Outdated SEO Practices to Avoid

Are you still using outdated SEO practices? In today’s digital world, if you remain stagnant, you are only going to get left behind.
You need to stay up to date with all of the latest marketing tactics and techniques so you can make sure your business remains visible online and stands out against the competition. Below, we will reveal some of the most outdated SEO practices that need to be avoided…
Deprioritising website functionality and design – A lot of business owners make the mistake of assuming that search engine optimisation only has to do with keyword and link placement, but this could not be further from the truth.
Google and other leading search engines are placing more and more emphasis on user experience. If your web pages do not load quickly and/or your website is not intuitive and easy to use, your ranking is going to suffer.
Keyword stuffing – This is one of the most outdated SEO practices, but it is surprising how many people still follow it. Yes, you should incorporate keywords into your content, but they need to be natural.
You can read this online advertising guide for more information about choosing keywords, as well as details on all of the advertising mediums that are available to you today.
Prioritising quantity over quality – Several years ago, the best way to gain traction on Google seemed to be by rehashing as much content as possible and stuffing it with as many keywords as possible.
Nevertheless, Google got wise to this. They adjusted their algorithm to weed out content that was not original and had simply been taken from somewhere else on the web.
Rather than worrying about how many blog posts and so on you have on your website, worry about the quality of them. This is always the most important factor.
Adding white text to your website – A lot of people add white text to their website – i.e. text that cannot be viewed but has the purpose of adding keywords to the website discreetly in order to boost search engine ranking.
This will actually hurt your ranking because it is known as a black hat technique. A black hat SEO technique is one that does not operate within Google’s parameters, and, therefore, it is a way to cheat the search engine.
As soon as your website is flagged, which it will be, your ranking will reduce dramatically.
Poor quality links – This relates to the former point regarding the importance of choosing quality over quantity. The same applies when it comes to link building.
You need to make sure all links come from authority websites that are relevant to your business. Look for companies and blogs in your industry that are not direct competition.
If you are currently still deploying one or several of the tactics that have been mentioned above, it is important to change your approach sooner rather than later.
Every day you continue with these outdated SEO practices is another day you are putting yourself at risk of being punished by Google and your ranking slipping dramatically.