The world of SEO is so dynamic that you’d see so many competing ideologies. You might hear some people rave about a particular strategy, but you’d also hear others going so far as to say that the same strategy is outdated. This isn’t all that bad because it inspires you to experiment on your own and see what works for you. With that said, you should still steer clear of certain SEO tactics that, for some reason, continue to be popular even if they no longer work.
1. Adding keywords in meta tags
You probably know the dangers of keyword stuffing. Since releasing the Panda update, Google has been on the lookout for websites that attempt to cheat the algorithms. Overusing keywords is almost a surefire way of getting your website penalized. Not to mention, nobody would find your content enjoyable to read. Extra caution must be observed when adding keywords meta tags including page titles, meta descriptions, and within your content.
2. Buying paid links
Google frowns upon any blatant attempt to acquire links unnaturally. This includes buying paid links. You’ll see plenty of service providers that sell links at attractive prices. But do they work? Not really. This applies in particular to link building service providers that only provide low-quality links such as blog comments, profile links, and links from web 2.0 sites. If you are interested about SEO, click here for more indepth material.
3. Spinning content
Many SEOs are downright lazy. They take shortcuts wherever possible. And since content creation is one of the most time-consuming tasks in SEO, it’s common practice for them to use spun content. Spinners continue to sell like crazy, but you wouldn’t want any kind of spun content published on your site. You don’t have to be an expert to realize how bad it is for your site’s ranking and overall reputation.
4. Measuring keyword difficulty using competition level on AdWords
If you still look at the competition level indicated on AdWords to measure how difficult it is to rank for keywords, then you’re living in the past. This refers to the competition between advertisers. If you want to measure the actual keyword difficulty, you need to look at the results on the first page and check their backlinks and content.