Avoid These 7 Easy But Stupid SEO Tactics

There are many articles and people that promote “quick SEO fixes” on the internet.

A quick Google search for “SEO tactics” returned about 14,100,000 results in less than a second.

But if there’s one thing that’s taught us in the last few decades, it’s that you can’t believe everything you read on the Internet.

Some of the SEO tips you find will be outdated, inaccurate – or even just plain stupid.

These recommendations and tactics may have been based on the author’s misunderstanding of how search works.

They may be the result of a lack of experience or knowledge in the industry.

Wherever they come from, here is a list of seven of those stupid SEO tactics to avoid so as not to seriously harm your long-term SEO performance.

1. Assembly Line SEO Strategy

I define “seo for editing” as when a person or agency uses the same exact tactics for each client without any adjustments.

Many larger SEO agencies use this strategy for their SMB division because it is effective to manage.

Usually, after a site goes through its first round of on-page optimization, routine tactics include blogging and paying for links.

However, just because it’s easy doesn’t mean it’s always the best.

This type of strategy can be fruitful in a short period of time, but unless there is competition, the website will surely experience a plateau of growth.

What To Do Instead

Instead of getting stuck in this routine “task-based” strategy, focus on finding unique ways to deliver value to your website’s audience.

Investigate what your competitor’s top content is and how it approaches its content strategy.

Make a list of all your competitors’ strategies and look for opportunities for content flaws.

Take advantage of these opportunities and make sure your content is built to serve your audience at every stage of their shopping process.

Continuous research and production of content may require more time, but will inevitably be more fruitful.

Another added bonus is that this will show your stakeholders that you really care about their performance.

2. Blaming Performance Drops On Algorithm Updates (Without Evidence)

A drop in performance can happen suddenly and often as the algorithm updates, depending on the website.

These days, algorithm updates happen so often that it could be easy to point the finger at Google and say that they have caused a drop in your rankings and organic traffic.

However, more often than not, a drop in performance can occur for a variety of reasons.

Some common reasons for organic performance decline include:

With those features in mind, it’s important that we don’t go the easy way and blame the algorithm update.

If your website has only recently been hit, don’t panic!

Something just happens and your traffic will return on its own.

What you don’t want to do is start making significant changes to your site. This can lead to even more complications with your organic performance.

What To Do Instead

There are several SEO recovery guides that you can reference for more detailed steps on how to recover from an organic performance drop.

Here are some quick tips on how to investigate whether your website has really been hit by an algorithm.

Has Google discovered any new technical issues?

A technical problem is one of the more common reasons why site performance may decline.

This usually happens when the site administrator unknowingly updates different parts of the page and creates significant technical issues.

Investigate this issue by checking the following places:

This is another common cause of significant fluctuations in ranking. Some websites, such as e-commerce, often change the content.

If your site rarely updates content and experiences a drop in organic traffic or rankings, you may want to investigate whether your client or other site administrator has made any unexpected changes.

Some ways you can explore changes to your site include:

It is rare to find websites that are not affected by some kind of season.

Whenever a stakeholder comes to you out of fear of a drop in website performance, be sure to check your benchmarks year after year.

Compare the quarterly trend lines to each other so you can show your stakeholders that these declines may not be unusual.

In addition, you should forecast in advance to inform them of any future expected declines based on previous year’s trends.

It is crucial here that you continue to progress from year to year.

Some changes in traffic may occur because a competitor is improving its organic strategy.

Typically, this will be indicated by a steady decline in organic performance, and it is unusual for this to happen with a sharp decline in performance.

If you think your competitors are starting to steal your rankings, don’t panic!

I have a Python script that allows you to spy on your organic competitors. It will show who is continuously ranked for your topic keywords.

Manual actions are not as common as they used to be, but they still happen.

If your website has experienced a sudden drop in traffic, check out the Google Search Console for any manual actions.

3. Copying Location Page Copy

When developing site pages for large sites with many sites, creating a unique copy for each site can be tedious and time consuming.

It may seem like an easy way to simply use the same copy for each site page, but I strongly advise you not to do that.

You can achieve much better local ranking results by focusing on a unique copy for each site page.

