How can you possibly hide words on your web pages? Years ago during the “SEO Stone Age,” webmasters did this on purpose to cheat their web pages up Google’s rankings. Now, most know they won’t get away with this for long and thus don’t even try it.

Yet, you can still do this accidentally. It’s kind of like speeding, when you’re happily driving along and don’t realize anything is wrong until you see those dreaded red and blue lights flashing in your rearview mirror.

How Can You Accidentally Jeopardize Your Search Rankings with Hidden Content?

Unfortunately, it’s easy to do. Does your website use:

• Tabs for people to click through to different content?
• Accordions to display content in fun and interesting ways? Click here for an example.
• Any other methods to hide and reveal content?

Keep It Simple, Stupid!

This is just one of many accidental SEO errors you can make and thus hurt your rankings. Unfortunately, the field is rife with similar problems. Today’s designs can get fancy and complex in an attempt to blow users away with an amazing experience. Yet, unless you sell website design services, you probably don’t need to do this.

Why? Because web users—whether consumers or sophisticated B2B prospects—visit your website for solutions to their problems. In their mind, an “amazing experience” is a rapid, complete answer to their questions: a better one than they can receive anywhere else. You can do this with a combination of text, video, graphics, and audio. While you do need a simple, professional, and organized website, bells and whistles are not paramount to succeed and should thus be viewed as a “nice to have” rather than a “must have.”

Another alternative is to work with a web design company also experienced in SEO. Not all will offer this double-duty expertise, but some will. Enlist their help to create a design perfectly aligned with Google guidelines and rest easy, knowing your web rankings are safe.