SEO is a constantly evolving, fluid form of marketing, so SEO methods that may have previously worked or were effective may not be as impactful in the present.
By Karen Evans
So, as a marketer or online business owner, you need to be on top of the latest SEO trends and tactics. Otherwise, you can end up wasting valuable time on practices that aren’t worthwhile. We discuss 4 such practices below:
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Having an Exact-Match Domain
Gone are the days when employing your target keywords in your domain actually impacted your SEO. For example, a business that sells trampolines in Queens, NY, may have previously experienced success with a domain like “www.trampolinequeensny.com.” However, this tactic isn’t actually very effective.
In fact, such domains are disliked because they can be interpreted as shady; plus, they’re a mouthful. To avoid turning visitors away from your website, try using a domain name with your brand, and use keywords that fit the content of your website. This will make your website more likely to show up on SERPs.
2. Avoid Using Meta-Keywords
There is a lot more to SEO than just finding the best keywords to use in the content. However, don’t be tricked into using meta-keywords to improve your chances of being picked up by search engines. Meta-keywords are bits of information that can be attached to the content of your website that isn’t visible to the visitors.
The use of meta-keywords to boost SEO started in 1995. Since then, it has been widely abused, and so, search engines responded by removing them from their ranking algorithms. Therefore, you shouldn’t waste your time on meta-keywords, as they have no impact on your website’s SEO. Instead, focus on the meta description and title tags, which are actually effective.
3. Comment Spamming
If you have a blog, then you are probably already aware of comment spamming. This phenomenon happens when online businesses go to random blogs and comment with links to their own website. This is in hopes of link building and garnering some traffic from the blog where the comment was left.
However, while this tactic may sound good on paper, it doesn’t really work. Firstly, there are plugins that prevent such comments. Also, even if you manage to post a comment, readers will dislike your post since it won’t be contributing anything beneficial; as such, they’ll be deterred from clicking through to your website.
The smarter way to link building is to add value with your comment. Don’t just copy and paste your website link, but contribute to the conversation with valuable information, and the customers will be prompted to click through. Also, your comment won’t be deleted by the blog owner or plugin.
4. Overpopulating Your Website With Web Pages
You might think that more pages on your website equal more opportunities to use target keywords. This might be true, but overpopulating your website with pages just to use keywords isn’t an effective tactic. Rather, it makes your website quite difficult for users to navigate; and since user navigation and UX are important factors search engines’ ranking algorithms, spamming pages doesn’t bode well for your website. It also leads to irrelevant keywords and keyword stuffing, which can do more harm than good for your SEO.
Instead, keep your content relevant and don’t overpopulate your website with irrelevant pages. For example, you can create separate pages for your main services, but it isn’t necessary to break them down further, just to create more opportunities to use target keywords.
Conclusion
In order to have an effective SEO plan, you need to be aware of the latest trends within SEO. Otherwise, you will continue to use practices that aren’t really effective. Which will leave you wondering why all your SEO efforts are going to waste with little to no change in your website ranking.
Sources:
https://backlinko.com/keyword-research-tools
https://yoast.com/meta-keywords/
Karen Evans is a former college student who, after making real money learning how to build and scale niche blogs, decided to go full time and hasn’t looked back since. After seeing so many people waste time and money trying to learn how to create websites that make money she decided to create the ever-popular https://startbloggingonline.com/.
Stock image by thodonal88/Shutterstock
