On the web, SEO is the big game - but not everyone knows how to play. Here are the top 10 mistakes people make when trying to increase their site's SEO.

10. where can I go?

Your site should generate an xml sitemap containing all of your site's pages. This sitemap should be submitted to all major search engines.

9. where did you go?

Every so often you will need to relocate a page on your site to a different url, but don't forget to update your links! Search engines cannot follow broken links, and without friendly-redirecting from the old url to the new one, you will lose the SEO value of that page.

8. that's one ugly link

Search engines take urls largely into consideration. Your url should contain relevant keywords; for example, the url to this page is top-10-seo-mistakes-people-make.html.

7. a page with no name

Not all websites are created equal - many of them don't get title tags. The title tag is one of the most important parts of the page and should dynamically and accurately describe the content of that page.

6. visual overload

Sure, images look great to your visitors, but how does Google know what they're about? Try to use text as often as possible, but when you do use images, make sure to use the alt attribute.

5. a flash in the pan

If you convert over to flash-only design, expect Google to forget everything it ever knew about your site. If you must go flash-heavy, make sure search engines can read a text version of your site as well.

4. structural integrity

Validate, validate, validate. If the W3 Validator gives your site a check mark, search engines will have no problem understanding your content.

3. wandering aimlessly

Content is the most important part of any website, but content that doesn't include your keywords will not be found as easily by Googlers.

2. know competition

Thorough keyword research (and knowledge of how to use that information) will give you ideas about how to beat your competitors in the search engines. Better to know your competition than be no competition!

1. the buck doesn't stop here

Try to get quality incoming links to your site from other relevant sites and directories. The more quality links to your site, the more important it is perceived by Google, and up, up you go!

This is just a preview of a forthcoming 10-part series in which I will expand upon each of the topics discussed here.