We are in the mid of the year, and we all know what that means: next year a new list of SEO practices will appear aboard. This time, however, I am going to tell you what mistakes to avoid for successful search engine results.
Trends appear every year on how to use search engine optimization capabilities. But with all the information there, how can we cope with what is still relevant and what was just a phase?
Although Google has implemented algorithm updates to prevent marketers from sending them to the top-ranking, it’s vital that business owners play well with search engines.
Referencing a website is a work that is both central and laborious. We cannot escape, because it is essential for your site to be visible on the internet in search engines (and especially on Google). To boost SEO quickly, some people do not hesitate to use unsolicited SEO practices that are even prohibited by Google. To qualify these bad SEO practices, we speak of spamming or “Black Hat SEO”, as opposed to the so-called “White Hat” SEO practices. The Black Hat SEO can in the short term be effective and paying, but the risk is great that Google will spot you and sanctions you one day or the other. In the medium and long-term, Black Hat SEO is therefore counterproductive. Sanctions can range from losing positions in the SERPs to outright blacklisting (your site no longer appears in Google).
On this note, here are the 10 SEO practices, which should be avoided at any cost in the future.
Spinning of content
The availability of content on the pages is an important part of SEO promotion,
In order to be in the top of Google, it is important that articles on the web resource are interesting and useful for the readers.
It would seem all easy and simple, but no. The emphasis on content marketing has led to the emergence of various SEO practices in black hats, such as duplicate and automated content. Using duplicate content, applying the same phrases in meta descriptions, descriptions, headings of different products could penalize your website by Google.
Ethics aside, this is terrible for users. That’s why Google is acting against them. What’s the lesson here? Create content that is useful, informative and attractive. Bad and spam content will only hurt your brand in the end.
Hiding in the comments section for links
Placing valuable comments are useful to users in blogs of other people’s sites. But, some marketers or freelancers create excessive backlinks by just copying and pasting of general comments and links. Remember, this would only result in spamming.
Moreover, spamming other blogs is harmful to readers who are browsing unnecessary spam just to leave a comment. Google is extremely skeptical of such actions, so do not use this practice. Avoid it and only leave links in blogs or websites that are relevant to your niche.
Intrusive interstitial ads or annoying pop-ups
Interstitial ads are ads that offer rich user experience to users on mobile apps. However, there are some marketers who use annoying pop-ups or interstitial ads just for the sake of gaining traffic and business. But, displaying pop-up advertising windows destroy user expectations, as opposed to pages where all information can be obtained easily. Especially the problem is visible on mobile devices when to close the window with pop-up ads one has to hit a small cross, which is inconvenient.
This is why Google regularly updates its algorithms to make websites or mobile apps as user-friendly as possible. Also, Google imposes sanctions on sites that use large banners and pop-ups. Therefore, your ads should be designed to be placed between content so as to position them at natural app transition points. This will not only provide good user experiences but avoid accidental clicks as well.
Procurement of links
Creating high-quality backlinks is undoubtedly essential and should be one of the top priorities of your SEO practices. These high-quality backlinks will help you in the merits of Google and increase the credibility of your brand.
Apart from this, many believe that the purchase of links is the fastest and easiest way to increase the reference mass of the site and its promotion. And even many people hire such marketers who do excessive paid linking which lead to unpleasant consequences.
The fact is that modern search robots are much “smarter” than a few years ago. Once in the ranking issues, they paid special attention to the quantity, not the quality of the links. But not now.
Now Google and other search engines are advanced machines that evaluate not only the presence of backlinks but also their value. Potentially, any site can create many external and internal spam links. It is the latter who want to see search bots, and it is the presence of such links that today affect the promotion of the web resource.
Doorway pages
The pages of doorways create pages for the sole purpose of revealing the index of the search engine. This method involves creating several different pages (sometimes in several domains), indexing and ranking them for all keywords and then redirecting visitors to this landing page.
The goal is to artificially expand the search area of the page, hiding the sending of users to it from pages optimized for completely different purposes.
As it works, Google scans and indexes the page optimized for the keyword, and then evaluates it for queries for this keyword. However, when a visitor clicks on a link to this page from the SERP, they get redirect with a quick Meta update command to another page. This page is usually not relevant to the user’s request and is often monetized using CMP ads and partner links. Thus, you should avoid creating pages that are irrelevant and does not follow the user request.
Keywords stuffing
The strategy is to include a keyword on a particular page as many times as possible, with the intention of increasing the density of keywords on the page and show relevance to search engines. This includes the content itself, the title, meta tags and even the alternative text of the images.
The Google team noticed that many websites were abusing the use of keywords in the pages, with the sole purpose of getting the first positions, and also that the number of times the keyword appears in the text is no guarantee of relevance.
Now, Google is decreasing the relevance of the density of keywords on the page and, even, penalizing its excessive use. With the update of Panda, many web pages ended up losing positions and traffic through the practice of keyword stuffing and had to think of another way to reduce that loss.
To get away from this technique and even avoid a penalty, the recommendation is to produce the texts naturally by maintaining the density of the keywords on the page by 2% or less and, also, prioritize the use of synonyms. Before publishing the page, read and request the reading of other people to ensure a text with more quality.
Cloaking
It is the technique in which the developer configures a page to be displayed in a way for search engine bots. It is responsible for reading and indexing the page by the tools and another way for users. This is achieved through the tag user-agent.
The page that is displayed for the bots is made only with the aim of gaining positions in the ranking and uses all possible techniques for it, without the need to give importance to usability.
On the other hand, the page that is displayed to the user is different, in general without much relevance and of low quality. By applying this technique, the website will be penalized by the Google Penguin!
Paid links
Creating your feedback profile is of utmost importance for SEO. The significance of building links cannot be emphasized enough, as so many site owners are under pressure to throw money at a problem and call it a day.
Problem? Google repeatedly advised against this method. Most of the links for which you can pay come from sites of poor quality or off-topic. It is labeled as a black hat SEO practice because it is obvious that these links were not built naturally.
Google constantly improves and tunes its algorithm Penguin. Thus, links from related and authoritative sites cost more than paid links from unrelated sites. Quality by quantity is the key to this concept.
Use of affiliated links in excess
This method is used by many businesses who want to use less stellar content to rank specific keywords. Google does not penalize affiliate link when you add the no follow attribute.
Some independent SEO developers use this technique to drive traffic to your site. They even claim that they have purchased domains with high traffic for many years to drive traffic. Some of them use Google Analytics to display the monstrous traffic. But in reality, none of this traffic goes to your site. This may not only damage your SEO, but such unwanted sessions also spoil your analysts. Hence, you will not be able to accurately use your data for any critical factors that you measure.
Negative SEO
Negative SEO practices is a slippery thing because it relates to sabotaging your competition with low-quality backlinks. The whole concept means by eliminating competition, your site will be rated as a default. The penalty, however, will ultimately be on your site, because Google will find out about it.
Competitive research is an essential part of digital marketing. And, there are many simple ways to do this without tarnishing your brand in this process. With the help of audit SEO, you can track your competitors and use the acquired knowledge to restructure your site.
Final Advice:
Now you’ve got enough information about the worst SEO practices. Black Hat SEO practices can help you, but just for a little while. The key point that I want to highlight here is to create authoritative content that your users will appreciate. Be sure that you know how they are looking for it.
If you think, I’ve missed something then please let me know in comments.