You might not be aware that SEO tactics that you are using could be hurting your website instead of helping. Discover five outdated SEO tactics that you must immediately abandon as they are no longer effective.
Being SEO professionals, you must be well-acquainted with the volatility of search engines. The everchanging search engine algorithms have compelled digital marketers to be agile with their SEO tactics. However, some old-school SEO tactics still proliferate that continue to harm the ranking of webpages on the search engine result page (SERP).
Sticking to these archaic tactics can be detrimental to your online business. As these tactics no longer conform to the search engine updated algorithms, you may even get penalized for deploying them.
Therefore, you must adapt to the latest guidelines that search engines implement into their algorithms to improve your ranking, traffic, and conversions, and also to avoid getting penalized. So, here are these five obsolete SEO tactics that digital marketers should stop using.
Creating a keyword-rich content
Yes, generating a keyword-rich content used to be the priority for many digital marketers, but not anymore.
Though it is still essential to incorporate your keyword in the content, its excessive use is now deemed as a black hat SEO tactic that may also get your website penalized forever by search engines.
The practice of overloading your webpage with keywords is known as Keyword Stuffing that makes your content look spammy to search engine bots.
What to do?
Stuffing your content with keywords mindlessly won’t do any good to your website. Consider the ideal keyword density while creating your content, which is 1 to 2%, and optimize your page for the user’s experience.
Google now uses Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) which implies you don’t need to place your keywords word-for-word in the content. You can also use related terms or synonyms.
Writing your meta-description for search engine
Meta descriptions and titles are indispensable ranking factors, but writing them only for the search engine would no longer be as effective as it used to be.
Have you ever considered why do you crave for higher ranking? A high ranking means higher visibility and higher chances of getting traffic. Eventually, it is all about getting traffic and conversions.
However, writing descriptions for search engines may increase your ranking but it won’t increase your traffic until it is appealing to users. Moreover, it may also affect your ranking because search engines now use click-through-rate to determine your ranking.
What to do?
Write your meta-description for users and not only for search engines to increase your ranking and to get more clicks.
You can also run A/B testing to determine which description gets the best click-through-rate. Remember that your meta-description helps users to decide whether your content is worth their time or not, so make it engaging enough to drive users to visit your website.
Employing anchor text heavily on internal links in your content
Anchor text is a clickable hyperlink, and marketers often use them for internal linking. Internal links allow users to navigate a website easily and are also good with the SEO aspect as they offer smooth passage for search engine spiders to crawl the website.
Because of these benefits, marketers tend to use loads of keyword-rich anchor text in their internal links. However, excessive use of anchor text in your internal links may look suspicious and spammy to search engines.
Search engines are now more mindful of such activities and may penalize your website on finding you guilty, especially, after the penguin update that came to existence in 2012.
What to do?
Ideally, it is regarded that your significant pages should not be more than 3 clicks away from your homepage. Focus on your site structure.
Make your website user-friendly by ensuring smooth navigation for your visitors. Avoid redundant use of keyword-rich anchor text on internal links to steer clear of any penalties that search engines may impose on you.
Focussing on the number of links
When it comes to building links, one of the major concerns of marketers has been how to get more links. And in order to get links, they often use outdated link building tactics, such as paid links, link exchanges, link directories, spammy footer links, and more.
Though these black hat off-page SEO tactics may get you more links, they are usually short-lived and could be risky for both your website and online reputation.
Low-quality links or spammy links can get your website penalized, owing to Google Penguin, one of the search engine updates.
What to do?
Offpage Seo is still one of the most vital ways to increase your ranking. However, instead of quantity, focus on the quality of your backlinks. Relevant and high-quality links are more productive in the longer run.
To avoid penalties by the search engine, create a list of all your backlinks, analyze them based on their quality, and remove the low-quality links using disavow tool.
Getting fake customer reviews
Most of the customers today consider reviews before making any purchase. Often marketers get fake positive reviews to increase their sales. However, such a tactic can have severe repercussions on your online reputation.
Getting fake reviews may seem like a good way to increase your conversions and sales, but its consequences can outweigh the benefits. This tactic can easily backfire.
Moreover, a common misconception prevails among bands of digital marketers that negative reviews can destroy their online reputation. However, negative reviews can play an essential role in exhibiting your authenticity and honesty that adds value to your business.
What to do?
Ask your happy customers to give you positive feedback and reviews. Instead of hiding your negative reviews, deal with them effectively.
Remember, you may lose your potential prospects if they feel like you are lying to them, so maintain transparency and show your prospects that you have nothing to hide from them.
Conclusion
These are five outdated SEO tactics that do not exist anymore, and thus, you should abandon them now. They are nothing but a colossal waste of time.
Instead of wasting your efforts and time on them, devise SEO strategies that are relevant and productive. Stay up-to-date with the latest algorithm of search engines.
