totally waste of time and money if someone is trying to run his blog on copied content.
Vineet Saxena recently posted..5 Great Ideas For Your Next Blog Post
Always like posts that talk about good (or bad) blog writing. Blogs have transformed into a way to drive traffic to your website, so everyone thinks they need to have one. But I don’t think a lot of people know how to blog correctly in order to actually get people clicking over to their site. I really like the point about catchy blog titles. If the point is for someone to read your blog then you need to reel them in. And the first chance you have to do that is with… your blog title! Even if it’s loaded with keywords, no one is going to click through to it if it doesn’t sound interesting.
Norm recently posted..Create CPA Websites Just Like the Professionals
Twitter: kooldesignmaker
Great tips you have shared with us and i noticed that many mistakes i was doing, but now i learned many things from your points and will try to not revise these mistakes.
Another pitfall if stale content. If a user reads everything you have, then comes back in a week or two and finds that there is no new content, they probably won’t check back again and you’ll loose the repeat visitors.
Andrew recently posted..Free online string combination tool
Twitter: aidacarbone
That’s exactly what i was wondering about spammers.Gravatar qualifications are needed in case who someone wants to leave a comment.I notices also the advice about bad HTML.Thanks for sharing these informations.
Sara recently posted..Stylish Garden
That is thing i need. I made some mistakes before. And now i can how to correct it!
thanks for your great post!
JOHN KATER recently posted..MegaUpload Founder Kim Dotcom extradition papers filed by US
Thanks for these great tips. The spam stuff was particularly important and relevant to me.
Thank you!
Sarah DW recently posted..Top Tips: Travelling with an Infant
I am a blogger and I totally agree with you. Making duplicate contents lead you no where. The tips you have given are very much valuable and one must adhere to it to be successful as it has come from your profound experience. Nice article
Twitter: complearnhow
As someone who is new to blogging I can already see that I have made a couple of these erros already but I guess we all make mistakes at the start its learning from them. Excellent article and I am now off to read your link building tutorial
Twitter: chantel_mario
As much as blogging if fun, being real is more important than anything. Copying should definitely be avoided. Blogging is definitely not very easy and it should not even be presumed to! Hence, just be yourself and write a blog – it helps.
Mario recently posted..The Coolest Blog Commenting Plugin For WordPress!
I never realized the difference about not having www in front of your domain name. That’s a great tip. So I’m off now to go to Google and verify ALL my sites.
Take care and thanks!
Debbie
Debbie recently posted..Killer Income Stream Methods for Your Website
Writing a blog post first on a word document and then copying it onto the blog post is what I continue to do. I never realized the kind of bad HTML that it can create. I will change it to plain text before moving it to a blog post from now on. I also agree on the copied text. Google indexes pages with copied text much lower in the search results.
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