Let’s take it back 7 years to 2011 where SEO manipulation is at its peak. Companies around the country were using ‘Black Hat’ SEO tactics to get the best results possible. As we jump back to the last few years black hat SEO has not only taken a back seat to real SEO services but it has pretty much been wiped out of all professional minds. That being said, don’t think that they’re not a few people out there that still try and get away with black hat SEO tactics. In this article, I will be discussing 5 terrible SEO tactics that you need to make sure your business is NOT using, and if you hire an SEO agency you need to question whether they’re doing the below or not.
Let’s begin…
The first awful SEO tactic that you need to 100% avoid is keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing is exactly what it says on the tin, stuffing as many keywords possible into a piece of content to try and improve the rankings for your website. It was once thought that the more keywords you could force into a piece of content the better it would be for your website. Now we’re in 2018 this is a tactic that you must avoid at all costs! The moment Google and other Search Engines get a sniff that you’re keyword stuffing you risk your websites current and future status.
The next tactic which was often used was to hide text and link within your webpages. Making content match the background colour was a tactic again used to manipulate the different Search Engines without affecting the actual content on a webpage. 9 times out of 10 it was keywords again which would be used as hidden text. If you ever have content on your website which you’re trying to hide or don’t want people to see you need to remove this straightaway. It should never be the case that you’re trying to hide content from your website visitors. The content on your website should be your focus point and you want to make this as high quality as it can possibly be.
You need to make sure that the content on your website is 100% unique and is not duplicated anywhere else on the web. It was a common method to have ‘mini’ websites created which all copied the content from your main website, the reason for this was to get as many websites ranking as possible for the same keyword. Now you never want to duplicate your content and you certainly don’t want to have any mini websites which have the same content. You need to focus on making the content on your website the best quality it can be and really talk to your visitors. The more information you can offer within your content the better chance it will have for ranking across the different Search Engines.
Buying links for your website was again a common method used to manipulate the different Search Engines to have even more backlinks pointed to your website. Buying links that point back to your website is now frowned upon and your website should only be getting natural backlinks to your main website. If a company ever approaches you and offers you a range of backlinks for a set fee always reject this offer! It’s normally the case that the backlinks which are brought also carry with them toxic link juices which will forever continue to harm your website.
Back in 2011, all people wanted was to be top of Google for every keyword possible, even keywords which weren’t related to their business at all! It would be the case that people would cram as many keywords as possible throughout their website in order to rank for as many search phrases as possible. These would normally have nothing at all to do with the websites services or products, so, for example, a plumber company would have keywords including certain make of trainers, electronics and other non-related keywords. Now everyone knows that you need to go for keywords that will actually not only bring website traffic in but will also bring potential customers in. The relevant and specific you can make your targeted keywords the better this will be for your website and business.
Now we’re in 2018 it’s all about the quality of your content and who you are targeting it at. SEO was the main form of marketing back in 2011 but now they’re so many other roads you can go down to get results for your business. We have Pay Per Click Advertising, Social Media Marketing, Email Marketing, Content Marketing, Inbound Marketing and of course SEO Marketing just to name a few! To get the best results possible for your business you need to use as many marketing methods as possible, but making sure a professional agency is running these. Of course, you’re able to run any form of marketing in-house but this often leads to missing key elements and can lead to overspending. Get in touch with us today to speak to one of our experts on how we can help you and your business.