Old Is Not Always Gold: Outdated SEO Strategies You Should No Longer Use
As we are nearing the end of 2017, the SEO industry has seen some new trends and practices over the past few months. These new trends and updates have helped change how link building and SEO strategies are being developed. These new SEO trends and practices have made SEO improve in quality, making sure that internet users are able to access the websites and content that they are searching for.
With every new trend and strategy, there will be old ones that will now be considered outdated. Some of these old strategies are still used by some businesses today, not knowing that it will greatly affect their search rankings. There’s this saying that goes “old but gold” that shows that some tried and tested methods may age, but still remain useful. For SEO, this is not the case, as new strategies are constantly developed to ensure that Google’s search formula and metrics remain sound. Here are some outdated SEO Strategies that your website or business should stop from using.
Ignoring Social Media
Once upon a time, SEO heavily relied on coding, content, and links. While these are still very important for SEO this 2017, solely relying on them is no longer the case. Social media has become a very important part of SEO, as it plays an important role in helping web pages and search terms rank higher.
Search engines like Google use social media when evaluating search rankings. With social media being used by millions of people on a daily basis, it is important to tap into this wide audience to increase search traffic and gain higher search rankings.
Solution: With social media becoming a big factor in SEO, it is best to use social media tools like Google Analytics, which helps you track social media activity for your website, and Yoast, which helps you share and post your content to various social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Utilizing the power of social media is essential, and is one element that would be a factor on whether or not these SEO strategies would work or not.
Keyword Stuffing
When it comes to publishing any kind of content, the keyword for your website must always be present in order for that keyword to get ranked in results pages. Back then, keyword density was one of the few metrics that were used by search engines to rank up search terms. As search engines like Google introduced new metrics and a better focus on content and webpage quality, keyword stuffing became a thing of the past.
While having keywords in your content is always important, cramming a lot of them into a single post or page would put a dent in your search rankings, as Google tends to see web pages that are overloaded with keywords as low-quality.
Solution: Instead of cramming keywords into a single webpage, it is best to focus on creating high-quality content that would appeal and interest the users that would view them. Keywords should be used moderately, and using similar or relatable keywords would be better than to repeatedly use the same one over and over again.
Using Exact Anchor Text
Using exact keyword matches is an SEO strategy from the past, and used to help get your web pages rank up. Nowadays, it is one example of a bad SEO strategy. Having exact or over-optimized anchor text would get your website penalized by Google for having an unnatural link. It is best to refrain from this practice to keep your rankings safe.
Solution: Instead of creating exact anchor texts, it is best to think about the users and let the anchor text come out naturally. It is better to use longer anchor text that flow into the content, not only it would look better, but it would also prevent you from getting penalized by Google.
Not Making use of Mobile Optimization
In the past few years, the number of mobile users accessing the internet through their devices has gone up at a rapid rate. This means that more websites are being accessed through mobile. The drawback of accessing websites through mobile back then is that it is difficult to navigate, given the smaller screen, and the fact that some features do not work. Not having your website optimized for mobile would affect the user experience, as they would not like to go into the trouble of navigating a cumbersome website on their devices.
Solution: Making your web pages mobile-friendly should be one of the essential SEO strategies that should be done, as mobile traffic is another metric that is measured by Google to determine rankings. One of the best ways to make a webpage mobile-friendly is by applying a WordPress theme that is responsive to mobile, using text with readable zoom and using Accelerated Mobile Pages. For AMP, it is currently one of the developing trends in SEO, as it makes websites streamlined for mobile use, without sacrificing content and quality.
Old Link Building Strategies
Link building campaigns are a crucial part of any SEO strategy, which is why link quality is highly emphasized today. However, some businesses and companies still use the old tactic of focusing on the quantity of links. Other outdated strategies include link buying, link exchanges, forum links, much more. Doing these would get your website penalized by Google, and would affect your page quality.
Solution: Focus on getting quality links that would help you build a more natural link building campaign. Creating quality would help make better links, along with practices like content marketing, email outreach, and establishing solid relationships with other companies and businesses.
Key Takeaway
As the SEO industry grows and evolves, so do the strategies that are used. Being proactive and having a strategy that adapts to the current trends would help your company or business survive. If you are still using some of these outdated strategies it is now the best time to change things up, and optimize your SEO strategy.
If you have any questions or inquiries with regards to SEO strategies or are looking for some SEO tips and advice, leave a comment below and let’s talk.
