8 Bad SEO Techniques to Avoid Now to Rank High
SEO is an ever-evolving field in digital marketing that requires constant evaluation and adaptation. You need to update the strategy based on the latest trends and algorithm changes to keep the site performance consistent. Still, many websites are using age-old strategies with little to no impact on the index ranking.
On the contrary, some of them harm the site ranking because of the updated Google algorithm. No SEO expert knows for sure how it works as the information are results of their experiments. Therefore, you need to research a little more to find the techniques that work in the current environment.
You are wasting valuable resources, efforts, and time while using outdated strategies. We will discuss some of those strategies in this blog that you should eliminate from your present campaign to-do list.
1. Quantity Focused Link Building
You need back-links to create an online presence and increase brand authority. Many websites on the internet provide guest posting to give back-link in exchange or for some fees. It increases the number of back-links but doesn’t have the same impact on brand authority.
It is time to focus on the quality of those back-links instead of just quantity. Do not fall for the schemes like 10,000 back-links for some quid. Find some legitimate opportunity for link building to avoid devalued efforts and penalty from Google.
2. Frequent Traffic Check
The number of visitors on the website serves the purpose of evaluating the current strategy. You need these metrics to know whether the efforts are in the right directions. However, many digital marketers get in the habit of frequently measuring site traffic only to waste time.
You don’t have to check the traffic every hour to evaluate the efforts. Spend time on promotional campaigns if there is no decrease in traffic. There is no need to dig deep if the results are promising.
3. Directory Submission
Article directories were quite popular a few years ago with a mention in every other SEO strategy. It was used to get traffic and back-links for the site simultaneously without much of a trouble. However, these sites are under black hat techniques because of its abuse from the users.
Google has already put the article directories into no benefit to the SERP list. Now, there is no benefit of submitting the webpages or article to any of these directories. It is safe to say you can strike them from the list of SEO tasks.
4. Article Spinning
The latest search engine strategies give importance to well-written guest posts on a genuine platform. You don’t need the article directories or disreputable sites to increase the online presence. Therefore, there is no need for spinning the articles anymore with expensive tools and their writers.
The time has come to invest in the right strategy with a focus on quality. You need to find the quality writers and domain to promote your website.
5. Spam Comments
Comment spams are a waste of resources and damages the site reputation for the audience and search engines. Your website will gain nothing from it as almost each one of them is now marked No-follow. It is a protective measure by the bloggers to protect their site from the ill-effects of comment spams.
This doesn’t mean you cannot post the link of your blog anywhere to gain traffic. It is okay to post it in the relevant blogs for various purposes. The comment section is perfect for relevant or reference blogs.
6. Stuffing Keywords
You may have already heard of the side effects of keyword stuffing on the page ranking. The keywords should be a part of the content that should not be forced into it. The keyword density is essential to maintain in the right amount throughout the content.
Again, the focus should remain on quality, not the excessive use of primary or secondary keywords. Many tools suggest the keyword density on a webpage to assist the writers.
7. Use of Exact Keywords
Some people still believe the exact keywords should be used throughout the SEO crawlers’ web page to understand. This practice only damages the quality of content and often frustrates the readers. You need keyword density to ensure the crawlers match the topic with the content.
Here, you can use the synonym of the keywords to create a little-less frustrating content. Google understand the concept of synonyms, and many experts somehow ignore this fact. They don’t use the potential benefits of synonyms to use the exact keywords that bring more harm than benefits.
8. Separate Campaign for Social Media
You should have a separate campaign for social media marketing if you can afford it. If not, you can use the SEO campaign to post content on social media and gain traffic. After all, the ultimate purpose of SEO is to increase the traffic on the website.
To sum up, many techniques are considered outdated after continuous algorithm updates. Some of them are causing harm to your website traffic instead of some benefits. The solution here to keep yourself updated with the latest and outdated trends to make regular changes to the SEO strategies.