10 SEO Outdated Strategies You Need to Avoid in 2017Â
Introduction For a digital marketer, learning and updating SEO skills is a never-ending process if you want to stay ahead of the game. But there are people who use old school practices today as they are comfortable with them. These SEO strategies are outdated, and some of them are deemed as black-hat by Google. Using them in your SEO campaign will cost you time and money, and impacts your search result rankings.
# Keyword Stuffing Everybody knows that keyword stuffing is the most outdated SEO technique and yet, many people won’t let go of it. Inserting too many keywords in title tag and metadescription tag will not contribute in ranking your website in SERPs. Another keyword stuffing method is the over optimization of webpage content. Adding to many keywords (even irrelevant ones) into your page will earns Google’s wrath.
#Â Over Optimization of Internal Links Heavy use of anchor text on internal links was used to be one of favorite SEO tactics as it once provided positive impact on search result rankings. Lately, Google has discounted this practice as inappropriate, manipulative, spammy, and penalized those websites with over optimized internal links. Internal links with keyword stuffed anchor texts will hurt your SEO rankings as Penguin update will see it as manipulative and will impose penalty on your site.
#Â One Page for Every Keyword Variant Creating single page for every keyword variations was considered to be an effective SEO technique five or six years ago. People who are using this tactic is unaware of the fact that Google has gotten so smart with the release of Hummingbird and RankBrain algorithms. The search engine can recognize different variations of the same search query and it is now more concerned with user intent than pure technical optimization.
# Quantity Link Building Before Google released Penguin and Panda updates, webmasters try to earn more number of backlinks for their website, without considering link quality. That’s because when enough websites pointing to your page there will be boost to your SEO rankings. There was a time when Google considered numbers of links pointing to a website as a ranking factor but now it considers quality and relevance of the links pointing to your page.
# Over Use of Guest Blogging As you know guest blogging is a popular link building strategy and for past few years this tactic has been over used for the sole purpose of earning links. Three years ago, SEO community was shocked when Google’s webspam team head Matt Cutts declared that guest blogging is dead. Actually, he was referring to spammy, low-quality guest posts will attract penalty.
# Creating Thin or Short-form Content There are webmasters who post thin content on their website for the sake getting good SEO rankings. When I say “thin content”, I’m referring to content quality and not just word size. With the release of Panda algorithm update, Google started hunting down websites with content which are low in quality, keyword-stuffed, low word size, and totally irrelevant to searchers.
#Â Not Focusing on Mobile Search Many experts in the digital marketing industry say that 2016 is the Year of the Mobile as Google started pushing mobile search after the release of its mobile-friendliness update in April 2015. There are websites that are not optimized for mobile search and their owners think it is a waste of time and money. Google now considers mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor and give preference to mobile-optimized, userfriendly, websites (with high loading speed).
#Â Use of Exact Match Domains Using exact match domain for keyword targeting was once a favorite SEO strategy for webmasters and marketers alike. Domain names like seocompany.com, cheapseo.com, bestseoservices.com, cheapseosolutions.net were used to rank well in Google SERPs. Google launched algorithm update in 2012 that targeted low-quality exact match domains and they will be downgraded in search results.
# Relying Only on Google Keyword Planner Google Keyword Planner is everybody’s favorite tool when it comes to keyword research. It is effective for paid search campaigns but for SEO it is the other way. The results displayed in Keyword Planner is correlated with paid search, not organic search results. If you are relying only on Google Keyword Planner for your SEO campaign then chances are that the keywords you want to target for won’t give you the right results.
#Â Ignoring Social Media This is exactly not an outdated SEO strategy rather it is a missed opportunity. There has been so much speculation about the role of social media in providing SEO rank boost. For example, if your piece of content goes viral on any social media sites it may tend to earn many direct links thereby resulting in high search result rankings. Also, it is a well known fact that any content posted on Google+ has frequently ranked well in Google search.
#Â Conclusion If you are still using outdated techniques in 2017 then it may severely impact your SEO campaign. It may cost you time and money, and also your valuable customers or clients. So, you have to keep up with the new trends and update your knowledge in a regular basis.
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