3 SEO Tactics You Should Forget in the New Year

Keyword Overuse (Stuffing) 

It’s true, keywords are a vital part of SEO. The strategic placement of keywords can make the difference between consumers seeing your website at the top of search engine results or that of your competitor. 

So it makes sense to use as many keywords as possible, right? Not quite. Once upon a time, keyword stuffing was a valid method for ranking in search engines. Back then—more than a decade ago—Google’s algorithms weren’t as sophisticated as they are now and emphasis wasn’t always placed on the quality of content. 

Surprisingly, after all these years, there are business owners who still pack their websites and blogs full of keywords. You may even get “helpful” advice about keyword stuffing from some marketing professionals.

But using keywords to excess, where they’re unnecessary or just plain don’t make sense, is not helping your SEO. In fact, it may be a negative factor in your ranking. Search engines are looking for helpful, well-written content that makes sense to the reader. Stuffing keywords all over the place means your content is probably subpar and not engaging. This can hurt your ranking and deter potential customers from spending time on your website. 

Rather than overusing a bunch of keywords, select a handful of valuable, high-ranking terms and use them naturally in your site copy and blogs. 

Unappealing Content 

Creating worthwhile content for your website and blog can be challenging. You want to put your best foot forward, convey your expertise, and attract consumers to your brand. 

But don’t forget, your customers are average people and not experts in your field. They’re looking for clear information that’s easy to digest and written in a language they understand. Your website copy and blog posts shouldn’t read like a deposition. Rather, your copy should be like a friendly, informative conversation. 

As mentioned above, Google loves quality content. Websites with conversational, info-rich copy routinely rank higher than those with excessive or confusing content. 

Instead of hyper-formal, technical copy, create succinct, easy-to-read content that’s free of industry jargon. 

Negative Link Bait 

Link baiting is the practice of creating content with the singular purpose of getting as many people as possible to share the link back to your site. This, in and of itself, is not a bad SEO tactic. After all, you do want as many views, shares, and clicks as you can get. 

Negative link baiting happens when you publish content with a shocking, controversial, or otherwise attention-grabbing headline and/or URL. Again, the goal here is to get people to share the link on their own website, blog, or social media feeds.  Here’s where the negative part comes in:  Once a viewer clicks the link, they’re taken to your website where they get no valuable content or, worse yet, content that’s completely unrelated to the headline that attracted the viewer in the first place. 

The problem with negative link baiting, aside from the poor user experience it creates, is that (once again) Google is looking for high-quality content. If you’re publishing low quality or irrelevant content, those backlinks will do little to help your ranking. 

Rather than creating an attention-grabbing headline with junk copy, focus on creating excellent content to go along with that flashy headline.