The world of SEO is constantly changing, and employing methods that were once tried and tested can now cause your business and its reputation to quickly spiral down the search rankings. Here are 4 SEO tactics to avoid in 2016.
1: Keyword stuffing
Yes, keywords are important, and they play an important role in helping potential customers find your business. But keywords need not be used more than a few times. On the contrary, not only do too many keywords make your content look rather awkward to your readers, but Google tends to mark your page down for it.
2: Low quality backlinking
If an authoritative site (think Wikipedia, prominent Universities, Government sites etc) is linking to your site, your page rank can increase. But that is simply not the case with low-quality sites, especially masses of them, linking to your site. Google penalizes sites that employ such tactics. Backlinks can be extremely valuable but it needs to a proper backlinking strategy to ensure your link profile grows in a steady, logical manner. A large number of low quality links to your site raises a red flag for Google.
3: Duplicate content
If you have an amazingly written blog post, you may be tempted to try utilizing its worth more than once. Granted, you may put it through a content spinner, or even change some words manually, but trying to outsmart Google is not a good idea. Google is getting smarter and smarter, and will demote duplicate content.
4: Fake reviews
The last, but not least, search strategy to stay far away from is to set up fake reviews. Companies are sometimes tempted to pay someone five bucks to write a positive review on Amazon or somewhere else, but these review sites are constantly on the lookout for fake reviews, and if discovered, that can seriously damage your reputation. A better idea would be to offer your existing customers an incentive for them to leave positive, but real reviews on review sites.
In our experience, search engine optimisation is still the number one source of quality website traffic for most businesses. Nonetheless, it needs to be treated professionally to achieve the desired results. Sticky are part of a global group of SEO experts who are dedicated to providing excellent search traffic for their customers. Look at these recent case studies for examples and feel free to contact us if you’re ready to grow your business.