Not every SEO strategy produces beneficial results. Though professionals may not realize it, certain SEO tactics can actually harm their website’s performance and ranking on search engines. These bad SEO practices may seem like easy ways to skirt the system or cut corners, but in reality, they’re more trouble than they’re worth. Today we’ll explore the dark side of SEO and highlight five decisions that could cost your business:
SEO Mistakes
There’s a difference between implementing a black-hat SEO strategy and making a few honest mistakes. Yet, at the end of the day, mistakes will hamper your website’s capabilities. As such, forgetting to write meta descriptions, not optimizing images, not fixing broken pages, and slow page-load times can all contribute to a dip in SEO performance. On-site SEO requires lots of maintenance, and it’s important not to take any of these issues for granted.
Clickbait Keywords
Recently, many businesses have begun utilizing long-tail keywords to generate blog traffic. And while there’s nothing wrong with optimizing pages for long-tail keywords that apply to your business or industry, it’s unwise to go after long-tail keywords that don’t pertain to your products or services. Remember, the goal of SEO isn’t to garner as many clicks as possible, but to draw in interested leads and provide quality content for them. Which leads us to our next point . . .
Meager Content
There’s no “optimal” length for any given blog post, but research certainly suggests that in-depth posts stand a much better chance at ranking for search terms on page one than posts under three hundred words. That’s not surprising considering that the more compelling and rich your content is, the more human visitors will find it helpful and interesting. That will not only yield low bounce rates, but it could also help you gain quality backlinks as well. Short blog posts that don’t properly address an issue –– especially those stuffed with keywords –– aren’t friendly to consumers or search engines.
Plagiarism
Also known as creating “duplicate content” this is simply one of the worst things you can do in terms of SEO. Not only is it immoral (and illegal) to claim someone else’s work as your own, but Google and other search engines are sophisticated enough at this point to “punish” plagiarised content by decreasing page ranking.
Improper Linking
There are a myriad of ways that link-building can go wrong. From attempting to hide links to spamming comment sections with links, to creating or accepting low-grade content for links –– it’s fairly easy for an inexperienced team to go astray in this matter. As important as backlinks remain, it’s essential to understand how search engines operate before you attempt to develop a linking strategy.
Final Thoughts
As we mentioned above, some businesses accidentally implement bad SEO practices without even realizing it. The good news is, SEO is fluid, and you can improve it with proper planning and hard work. At Agile & co., we know how to boost your website in positive, meaningful ways. Contact our team to get started today! Plus, for more information on how you can use SEO to your advantage, check out our free eBook here:
