SEO Mistakes We Still Do In 2016
Why it is important to optimize the site for SEO without any mistakes, and what would happen if one did not? Well, needless to say, the site’s performance in search results will dip and in some cases, the ranking can down to an alarmingly low level. One just can’t make SEO mistakes else the overall performance of the business might get a huge hit.
It means one has to first understand SEO and it methods fully before using it to gain optimization results. After all, without understanding optimization fully, it would not be possible to implement its practices and get desired results. It’s also important to be constant updated with latest trends and happenings in the SEO industry to minimize any chances of mistakes.
Let’s look at SEO mistakes that even experts continue to make in 2016:
Using old techniques for keyword identification
A good number of experts continue to cling on to old techniques to identify keywords. They should rather understand the futility of revisiting the past as in SEO, only the latest matters. Trends and popularity of keywords tend to be extremely fickle, and the matter is further exacerbated by routine changes to algorithms. All this leads to sudden and constant changes in search terms and keywords. So, stop using old techniques and rather gauge the on-going trends and try sticking to only those keywords and topics that are relevant to the time and industry.
Trusting suspicious and risky backlinks
Why would a website ever try to get dodgy backlinks knowing the harms attached with it? A great backlink is critical to SEO success and it lends authority to the site. On the other hand, a spammy backlink or any kind of association with shady sites can mar SEO prospects in a huge way. Despite knowing all this, a good number of marketers still trust free and paid directory sites. One should try listing on only industry-specific, relevant and respected directories.
Benefiting from link farming
Link farming begets bad backlinks and one should stay away from it. Link farms should never be used to boost the link popularity of your site as their link exchanges carry risks. You should say a big No to the act of seeking links from low-quality sites or unrelated sites. Rather, you should seek quality to boost visibility in the SERPs. After all, sites that lack quality can never add quality to you.
Resorting to cloaking
Some experts still resort to the bad practice of cloaking to gain SEO benefits. In this, they try to mislead search engine bots by showing them an entirely different thing than what they do to users. Cloaking is a practice that can land your site in big trouble (rank wise), if caught by search engines. So, never try to deceive search engines, else you might have to lose a lot in the process.
Overlooking broken links
Many a time, experts don’t bother about broken links in the same way as they do about other factors. Every page of the website should be checked to assess whether all the links are working fine or not. If a link is not working properly, get it removed immediately to help readers get a good experience. Your website should be a source of good user-experience and if it fails to do that, it will fail to gain SEO benefits in the desired manner.
Avoiding content quality
A website should have a solid strategy for content. The content should be original and free from any plagiarism issue. Only original content should be posted on the site and regular updates are important. More so, keyword stuffing should be avoided as this strategy no longer works. Posting fresh content with long tail keyword/s will help. Above all, content quality should be improved. It means the content should be engaging, informative and interactive to keep users / readers hooked for long.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, a website has to take a lot of care about its optimization efforts to gain desired results from SEO. The purpose should be to hire only the best SEO service, or to consult only experts and get devised a robust optimization strategy for the website. With experts around to help, your website will surely get great organic traffic to realize its goals.