See my site page checklist to learn how to create a site end page.

4. Using Automated Auditing Tools To Drive Strategy

Relying on automated tools may not be the best way to start your organic strategy.

Many new SEO professionals tend to conduct their initial SEO audits using automated tools and allow this to guide their global SEO strategy.

These SEO rating tools do not “ask questions”.

The key to any good SEO strategy is to ask questions including, but certainly not limited to:

What To Do Instead

Invest in tools like Screaming Frog or Sitebulb and learn how to look holistically at a website.

Use visualization tools to analyze page structure.

Look for opportunities for content flaws and ensure that your technical structure is solid.

When your technical base is clean, search engines can easily find, index and display your web pages.

5. Paying For Links

Now I know that this article should focus on white hat tactics, but there is a gray hat link building method where you can pay companies to build links for guaranteed links.

This is a great way to ensure that you get a certain amount of feedback each month for your customers.

However, quality and relevance are almost never up to par.

What To Do Instead

Building links usually has the effect of a snowball.

If you get links in well-known publications, it is possible that another writer will discover you and link to you in his articles.

However, this is less common with less YES feedback.

I recommend investing in some PR partners to help you create content and get features in important publications.

These larger publications tend to have a higher rate of organic growth of your feedback profile through the snowball effect.

6. Being Too Scared To Ask Questions

It’s too easy to just look for answers to your questions, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

However, when it comes to strategies or solving specific problems, Google may not always give the right answer for you.

It’s okay to turn to your peers for help. Even the best of us often conduct surveys and ask for help on Twitter. There is absolutely no shame in that.

In fact, it is very encouraging!

No reputable SEO will make fun of you because you don’t know something.

If you are still too nervous, refer to the Search Engine Journal Column Ask SEO to get public answers to your anonymous questions. In this way, others can benefit from shared knowledge.

7. Ignoring Other Pillars Of SEO

Most SEOs believe that there are three pillars of SEO: content, link building and technical.

However, I like to add “local” as the fourth pillar because it really uses the elements of all three in a unique way.

Ignoring any of these pillars for too long can either delay the improvement of your ranking or prevent them all together.

For example, if your initial audits show that there are a number of technical issues, you may be willing to take them out of the way and spend all your time cleaning them up.

If possible, try to allocate your resources to work on each pillar of SEO at the same time.

If you spend all your time solving technical problems or implementing links, but forget to improve your content, then your ranking may not improve the way you intended.

Final Thoughts

Now, I know that some of these SEO tactics might work for some websites for a while.

The point is that the broader picture of SEO is much more complicated than what is captured by these simple techniques.

Don’t get distracted and stay focused on achieving sustainable, lasting results.

Featured image: Montri Thipsorn / Shutterstock

Can I do SEO on my own?

You can absolutely do SEO yourself or DIY SEO (Do It Yourself SEO). With some research and a lot of practice, anyone can learn how to do SEO for their business. A quick way to get started with SEO is to enter your URL here and then focus your SEO efforts on recommended actions.

Why improve your SEO? This technique, in its own right, is associated with natural reference, improving the visibility of a site and augmentation of traffic. In particular, a site optimized in SEO is a great way to figure out the premier pages of search engines that have a site that is not optimized in SEO.

Comment optimisation pour les moteurs de recherche SEO ?

5 SEO optimization tips for choosing a position and moteurs de recherche

• URL Correction Structure. …
• Rewrite your URL. …
• Add content and enter your site every day. …
• Avoid content duplication. …
• Assure the availability of quality points on our site.

What is campaign in SEO?

An SEO campaign is a basic component of your SEO strategy. It is a well-defined plan to achieve a business goal: to get noticed by search engines in order to win better positions on search engine results pages (SERP).

What makes an SEO campaign successful?

No SEO campaign is complete without content promotion. Finding the right keywords and posting great content is the first step, the second step is to promote your content. There are two ways to do this effectively: Promote your content internally (also known as internal linking).

Comment fonctionne le SEO ?

The function of natural reference is very simple: to use a Google tape user a request to use keywords on the search engine, plus sites that are positioned on the results page.

Qui fait le référencement ?

