Some outdated SEO techniques and why you should stay away from them
Search Engine Optimization technology has moved by a lot over the last 5 years but many search engine optimization “experts” still focus on giving the wrong advice. Here are some of the metrics that I have seen that don’t matter much anymore.
Keyword Density or Keyword Stuffing
A while back the terms keyword density was the most important metric for ranking. People were talking about density as if it was a mathematical formula. Don’t go under 4% but don’t go over 7%. That time has long gone. For many years it is now the opposite. If you can produce extremely good and linkable and fanstastic content and get it to be well-liked with users then the actual links immediately push you up in the SERPS, even if the keyword that you are targetting is there sparingly.
Page Rank Optimization
Page Rank Optimization is similar to one of those enlargement pill that you get spammed with. the bigger it is – does not neccesarily mean the better it is. Suggestions by reputable web sites nevertheless do count but the basic fact is that if you are linked it is frequently worth much more than the PageRank which gets passed.
Meta-Tag optimization
Like Page Rank Optimization – Meta Tag Optimization is another phrase that was usually disproportionally focuses on just a single aspect. This element these days is virtually worthless. The meta key words tag may be dropped totally. If you would like to add key-words to your web page and try these tags or even better start by tagging by many of the people together at the same time – to enhance your content material in the noticeable content region.
SEO copywriting just for the spiders
Doing SEO copywriting specifically for spiders is so 2005 – you need to do SEO on your content for your users not for spiders.
Submissions to Search Engines
It is incredible how some providers still offer search-engine submission services (to tens or sometimes hundreds or more of these search engines). In most of the nations, Google is a monopoly, followed by 3 or 4 more search engines and the other don’t really matter. Google, Yahoo and Bing, allows you to make use of XML sitemaps to submit their website. So while submitting a sitemap is a feasible way of search engine submission, it is still far better to just ping Google at it’s BlogSearch with a blog post in order to get indexed instantly. And what about the services that charge $39.95 to submit your site to 500 search engines. Avoid them.
Article Marketing and Mass Article Submission
Article marketing was huge when it was essential to get numerous back links coming from diverse websites and Internet Addresses (IPs). But then – as in all things internet, people overdo it – and duplicate content problems, the low quality of content and other problems have made it a lot less of an viable option. Around the same time the concept of business blogging has taken shape. It works much better to generate links by business blogging than through article marketing. And obviously it is a lot more reputable.
Checking Rankings
Some webmasters are obsessive about ranking like PageRank. That being said, rankings differ – and they depend on the location you are searching from and your individual personal history of searches among many other factors. Hence no two people will likely see the exact search results.
Reciprocal Linking
There is no need for this, the modern day edition of reciprocal linking is not the 3-way link scheme. So long as this kind of link swapping works unnaturally on the assumption of a barter systen, it is outdated and not gonna help you. It requires a lot more time and effort to find the appropriate link partners than just linking out to the blogs in your niche you like. While not everyone will link back some will provide you links from their site but only if your content is worth linking to. Some people will link to you even more than you linked to them – have you posted something really good and got trackbacks from wordpress from all over the users – these are unsolicited links and they work great. These links are perfectly natural and so they will count a lot more than artificial exchanged links.
Paid links/text link ads
Unless you are a billionaire or a hollywood stare, you are not going to get sex for free. And it is exactly the same with website owners. They want it now without the inconvenience, they still want to pay. Link love which is paid rarely works out in the long run – now there are ways to get valid links with a monetary investment but it needs to be indirect . Sponsoring and charity done right can be great for both the artists, activist and the non-profits getting the funds as well as the company that is supporting them in a financial sense.
Forum Signature
There are thousands of people that still forums on a daily basis even today, especially the forums that give the ability to place signatures that pass the Page Rank through to them. Sometimes these signature are even longer than the main forum post itself and a few years ago, Google started taking notice of this SEO tactic. Of course there are tons of social media (Web 2.0) sites that will let you add your link to your website in your profile. When you contribute consistently to such Web 2.0 sites, your profile page stands to gain a lotmore authority and Google will like it – otherwise stay away from just posting a link on your profile and forgetting about it.
Footer links
Just some years ago there were people who would stuff their webpage footers with completely worthless links to link partners etc. If you are still doing that, I’ve got some bad news for you: Google now discounts these in most situations. Precisely what you really require are – content links. If you make people write about you in their blogs by providing great resources, a unique analysis or opinion or up updated or breaking news and not just repeating what everyone else says, then Google will give you points.
Blog comments
Many webmasters are still in the practice of commenting on “dofollow blogs” – and this is one of their primary link building techniques. These links still may pass some Google juice but for how long and how much – I don’t know. It’s actually way better to write in your own blog about others bloggers or link and trackback them to get a response or a link back to your site or blog.
Anchor text
A while ago when people recognized that you could rank much higher if your link your anchor text i.e <link>Free Singles Dating</link> for a Dating Blog these people then began to “build links” with the same anchor text again and again everywhere. Normal users do not always link with the relevant anchor text and definitely not with exactly the same anchor text everywhere on the web. Google adapted to this by not taking into account anchor text that is obviously SEOed.
Hidden Counter links
Several free counter sites even now force their users to add not just invisible links to their homepage but also to almost totally irrelevant third party websites. This is a completely stupid model these days and will not last for long. In the Web 2.0 there have appeared thousands of widgets that are made for blogs and websites though – and these are generally using the method in a legitimate way. They do offer some basic info in a widget and then add more of it after the user clicks on a link. This will still work.
Link building or getting links
The notion of link-building has always had a fundamental presumption of links that are artificially created or built. Or else it might be known as getting links or some thing completely different, but building suggests an active participation of SEO and real inserting links by hand somewhere. In comparison techniques such as link baiting and several other typical methods these days depend on additional means than absolute building to get links in a natural and organic way. Built links is always going to be subject to a search engine’s QA team’s analysis. Entirely organic links simply cannot be just filtered out like that.
Forum on your site
Have you considered adding a web forum to your website? If you have, now is the time to think again. Forums are very problem oriented where people go to these forums to solve a particular problem they are facing and the people that are using them are often very aggressive. On the other hand Social communities add a lot more enhancement to a site. Adding content that is based on popularity which makes it good content is a lot better. It seems that as you grow in popularity you start to face these problems with communities but it’s not a wide spread inherent problem like with forums.
Outstanding Frontpage/Landing Page Design
A cool homepage counts, but not just by itself – A clean and very focused landing page as well as working and usable check out forms for website visitors to complete an action (like a purchase or a sign up etc.) workds
Most of the issues mentioned above mentioned are issues that experts will agree upon and some of them are still debatable but nevertheless you will have to face them and decide whether you want to stay with the old ways or adapt to the new environment of the web.
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2 comments
Really? You’re discounting anchor text? Which is easily the most proven ranking metric to build keyword relevance for a targeted term?
Yes – the anchor text trick has been abused too much and now Google has gotten smarter about this. Anchor Texting still works but it should be backed up by a good content driven website.
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