5 Old SEO Tactics to Avoid Like the Plague and What to Do Instead
A few years ago, it was easy to trick the search engines into giving you page one ranking. Their algorithms weren’t very sophisticated. As a result, sites listed on page one search engine results were often junk sites that contained nothing but ads.
Today, however, many SEO tactics and tricks of yonder years are outdated and can actually hurt your search engine ranking when you use them.
Unfortunately, there are still a lot of articles and training courses floating in cyberspace that promote these outdated methods as legitimate ways to get increased page rank (and therefore traffic) for your site. And some SEO and web design companies are even still offering them as a paid service.
At best these tactics won’t work, and you’ll end up wasting time and money to implement them. At worst, using them could hurt your page ranking or get you de-listed from Google.
Here are 5 old SEO tactics to avoid and what to use instead.
Avoid Tactic #1 - Keyword Stuffing
In the early days of search engines, pages were ranked based on the number of time a keyword appeared on the page. That led to a SEO tactic called keyword stuffing to get page rank. Sites would add their keyword to 20% or more of the web copy.
What to do instead:
Write naturally for your readers. Use your keyword in your web copy along with all the other related words that identify you as an expert in your field. This is what Google and other search engines like to see on a web page. The technical term for this technique is called Latent Symantic Indexing and it will work for you now and in years to come.
Avoid Tactic #2 - Spammy Blog Comments
A few years ago, blogging sites like WordPress and Blogger became really popular. And someone figured out that they could get a lot of backlinks and page rank for their site by leaving comments on other people’s blogs. Thus began the birth of spammy blog comments.
Today, blogs use no-follow tags and have sophisticated plugins to catch those comments before they ever show up on a blog.
What to do instead:
Spend your time creating valuable, thought-provoking, and informative articles instead. Use these on your own blog and in article directories for other blogs to use. This method will generate more quality traffic to your site and give you backlinks as well.
Avoid Tactic #3 - Search Engine Submission
Search engine submissions are no longer necessary. Its mind boggling that some web design companies are still promoting it and charging for this service. This SEO tactic is truly a waste of time.
What to do instead:
Google is really smart with finding and following hyperlinks. If you want the search engines to find one of your webpages or your entire website, just add RSS and subscribe to the RSS feed.
Or add a link to your site in a Twitter or Facebook profile or post. That’s all you need to do. Social media sites are crawled constantly so your site will get found quickly.
And if you’re using a blog, be sure to ping your new content so it’s found faster.
Avoid Tactic #4 - Link Exchange Schemes
Getting links for your site from other sites on the same topic is still a great way to get traffic and page rank. But the link exchange schemes you usually find offered in your inbox today are a really bad idea and can actually hurt your page ranking in the search engines.
What to do instead:
Personally exchange links with other sites that you know have a good reputation. For instance, if you’re a health coach, you may exchange links with the local health food store website. That’s great promotion for both of you.
Or write sincere and favorable testimonials for other companies to include on their website. Ask them if they’ll include a link to your website with the testimonial. I use both of these methods successfully with my sites.
Avoid Tactic #5 - Massive Article Submissions
Next time you see a SEO company offering to submit your article to a gazillion different article directories, just say, “No!”
The search engine algorithms are smart enough to see that it’s the same duplicate content on all these different sites linking back to you. And you won’t get increased page rank for the effort. In fact, this SEO tactic could get your site penalized by the search engines for your effort.
What to do instead:
Create quality articles and submit one unique article to only 2 or 3 good article directories. It’s OK to re-write (or spin) one article into several different versions. Just make certain that you’re not using automatic software that generates trash articles.
It’s better to have ten really great articles in one great directory, like Ezine Articles, than to have one article submitted to 100 different directories.
Action Step - What to Do Next:
Compare the above SEO tactics to your website strategy and see if you’re using any of them. If so, start implementing the suggested cutting-edge SEO techniques that actually do work - and will continue to work for years to come.
At ESS, our Mother Lode WebsitesTM and Traffic Generation Packages use only the latest SEO strategies to get you high ranking in the search engines.
To learn what specific SEO strategies we can use with your coaching or consulting practice, please contact us for a complimentary consultation. I look forward to helping you create a powerful online presence this year.