This position is based on the pertinence function of the pages regarding the required formulas by the interns. As an example, if you look for a “natural reference agency” on Google, you will find the answer to the pages that correspond to some of the requests.

What is the most effective SEO tactic?

1. Conduct a competition analysis. One of the most effective SEO tactics that can help your ranking is extensive research and analysis of competitors. The first step is to simply identify your key competitors, whether by industry, geography, keywords, or any other relevant factors.

What is the best SEO strategy for 2021. 21 SEO tips, tactics and trends for website content in 2021

• Get ready for more fanfare about Core Web Vitals. …
• Enjoy the benefits of the passage. …
• Pay attention to the subtopics. …
• Earn featured clips. …
• Protect your country. …
• Create new content with SEO in mind. …
• Go long. …
• Check your website’s analysis settings.

What is the most underutilized SEO tactic or strategy?

Dorian, Head of SEO Strategy: Internal Linking One of the most unused and neglected strategic tools for websites lies right under your nose: internal linking. Often, internal linking is implemented without much thought or strategy – post-thinking while writing a blog or creating a page.

Is SEO a tactic or strategy?

SEO Strategy and Tactics SEO strategy is your comprehensive, long-term plan for achieving business goals; SEO tactics are tangible steps you take to execute your strategy.

What are SEO keywords?

Keywords are ideas and topics that define what your content is about. When it comes to SEO, these are the words and phrases that search engines type into search engines, and they are also called & quot; search queries. & Quot; If you cook everything on your page – all pictures, video, copy, etc.

Why are keywords important for SEO? Keywords are important because they tell search engines about the content of your website’s pages. “Keyword” is also a term used to denote words and phrases that people type into a search engine to find the information they are looking for.

What should be SEO keywords?

The best keywords for your SEO strategy will take into account relevance, authority and scope. You want to find highly searched keywords that you can reasonably compete for based on: The level of competition you are facing.

How many keywords is good for SEO?

So target three to four keywords on the homepage to get the most SEO benefits. The easiest way to add more keywords to your homepage is to write longer content.

Is SEO just about keywords?

Expertise of members of the Forbes Council, who work under license. The opinions expressed are the opinions of the authors.

How many keywords do you need for SEO?

At least one; some pages may have a unique focus that responds to only one query. You’re much more likely to want to target two or three keywords per page, even if they’re just close variations. More than four is a bit crowded; after all, each page has only one title tag and meta description.

Do keywords still matter for SEO?

In 2021, keywords are still important and useful in SEO, but they are not the most important factor. This is because SEO is far more complex than putting keywords on a page. Also, since SEO is always changing with search engines constantly updating algorithms, marketers need to change the way they use keywords.

What is the difference between SEO and keywords?

Keywords are ideas and topics that define what your content is about. When it comes to SEO, these are the words and phrases that search engines type into search engines, and they are also called “search queries”. If you cook everything on your page – all pictures, videos, copies, etc.

What is keyword in SEO with example?

When it comes to SEO, these are the words and phrases that search engines type into search engines, and they are also called “search queries”. If everything is on your page – all pictures, videos, copies, etc. – reduce it to simple words and phrases, these are your primary keywords.

Which of the following tactics can harm search rankings?

Which of the following tactics can harm your search rankings? Explanation: Using text of the same color as your page background can harm your search rankings.

What is the name of the technique for improving search rankings? Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a website with search engines.

Which of the following is the most difficult SEO tactic?

Marketing experts say that SEO tactics are the most difficult to create relevant content (48% say it is one of the most difficult to perform), external / internal linking (45%), keyword research / phrases (35%) and increasing website load speed (32%).

What is the hardest part of SEO?

According to Scott Langdon, a manager at Higher Visibility, “One of the most challenging parts of SEO is remembering that it’s not about one aspect of SEO working well; instead, it is about integrating all the parts to get a cohesive plan. ”It takes a lot of research, practical experience and time to do that …

Why is SEO so difficult?

To summarize, SEO is difficult because search engines are always changing and updating. It could be anything from Google changing the way you look at a particular type of connection, including a major new update to their algorithm, or even recognizing something new as a ranking factor.