Wondering what are the Best SEO Techniques? Here are 3 you Don’t Want to Waste your Time on this Year
In a bid to rid the web of spammy sites and boost the quality of search results, search engines (read Google) are regularly updating their algorithms. This has affected search engine optimisation in that the strategies and techniques that used to work before are now obsolete, and thus a total waste of time.
In fact, practicing a number of them currently can lead to backlash from the people’s preferred search engine, Google. You can say search engine optimisation is evergreen: what was good yesterday might be bad today.
So, what are the SEO techniques you need to steer clear of this year? In this post we present an updated list of arguments instead of regurgitating the same tired warnings you’ve been accustomed to.
- Poor Link Building Strategies
Contrary to some opinions out there, link building is still alive and well. So yes, you can still go ahead with building backlinks.
Previously, the more quantity backlinks we got the better it was. Today though, the keyword here is quality. Search engines now know you can get hundreds of backlinks in no time if you were interested. As such, building links for the sake of building links is just a waste of time. The advice here is get links from relevant, trusted sites: authority links.
- Keyword-stuffed Content
By now you know keyword stuffing is wrong. So why are we including this here? Because there are some new things with regard to keyword stuffing that may have escaped your eye.
For starters, you don’t need to worry about the much touted keyword density everyone is so keen to have their content structured on using those percentages. Things have changed. Throw in some keywords in there, but write the content for the people, not the search engines.
The second thing relates to using long tail keywords. You’re probably accustomed to – or tend to have – keywords such as these: office furniture for sale Brisbane, or Cape Town hotel vacation cheap, or minibus hire Miami…This is a no-no, do it a couple of times and a penalty isn’t too far off. However, if it’s the location you want to mention multiple times (for example Cape Town, Brisbane etc.) – that is alright.
More content as opposed to more keywords. By more content we mean adding more posts, the length even. The more pages present on your site, the more pages likely to be indexed. And when the content on these pages is substantial and detailed, the more reader-focused material and related terms you’ll have.
Use related keywords. What this means is rather than using a keyword like ‘minibus hire Miami’ too many times, you could mix it up with natural phrases like ‘getting around Palm Beach area’, for example.
Here is what Google thinks of it.
- Optimised Anchors
You have an idea what this means, right? Because it’s something we’ve all done at one time or another. Let’s say, for example, you want to rank a term like ‘best laptop computers’, you would use best laptop computers to link to your computer store website.
The thing is, these days are gone. Google calls them unnatural links and you can get a more detailed example right here.
Keep these three pointers in mind when doing your SEO this year and you won’t have to worry about penalties or whether the techniques are still applicable.
