As a trusted digital marketing company in Los Angeles, we at Cybertegic usually encounter frustrated business owners who ask for our help to redeem their SERP rankings after Google’s continuous algorithm updates. It is typically an issue faced by businesses who don’t adapt to new SEO changes brought by these updates and still continue to work using their old strategy. However, doing so affects their SEO campaign, which causes rankings to drop lower.
Here are a few SEO techniques you might want to stop doing on your website to avoid hurting your campaign:
- Stuffing keywords on short content.
Years ago, writing short content or “thin content” with keywords can get your website to rank. But those changed after Google’s Panda update, and now that strategy won’t get you anywhere. Using keywords is still necessary, but writing excellent content should come first.
- Buying and selling links.
Publishers always look for ways to monetize their websites. One way to do so is by accepting link advertising. They offer ad space to marketers who are looking for websites to build their links online. And although it may be seen as a way of advertising, Google considers it a link scheme.
- Over-optimizing internal links.
Internal links are important, but over-optimizing these links using keyword-rich anchor text can hurt your SEO campaign. To avoid this, use natural language that makes sense to readers rather than focusing on which keyword you want to rank.
- Over-optimizing inbound links.
Aside from internal links, you should avoid over-optimizing your inbound links as well. For example, avoid using guest bios or press releases to build your links. And as much as possible, use natural anchor text that can entice the readers to click through.
- Using link exchanges.
Google prefers a natural link profile for websites. And obviously, reciprocal links that are created around the same time send a different impression. So instead of exchanging links, focus on creating high-quality content that naturally attracts links.
- Using irrelevant keywords.
Content marketing requires consistent delivery of good quality written and visual content. This is the reason why many marketers try to find a shortcut for the process. One way is by incorporating irrelevant keywords into their new and existing content to rank for those keywords. However, this can hurt your current SEO campaign and cause relevant keywords for your website to rank down.