Although a high ranking website can generate thousands of targeted leads for your business, getting there can be a time consuming & expensive process, especially if you spend your time focusing on the wrong techniques.
Today I’m going to arm you with the knowledge you need to avoid these bygone tactics, save your business time & hopefully some money in the process!
Top Time Wasting SEO Tactics in 2015
Social bookmarking
Search engines want to see your content shared with natural intent, not through a bunch of submissions on social bookmarking sites. To the likes of Google they are seen as a low quality source of backlink & should definitely be avoided on mass.
Instead focus on encouraging people to share your content naturally, across a variety of media outlets:
- Social media sites – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn
- Blogs
- News sites
- Forums
Guest posting
Unless you are going to only post on a small number of highly relevant sites don’t bother with guest posting. A couple of years back guest posting was cited as a popular, valuable exercise for SEO’s, unfortunately it became abused with many posting irrelevant articles on sites that have nothing to do with their business, all for the purpose of gaining a backlink.
If you’re going to write guest posts, keep to sites within your niche & don’t abuse it!
Over optimization
This can involve a lot of aspects of your SEO, both on-site & off-site. In the past the more you optimized your site & it’s keywords the better. These days it’s about putting the consumer first, not the search engine.
- Don’t overuse the same keyword
- Don’t create pages for the benefit of the search engine
- Don’t try to target every niche or possible key term
- Don’t use multiple H1 tags – What’s a H1 tag?
- Don’t overuse keywords in your internal links – I.E. Avoid placing a link to your services page with the anchor text: “iPhone Repair Services” & another link saying “iPhone Screen Replacement Service”. This is seen as over optimization of your keyword.
Buying links
Google really isn’t stupid, their search engine spider can sniff out a paid link from a mile off. Remember that search engines expect people to link to your site because it provides value, not because you paid someone for the privilege.
Paying for a link back to your website won’t enhance your SEO & will just cost you money, don’t do it!
Poor quality content
Whether intentional or not, poor quality content is a big turn off for search engines. Only the best of the best will be rewarded with first page rankings.
Producing low quality or “thin content” is a big waste of time & resources, particularly if you want to gain any increase in search rankings.
What do search engines expect?
- Good grammar & formatting
- Pages that provide a purpose, or answer a question
- At least 300 words (the more the better)
- Content that isn’t littered with keywords (and doesn’t appear to be written for search engines)
- Unique content that is not duplicated or “spun”
Never pay for cheap outsourced content or “spun articles”, It is far better to spend a little more time & money on better content to ensure long term results.
Press release submission
While press release submission is not an explicitly bad practice in itself, using it as a method for gaining backlinks is frowned upon. If you gained a link as a result of your press release that’s a different story.
Whether you manage your SEO in house or have it outsourced make sure whoever’s doing your SEO avoids these time wasting SEO practices.
The SEO industry is filled with people who promise quick results & make radical claims, as a general rule if you avoid these people you will be on the right track for search engine success.
Elvin Web Marketing provides 100% Google compliant SEO & marketing for the 21st century. Contact us to discuss our affordable SEO packages.: (203)882-0171