While it’s a mistake to ignore using SEO techniques, it can be an even bigger mistake using those SEO techniques that are obsolete and no longer valid to use. Relying on or using antiquated SEO can actually do more harm than good. Many companies unknowingly use certain SEO techniques that are hurting their business without realizing the real implications of what they are doing.
These types of mistakes can rapidly change a company's page rank status, making it difficult to get the rank to its former glory days, and poor SEO can leave the company in the dust, unable to catch up with the competition.
If you are struggling with what to do and what not to do when it comes to SEO, remember to avoid these four SEO pitfall techniques at all costs:
Using low-quality guest posts
While you may want to accept content from others to use on your blog to save money and time, you could actually be hurting your SEO results by accepting any type of sub-par content. Instead of just taking any concept that someone wants to provide you with, make sure it adheres to a set of quality standards that you can use for promoting the best SEO practices possible.
Some of these quality standards include a set word count, the amount or type of links you want to have, relevant and well-written content that is free of grammatical and spelling mistakes, and of course, royalty-free image quality. Be wary of using guest posts and absolutely ensure these pages pass a certain quality control standard before you add them to your site.
Adding optimized anchors
While it might have been an acceptable practice at one time to put keywords in anchor text, it can now warrant a penalty from search engines. This is now considered a link scheme by Google and can quickly push you down on page rankings. Instead, use a branded URL in which the company name is the link or a naked URL that is just the URL of the company. The other alternative is to use long phrases as your link
Having duplicate content on your website
Having this type of content can lower your ranking because search engines won’t know if your content came first or the other sites that have the same content. This means you will need to make some quick changes to duplicate content that can be typically found in product descriptions that come straight from the manufacturer and are simply based on your website; overuse of quotes or comments from other websites or syndicated content; URLs that point to identical pages; printer friendly versions of content pages; and blog and website content that uses the same words.
Use tools like Copyscape to search your site and identify any signs of duplicate content and then replace that content with something that is unique and original.
Stuffing content with keywords
While keywords are the basis of SEO strategies, they can be overdone to the point that they work against you, especially if a search engine believes you have stuffed your content full of keywords in place of delivering quality content.
Examples include using irrelevant keywords that have nothing to do with what you are offering; invisible text where white text is placed on a white background full of keywords; and hidden text behind images or links that are not visible to readers. Use keywords in a natural way that does not disrupt reading or try to fool search engines.
Staying clear of these SEO no-no’s, which are essentially tricks and gimmicks, can actually further boost your SEO efforts and propel you past the competition that may inadvertently be making these types of SEO mistakes. Focus on the idea of creating a long-term strategy for your SEO processes but continue to pay attention to regular changes to acceptable techniques so you can adapt where necessary to ensure you are only helping your SEO efforts.
