SEO has changed a lot in the past few years, and it is still evolving. Most of the ouldated SEO practices have lost their value. Yet, SEO's are following some old marketing tactics. SEO tactics are there to help you to improve web search.
Using outdated SEO tactics will not help your brand performance and organic search visibility.
Other people are reading: Eagle Eye Concept for SEO
Your job is to focus on creating an effective SEO strategy to grow your online business.
Still, many marketers and small businesses are using zombie SEO techniques.
Completely Outdated SEO Practices You Must Avoid
Today I am sharing the top outdated SEO practices which are dangerous for your blog/website or brand.
Keyword Abuse:
Many marketers and webmasters have not understood the role of keywords. Most of them are falling into the trap of keyword abuse.
Keyword abuse is the most common problem these days. Webmasters and marketers think that just by keyword stuffing they can rank for the desired keyword.
Irrelevant use of keywords, keyword stuffing, and mismanagement, are the most common ways of keyword abuse.
Mismanagement:
Irrelevant use of keyword is the most common type of keyword abuse. SEOs try to add keywords to multiple places in the article without understanding the natural behavior of the sentence structure.
Without doing keyword research, they add keywords without proper structure and relevancy.
Sometimes they place the keywords so severely that even a common reader cans identity the keyword abuse.
Readers do not like to read the same word again and again.
Fix:
Keyword abuse is an old SEO practice. It is necessary that you should use keywords wisely. You can use long tail keywords and use keywords only when it is essential.
Keyword Density:
When you write one keyword multiple times in your article, this creates the issue with keyword density.
Google does not support keyword abuse in any way.
Where maintaining low keyword density can help you make the content engaging, excessive use of keyword will cause issues. Google can quickly identify if you are trying to abuse keyword density.
Fix:
I am not saying that you should use keywords, but you should use them wisely. To save yourself falling in the hands of keyword abuse you should use LSI keywords and synonyms.
Keyword density is not helpful to rank high for keywords.
Focus on creating quality content and delivering the message.
Keyword stuffing:
Many still believe that SEOs are about keyword stuffing.
If you complete the content with keywords and thinking that you will outrank the competitors by doing it, then you are wrong.
Search engines algorithms are capable of finding keyword stuffing and unnatural keyword combinations. Algorithms block such type of content from ranking high in search results.
Search engines will not have any issues as long as your content carries value. So it is necessary that you should focus on creating creative content.
Writing for search engines:
When writing content, you should focus on writing for readers, not just for search engine robots.
When writing content, you can recreate the content by using synonyms, plurals or variations.
Robots can quickly identify the use of keywords in various patterns. It is not easy to rank for keywords as long as you are just writing for search engines.
Fix:
Avoid repetition and focus on creating content that boosts engagement. Write for the audience not just for search engines.
Article submission:
Article directories and article marketing are also the most common types of outdated SEO practices.
There was the time when article directories and article submission was an easy way to rank higher. But now the time has changed.
You cannot fool search engine by promoting your links through articles in article directories.
In 2011, Google launched Panda update which has changed everything.
Panda has eaten everything from search landscape to content directories. It has also beaten the sites with low-quality content.
Fix:
Focus on creating high-quality content by including, infographics, creative visuals, build trust and boost engagement.
Article spinning:
Article spinning was the easiest way to spin the content with different phrases and words. This was a black hat technique.
Article spinning was creating a low-quality article by spinning the text of original high-quality article.
That is the reason why it is not useful these days.
Machines are not able to generate an engaging article, and that is why the focus should be on creating article manually and enrich them with highly resourceful data.
Buying Links:
This one is still in the fashion.
But shady link building is not working anymore.
Earlier buying links was a routine, but now this routine can penalize your site.
Fix:
You need to work on your backlink profile. Only focus on grabbing links from high-quality sites from the related niche.
Irrelevant link building also creates issues.
Create content that attracts links and focuses on one-way link building.
Anchor text:
Anchor text is used to establish links between articles. Internal linking is the best example of anchor text on your site.
Earlier it was a fashion to use exact match anchor text or keyword rich anchor text.
But now this practice will invite Google Penguin to beat your site.
Fix:
Crate user-friendly content and practice natural internal linking. Over optimization can cause issues.
Obsolete Keyword research Tactics:
There was a time when keyword research was just about finding keywords using Google keyword planner and then filling the content with similar keywords.
But, now this is not helpful as Google keyword planner only display the competition based on paid search.
That means to find the organic search data you need to use other tools.
Fix:
SEMrush, UberSuggest and Moz keyword explorer are the tools that will help you here. These paid tools will provide you with better data and help you plan your keyword strategy accordingly.
Keyword variations:
There was a time when you create different pages for each keyword variation to rank well for each query related to the same keyword.
But, RankBrand and Hummingbird have helped Google to understand that how keyword variations are related to the same topic.
Search engines now focus on the value of the content to rank it for various keyword variation rather than just focusing on keywords.
Fix:
The easiest fix is to focus on writing content for the users rather than just for the keyword or search engines.
Exact match search queries:
Targeting exact match search queries is an outdated SEO practice.
SEOs use exact match search queries to target for each keyword to boost organic traffic number. But Google understands this tactic now.
Fix:
When trying to rank for exact match search queries focus on the solution you are providing. Your answers should be useful for the visitors you are targeting through search queries.
Exact Match Domains:
Using exact match domains is an old SEO practice. It works to some extent.
But when you mislead the user or use the domain just for the sake of traffic, it causes pain in your ass.
Fix:
Fix is to keep the domain valuable and related to the brand name. Learn the art of choosing the creative blog name. Also, learn what all you need to do when choosing a domain name.
XML Sitemap Frequency:
Influencing XML Sitemap Frequency is also an outdated SEO practice.
Search engines understand it better and how, why and when they should crawl the content from your website or blog.
Fix:
The only fix is to optimize XML sitemap and robots.txt for the maximum Crawling rate.
Bad Content:
Do you still want to rank with crap content? Open your eyes.
Thin content, stolen content, keyword stuffed content, non-valuable content worked, but now they will only hurt the reputation of your blog or business.
Fix:
Make the quality changes in your blog content to make the content valuable. As long as the content you produce is user-friendly, it will help you to rank higher.
Final Words:
These are the utterly outdated SEO practices or strategies that you must avoid. You want to get success with SEO strategies, and then you should do what is right.
If you still have any question, feel free to ask me via comments.
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