One of the biggest misconceptions with new webmasters is that you need to hire an "expert" in SEO to achieve high rankings. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is not rocket science. You don't need a degree or a doctorate in IT or marketing to apply effective SEO techniques. There are, however, several rookie mistakes that are made by many new webmasters. This guide focuses on these mistakes and explains how to avoid them.

Mistake #1 - Poor Keyword Analysis (or non-Analysis)

The Mistake: You've found a niche for a website that fills a void that has been missing online for years. You build your website and fill it with all kinds of great unique content and finally launch it to the world! Traffic starts off slow... and stays that way for several months and you're left perplexed on why people aren't finding your site.

The Reality: You've launched your website too soon, without doing proper keyword analysis. Keyword analysis is the process of analyzing the keywords search engine users have been searching on the most that best matches your niche. The goal is to target keywords that get the most searches and have the lightest amount of competition. Before you launch your website (or even write content), proper keyword analysis is a must! It's suggested you open an account with Wordtracker and begin your keyword campaign today. Word Tracker will allow you to view the number of times a keyword was searched in any of the major search engines and will provide reports on the competitiveness of that keyword. With some clever keyword analysis you can broaden the reach of your website by zeroing in on those niche and non-competitive keywords.

Mistake #2 - Keyword Stuffing

The Mistake: As an overzealous newbie you've read various threads and guides that state the importance of highly-targeted keywords appearing on your WebPages. In an attempt to gain high-rankings for a specific keyword phrase you place them several dozen times throughout your text. By the time your done with your aggressive keyword stuffing you're left with a page that has 40%+ density of your keywords that the search engines are going to love. Your proudly pat yourself on the back and give a good "atta boy!" for a job well done!

The Reality: Congratulations! You've just created a non-sensical page and applied the black hat marketing technique known as keyword stuffing all at the same time! Keyword stuffing, for those who may not be aware, occurs when a web page's meta tags and content are loaded with a particular keyword or keyword phrase in a repetitious manner. Not only does this practice result in pages that are non-readable to humans, it also raises a red-flag to the search engines. Keyword stuffing may get you higher Search Engine Results Placement (SERPs) in the short term, but it will only gain your site a bad reputation with users in the long term. It may even get your site penalized or (even worse) banned from the search