Top 5 SEO Techniques That Will Hurt Your Business

This is a guest contribution by Greg Whelan of RankExperts.

The use of SEO has been on the rise for a long time, especially for people who venture in online business. However, while SEO is considered a core tool in enhancing online businesses, the same trend can trigger adverse effects if not implemented in the right way. There are certain limits that you must observe when employing SEO for your business – in other words, SEO for business should never be used blindly.

A great number of online businesses are established each day with most of them turning futile while others respond slowly. Note that some of these businesses make use of SEO strategies and still end up disappointing the founders. This implies that SEO should be used in a strategic and wise manner. It is the only way you will be in a position to make your business yield high returns.

To ensure that SEO works ideally for your business, certain techniques must be avoided. There are strategies which have been confirmed to be really alarming for online businesses hence the need to understand and avoid them now and in the long run. Below is a crackdown on five key SEO strategies which must be avoided for best gains in your business:

1. Purchase of Links

This happens to be one of the most profound habits among people who venture in online business. The good thing is that the trend has worked perfectly for most people in the past. However, the benefits attached to purchasing of links may be cut short in the long run.

It has been revealed that search engines are in the move to eradicate the trend of using purchased links in websites. Google for instance is working tooth and nail to ensure that the trend is stopped completely. It will surprise you to know that Google and other search engine companies have a great team of workers whose sole obligation is to trace purchased links and flag them. This implies that people who are used to buying links for their websites may get hurt in the near future after the fight against the link purchase is fully implemented.

At times, even the untrained eye can detect purchased links in any content. Some patterns formed by a set of links may not make sense at all hence they create suspicion. In addition, you might come across a set of unrelated links which do not even tally with the content in question. This is a pretty clear indication that the links are purchased. The bottom line is that search engine teams will easily know if you have used purchased links or not.

2. Focus on Quantity of Links Rather Than Quality

While use of a huge number of backlinks is considered a perfect SEO strategy, the same can go a long way in ruining your online business. One of the worst mistakes that people make is placing their focus on incorporating a bunch of links in their websites not knowing that quality overrules quantity.

Link building is pretty simple since most people consider it so. Actually, it might not take you long to have a lot of links built for your site. However, most people fail to consider the quality of links they get. Instead, they get excited with the number and forget the quality.

Any link created should be authoritative and attractive to ensure that surfers follow it without a second thought. It is always advised that you refrain from links which are characterized by low DA. This is one of the core recipes behind failure in online business.

3. Keyword Stuffing

For a long time, the threat behind keyword stuffing has been emphasized. It has been confirmed that use of many keywords in website content may trigger adverse effects to your business in terms of ranking. The sad part of it is that most people tend not to drop the practice of stuffing keywords in their content.

Keyword stuffing might have been working perfectly in the past couple of years but it no longer does these days. If you must elevate your business with the help of keywords, then optimization is paramount. You must focus on reaching the recommended density of keywords in your content and avoid stretching further. In most cases, keywords are expected to hit 2% density and nothing more.

Instead of using a lot of keywords in your website, it will work best if you focused on creating quality content. If keywords must be used, the appropriate application and fitting is necessary. The keywords must also be in context to ensure natural flow.

4. Use of Duplicate Content

This is one of the most dangerous SEO strategies that any online businessperson can implement. In most cases, businesses with more than one site tend to recycle their content. You might come across similar articles in different sites. It is also possible to follow a certain link and find similar content from that of the mother website.

If you have the tendency of implementing duplicate content, then your online business is possibly not doing so well. It is important to note that search engines are always on the lookout for unoriginal content, regardless of whether or not the site is owned by one person. Normally, search engines do not rank two copies of similar content. In fact, a penalty may result from using duplicate content. This means that the mission of elevating your online business won’t work.

5. Relying on Backlinks Alone

If you have the perception that use of backlinks is the only avenue towards achieving best ranking, then that is not so at all. There are other tools that must be employed to ensure best SEO for your business website. A lot of people have the delusion that many links in a website will remarkably boost traffic which in return elevates the ranking in search engines.

On the contrary, you must team up a number of SEO strategies and techniques for great results to be achieved. Depending on back-links alone will only boost SEO to some extent but not completely. You must ensure that the use of backlinks is balanced with other suites in the SEO sphere. Content marketing, use of social media, as well as onsite optimization can work as a perfect SEO blend.

The five strategies highlighted above are actually things that can be easily snubbed yet with very drastic and adverse effects in the end. They techniques must therefore be avoided at all costs since it is the only way you can move your business to a better level.

The RankExpert’s  Head of Marketing Greg Whelan holds a degree from the University of Austin’s Mccomb School of Business and a MBA in Marketing. With his unique insights into the world of digital marketing, Greg oversees strategic planning for large to enterprise-sized companies.