Top 10 SEO Techniques That You Should Stop Using

Search Engine Optimization is all about presenting your website in a way to get it ranked higher on search engine results. Google has released a number of updates that has rendered various SEO techniques completely useless. Also, they can penalize the website and get it removed from Google completely.



Here, we talk about WHAT NOT TO DO.

STOP using these techniques immediately to rank high on Google search results.

1. Keyword Stuffing
It is a common practice to insert as many keywords as possible into articles. But, this can bring penalty by Google. Keyword stuffing sounds unprofessional. The most important thing is not how many times keywords occur. You should add more content, the more the number of pages, the more pages will be indexed. Just focus on creating good quality content for your readers. It’s not just about the quantity, quality matters!

2. Invisible/ Hidden Text:
Hidden content comes in several forms but the basic principle is that within the code of the site, there is keyword stuffed content not visible to the end user. Content can also be hidden by using CSS, such as colored text on same colored background. For example, if you write a few lines loaded with keywords and make the text color same as your background, it won’t be visible to the visitor. This hidden content will not be visible to visitors, but only to search engines. If detected, it could mean penalize or ban of your website.

3. Gateway Pages
Gateway or doorway page is a page that is created to make search engine index it and normal visitors are not able to see it. Cloaking is a form of doorway technique. Don’t try this as you’ll find yourself getting caught up in the web of bad practices.

4. Fake Reviews
This is a very common technique used by businesses having bad ratings or reviews from the real customers. This includes buying or creating fake positive testimonials or reviews at Yelp, Yahoo local search, YellowBook.com and others.

5. Paid Links
Paid links can results in more harm, than the benefits you would think of. Google clearly states that buying or selling links is a violation of its Webmaster Guidelines. Doing so can result in getting your site being penalized.



6. Spam Blogs
Guest blogging has been a pillar of content strategists for a long time. Recently, Matt Cutts comes out with an announcement,” If you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop.” Google will crack down guest post links that are irrelevant to the site’s theme.

7. Duplicate Sites
Running duplicate sites comes with a great risk of getting penalized from search engines.

8. Meta Keywords
Meta keywords have been misused in the past to get a site rank high in the search engine results. It’s just a short list of word to inform the main focus of the page.

9. Hiding Keywords In “Alt” Attributes Of Images
Every image needs a text description that is used by search engines in their algorithms. If your images are just repeating your keywords, STOP doing it. This technique when spotted by search engines can result in lower rankings.

10. Other techniques
There are many other black hat SEO techniques, most of them are technical and involve presenting data in a different way to search engines than to visitors. Above given are few examples which you might have not realized would count against you.

Conclusion

SEO isn’t about the tricks and techniques recently used. It is a long-term strategy that considers several relevant factors into account for getting desired results.
What strategies or techniques you have applied that helped or harm your website? Share with us.