There isn’t any doubt that proper SEO practices can lead to exceptional business conversion rates. This is because it will guarantee ideal web traffic, and in turn improve your business rankings on the search engines.
This means that when your clients choose to search for your product or any related product for that matter, your name will easily pop up. And when this happens you will fall within their main considerations to buy from.
It’s really awesome what proper SEO tactics can do for a well optimized website. I say this because I’ve been around this line of trade for a long time, as a trained professional, freelancer, entrepreneur, and consultant.
Yet in these Five Years that I have chosen to help small businesses to improve their SEO tactics, I have even come to achieve more. Whether in terms of experience, knowledge, tactics, and SEO dynamics I can’t really get to quantify everything that I have amassed.
But is every SEO practice really ideal for business? Or are there others that could be suicidal for a rather great business venture?
Well that is what I want to talk about today, the bad SEO practices that your business needs to avoid. SEO strategies that are unethical, outdated, or beyond the boundaries of search engine guidelines.
1. Keyword Overuse
In one of my previous posts I talked about How to Do Keyword Research That Works, where I stressed on the following points among others.
- The need to identify your business goals.
- The importance of knowing your target audience and their common psychology.
- Listing known keywords and equal competitors.
And if you remember well I even talked about the need to use ideal keyword research tools to get additional data.
The reason why I did all these was to ensure that in your endeavor to create a well optimized website, you didn’t fall victim to keyword stuffing, usually the overuse of ideal keywords in your website.
You may not know it but when you choose to do this, it will not only discourage your visitors from interacting, but will also signal the search engines that you are intending to manipulate their algorithms.
Tip: So don’t just mention the same keyword over and over again. But rather do it because you intend to optimize your website. And also use them appropriately so that they sound natural.
2. Reproduction of Content
The next suicidal SEO practice is usually the reproduction of content. Content is the write up that you choose to post on your website.
It can be your product’s description or the reasons that set you aside from your competitors. It can also be the information you intend to pass over to your target and which they will consume to understand your objectives better.
Content will depend on what you need to achieve, whether you want to increase your readership, subscription, consumption, or sales.
And why is it a bad SEO practice to reproduce anyone’s content? Search Engines provide what we call page indexing.
Depending on the uniqueness of your content the search engines will choose to index / rate your page or not. Here is how it is done.
If you have a unique and original content that search engines do not have in their database it means that you have something new to offer and therefore they will rush to it.
But if you bring the same content that they already have in their index, there isn’t any fresh, unique, or enticing reason as to why they should rush for you.
So keep your content unique and original. Do not lift other websites’ content and in turn publish them on your own since this is also poor for indexing and also amounts to plagiarism.
3. Spammy Guest Posts
In search of practical SEO techniques, many businesses have turned to guest blogging in order to build their links. And this has really proved to be quite useful.
Today guest blogging has become the chief cornerstone for content strategists and ideal SEO practices but only if done properly.
But what happens when this noble act gets spammy? It forms another pillar in the failed dynasty of ideal SEO practices. Unfortunately for us some businesses have turned into this for the sake of getting backlinks.
- The use of optimized anchors
- Long tail keywords in guest posts.
- Use of irrelevant content in guest posts.
- And writing low quality content.
This will destroy the credibility of your business either ways, whether you are the host of the spammy post, or the writer.
Search engines will crack down on such irrelevant guest posts, impose on you tight penalties, and finally lock you out of their SEO algorithms.
So before posting other writers content on your website ensure that it is original, relevant, and useful for your theme not one that is brought for the sake of getting a backlink.
4. Buying Links to Rank Easy
Again another bad SEO practice that will eventually destroy your business is the use of paid up links.
And while purchasing backlinks will look easy, cheap, and a quick way to rank, my advice to you is watch out for the SEO agencies that will entice you with a bunch of direct links for any given price.
They could be destroying you without your knowledge more so if the site that links is penalized, or has a low DA.
Successful link building takes time its value depends on the authority and validity of the site sending the links and not on paid up shortcuts that will eventually lose your rankings.
5. Use of Invisible Texts
This one involves hiding the real destination of a link and instead showing a different page to the web crawlers or even users.
It is also known us cloaking and was a very rampant practice in the past. Today this would be quite detrimental to your ideal SEO practice.
It kills the morale and the trust of the user and in turn destroys your credibility. So to remain safe, just keep one version of a page for the search engine crawlers and the users.
But above all ensure that uses can easily differentiate between your website content and ads. And if your page is visible without scrolling, don’t include so many ads on it. It’s a complete turnoff!
Nothing is more beneficial for any business today than following the good SEO practices for both the search engine algorithms and your users. But if you still find it tough to cut, I will be glad to offer my services and give you an incredible SEO design.