Top 10 Outdated SEO Strategies You Must Stop Today

1. Top 10 Outdated SEO Strategies You Must Stop Today I can proudly say that i have never been responsible for a website that has been punished with panda or penguin since I started my SEO career. Nonetheless, I have seen my fair share of the disruptions these updates have caused, largely by other people who experience unmapped traffic drops. Most either do not know what is happening or don’t have an idea on how to fix the issue. Truth is, what surprises me is the level at which these scenarios play out. Nonetheless, each time this has happened, it has boiled down to someone either using outdated SEO strategies or negative SEO tactics. These tactics, while quite popular, haven’t been the best, or, are generally outdated. This, I have discovered, is the crux of the entire situation.

2. Below are some of the 10 oldest, outdated SEO techniques I have seen recently and how you can, basically do SEO better. 1. Article Submissions If the likes of Ezine articles come out of your lips each time you think about SEO, then its high time I stopped you right in your tracks. Even during pre-panda times, investing in this strategy wasn’t the best use of your time as a SEO. This was simply one of the easiest, quickest ways to get some links to a website that has certainly grown old. You need to get this in your mind: Link building as an SEO strategy is not easy; it certainly takes a lot of time and effort to achieve, just like all the other things that come with optimisation. Rather than chase cheap back links for your website, why not consider building with specific bloggers while creating guest blogs that truly add value? Not only will this give you some back links, but it will also expose you to an audience that truly adds value to a brand. 2. Press Releases Without News This is what I got from a conversation last week: “Since free article submissions no longer work and might be harmful, should I consider a few press releases instead?” -“Do you have anything you consider newsworthy?” “Well, I don’t think I have anything newsworthy, but you see, I need to get my brand name out there. This would be an amazing way to do it while getting a few links from popular news websites. I am thinking abut doing it for 2 months.” –“No. Just. No.” Here is what you should know, according to some research done recently, there were an estimated 23 million small businesses in the US by 2010, which means just because you exist doesn’t make it special or newsworthy! If you ask any reasonable PR expert, they will tell you for free that there is more to PR than sending out random press releases. According to a research done by a PR agency: PR is about communications between companies and their stakeholders.

3. This one sounds like link building, right? Truth is, simply sending out press releases for the sake of getting back links isn’t going to take you or your clients so far. You’ll probably end up wasting more time, just as you would in situations where you used article submissions. Its however, important to understand that I am not entirely against getting news links; do something newsworthy and good. While helping someone with it, you will be in a condition to not only help someone but also earn something for yourself too. 3. Reciprocal backlinks It is no longer 2004! Link exchanges used to work as a way of sharing links and earning some trust for your website. I can tell you for a fact that, a link exchange is one of the easily detectable negative SEO strategies you can ever use. Look at it this way; a back link is an endorsement of sorts. Adding a link that doesn’t help any of your visitors is downright bad in the eyes of Google. If someone has written good content *hint* link back to them and vice versa. 4. Using Thin Content Pages I get it that bad habits diet hard. This negative SEO strategy simply refuses to give way. Folks, it is time to move on! You already know that creating good content will not only drive traffic to your website, but also earn you some back links. Here are a few good questions you should probably ask yourself when creating content for your website: – Do you outsource your content creation? If so, who writes for you? Is your writer the most qualified person for the job? Will they create link worthy content? – Who are you writing for? Why are you writing for them? The debate of either writing for the sake of search engines boils down to thinking about the mutual exclusivity of these two. – Do you feel like there you have completely exhausted content creation in your topic? At the end of the day, there can only be enough things to say about something. If you find yourself thinking this way, you are probably doing the wrong things. Also keep in mind the fact that, if you can’t get over whatever con ten you create what makes you think that others will not only stand it, but also link to it?

4. 5. Automating Your Link Building I will take my time before i dive into this topic. Automation seems to be the rage everywhere on social media these days. Truth is, tools should help you not only streamline your strategies, but also help you disseminate and balance your campaigns. With that being said, you should learn your tools, and use them wisely. Social media (together with your blog) is a way to build relationships. It can help you keep customers and open doors in future. Tools are for people/brand who know how important the process of conversation is, but don’t want to do it. These companies claim to be social but do not want to go the extra mile to talk with their customers. Truth is, even with your set of tools, you’re not fooling anyone. Social media needs to create a voice for your company. If you want to confirm just how important it is, try going mute for sometime! 6. Disregarding Social Signals Most websites/blogs now have social media buttons that link to their social profiles and whatnot. Unfortunately, very few companies are taking their time to know what these signals do, or why they are event important. To let you understand this; I will quote Larry Page, as an example. During a recent earnings briefing, here is what he was asked: “If you think of the future of Internet search three or four years out, how important will the social signal be and how important (will) personalization be?” He answered with analogy he might use to find someone who shares a name like his. This is what he said: “For the first time, the search box isn’t really searching a string…it’s actually searching for that person that I know. Having real feedback from users…is very useful for search…we have a lot of those signals already, but we can always use more…we can always use better relevance and we can always use more data to generate that.”

5. 7. Implementing SEO Tactics Without A Strategy From what I have stated from #1 to #6, they all fit into this point. However, I felt that this point deserves its own setting. Why? Because I have noticed a pattern where old patterns, despite ageing are still being used by so many in the field of SEO. This also explains why so many people fail at marketing overall. I don’t know how to stress this point enough: you have to plan out your SEO strategy and plan. Test. Test. Rinse and repeat. 8. Focusing On Rankings Only I recently received an SEO report from an SEO company. This report had more than 30 pages of tracked keywords over a period of not less than 5 years. I asked how these rankings, traffic and analytics related because the client had a problem with how many sales he was receiving. The SEO wondered that he didn’t know whether the client website had analytics or not! He also echoed that the clients have always liked the ranking reports and asked for nothing else. I know that ranking report could be alluring to you. However, how does the client rank help with their bottom line? SEO professionals need to steer clear of these assumptions. You have to get away from the old way of thinking and instead, adopt new meaningful ways to measure actions for a business. If you do not, you’re taking the easy route out of things, and failing to provide any real value to the client. By removing focus from simply getting rankings, you will not only help yourself become a better professional, but also help the client grow. 9. Depending on Google Only You might not notice it, but sometimes, things amply don’t work out or happen and you have no way of controlling them. You need to do this; go and look at your traffic statistics from Google Analytics. How does organic traffic rally with the total?

6. Even you do not put your retirement savings in a single stock; why do the same for your SEO career? You shouldn’t risk by putting all your eggs in one basket. It helps to create diverse traffic portfolios for your website. Although this resonates more when you run a travel business, I believe anyone who is interested in marketing needs to read this: getting serious about inbound marketing. 10. Leaving out Design I have one final bone to pick with a lot of SEOs. Most of them don’t even think about it when it comes to doing SEO in a practical environment yet this is very important. I am tired of defending this fact. Do you know the website you have? Did you help to design it? Oh, I see what you did to the menu! That’s Flash, right? Your website basically says a lot about you even when you refuse to admit it. It also says a lot about your brand. I also know a lot of people who pay a lot of money to get a website for their businesses. This is regardless of whether the website looks ugly, user unfriendly and search engine unfriendly. Unfortunately, this has been happening since the beginning of the internet. The next time you want to get a website for your website, don’t buy into anything that comes to you. Shop around for a designer. However, guide your designer to ensure that they create something great for you. At the same time, do not forget to hire the right SEO. The role of the SEO will be to work with the designer to ensure that you have a website that not only works for your business, but also for the search engines.