| Getting targeted visitors to your site takes much | | | | combined with light competition making SEO success |
| more than creating something that's visually appealing, | | | | much more likely. |
| choosing some keywords, and then waiting for the | | | | Putting an entry page on the site - These are usually |
| traffic to arrive. These four web design mistakes can | | | | flash based pages which visitors land on first. Visitors |
| either prevent people from finding your website or | | | | land and then have to watch some graphics while |
| make them want to leave it immediately if they | | | | waiting for the "To enter, press here" button. These |
| happen upon it. They are: | | | | are precious seconds in terms of keeping a visitor on |
| Assuming that keywords which will drive traffic are | | | | the site and a high percentage of them won't wait |
| obvious - This is a common mistake that can waste | | | | and will quickly bounce off to another site. |
| a lot of time, effort, and money. Without extensive | | | | Go with form over function - Flash may look great |
| keyword research, choosing which keywords and | | | | but visitors may not appreciate it (see #2) and the |
| phrases will hopefully drive traffic is pure guesswork. | | | | search engines don't like it either. The dislike (it might |
| Usually those guesses end up being either too broad | | | | be more like ambivalence) of the search engines |
| or too narrow, making any kind of SEO success close | | | | comes from the fact that their spiders have a |
| to impossible. Going too broad means that futile SEO | | | | problem reading Flash. Regardless of its relevance, |
| efforts will be spent on a competitive an unfocused | | | | without input from the spiders the content is not |
| search segment. Imagine trying to get to the top of | | | | going to be indexed. |
| search rankings for a term like "clothes". Go too | | | | Static content - Without fresh content, visitors are |
| narrow and there won't be any traffic because no | | | | unlikely to return and search engines will ignore the |
| one is using those search terms. Keyword research | | | | site. Fresh quality content will keep both sides happy. |
| can define a sweet spot of good traffic numbers | | | | |