How to avoid doing bad SEO - 6 bad practices

Cristian Level X³

February 18, 2018, 1:28 pm

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It is 2018 and some SEO specialists out there still apply old and unbeneficial techniques, worst yet there are plenty outdated pieces of content out there urging newcomers in the SEO world to implement lousy SEO practices.

How to avoid doing bad SEO - 6 bad practices

This is why, at least on my personal blog, I always come back and update SEO articles because I hate knowing people research for a specific SEO problem and finding old solutions.

Either way here are the most common and dangerous SEO bad practices you should avoid at all costs in 2018:

1. Having a page for every single variation of keywords

This is quite an old practices, and I believe at one point it used to work, more like 14 years ago. Trying to rank for every single variation of keywords for a particular topic.
For example, having different pages for every variation of a targeted keyword: blue shirts, blue shirt, blue shirts for men, etc.

In reality, you should have a single page targeting an entire subject and a range of keywords, not just one keyword. The number of keywords a page needs should only be limited by relevancy. If a keyword is relevant to the subject you are talking about and it fixes the user's intent and needs, then use it.

2. Creating the wrong type of content

You might tend to believe that when it comes to SEO having any type of content published on a regular basis may help regardless of the quality.
The answer is: no. Having and publishing content just because you think search engines care about the frequency you post new content is just stupid.

If you have something worth saying from an SEO point of view, say it and publish it. If you think your content can help people fix their problems or answer their questions, again, post it.
But if you are just creating useless, low-quality content nobody finds useful, just because of you "activity" matters, don't. You are better off without low-quality content.

3. Ignoring on-page SEO problems

On-Page SEO can get very technical. This is why you should reach out to an experienced SEO specialist every one in a while to fix all your on-page SEO problems.
Especially the ones from Search Console. Here are just a few problems I usually find on every Search Console I take over from a new client:

Bad redirects
Pages loading slowly because technical reasons
404 Errors, both for mobile and desktop versions
Mobile version problems
Duplicate title tags, meta descriptions, and overall content
Pages that aren't indexed because of some technical problems or too many pages are getting indexed because the "canonical" tag isn't used on certain filters
Sitemap problems
Robots.txt problems
Improper use of headings

4. Too many backlinks all of sudden

Backlinks are still relevant to SEO, but when you get highly aggressive and create too many backlinks at once, you might be sending the wrong message to Google and the other search engines. You can get penalized, lose ranks or even worse, sandboxed.

5. Not taking advantage of the "alt" tag as well as overall image optimization

Depending on your niche, you can drive a lot of organic traffic if you have unique, high-quality images on your site. Proper use of filenames, alt tags and everything in between to improve your traffic from Google Image search should be exploited.

6. Don't focus on ranks, focus on organic traffic

I've seen this over and over. Clients and SEO specialists getting obsessed by ranks and keyword positions.
I believe this is the wrong way you should approach SEO. Why? Because an even mediocre website can have a good number of keyword positions, that doesn't mean it also gets good traffic and actually creates a profit.
So focus on organic traffic and how users interact with your website. Rank obsession is outdated and totally useless in 2018.

Comments

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centurion

Thanks for sharing the 6 beautiful techniques. organic techniques are very much necessary for any website. Keyword generates 85% of traffic from search engines and back link generates 5% of traffic. But back link plays an important role to increase the website page rank on different search engines,, to increase the traffic of website and to increase the website page rank worldwide. Organic traffic can convert to leads or sales any time.

Thanks
Centurion

9 years ago

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cmoneyspinner

Oh wow! I feel like you looked into my SEO-soul and told me everything about myself. How to avoid doing bad SEO - 6 bad practices

Especially the tip about the "alt" tag for images. As for the very first tip, I am not guilty. But I was almost guilty because I saw others doing it and thought that was just how it was done. I know better now.

9 years ago

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kgord

yes, the post should be titled..Here is what not to do! I would imagine there are many people who are guilty of some or all of the above. It is just one of the things that we should not do when we are looking for great SEO.

9 years ago

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DenisP

I like your point about creating the wrong type of content. If you are running your own website and are even moderately passionate about the topics you write about, you're not going to want to ruin it by churning out low quality dribble. You have to prioritize how you do things. Search Engine Optimization needs to be a priority, without a doubt, but it can't be top priority. Top priority needs to be the contents of your writing, and the message you're trying to send. Then you need to find a way to work your SEO in there.

9 years ago

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Tronia

True! For me as a blogger, content is definitely the number one because not only will it attract the readers, it will also ensure that they're returning and wanting to read more. Through high-quality content you will also start growing and building up your SEO - the better the content, the better your chances of even ranking high are (along with other factors such as keywords).

9 years ago

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kgord

Yes, it goes back to the whole content is king thing. I mean you can get the options you need by writing great quality content. People are eventually going to take notice. It is what you need to do.

9 years ago

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overcast

I think minimum we can do is the on page SEO. And we should never ignore that the reason being that is not a good approach for the same. You can see that some of the people do ignore the SEO. And it leads to more or less issues. And on that context it'd be better to consider that SEO practices have their shares of the issues. I think not every SEO can be good enough for the practice set as well.

9 years ago

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Barida

Seo is taking centre stage in the world today with the new rules that we see being implemented as well. Website owners should always try as much as they could to ensure that they put everything in order as regards the success of the site as regards how they are ranked on search engines.

8 years ago

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overcast

I agree that SEO is taking the lead these days. And lot of brands are doing good by practicing the SEO properly. And they seem to be doing good in many ways. I have learned from the experience that bad practices is one thing you have to understand that SEO does not always solve the problems. Social media in such case can be another option.

8 years ago

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kgord

Thanks for sharing all the information about SEO. I did not know that these practices were bad. These are just some of the traps that we fall into. It is always good to have information about the latest practices and what we can and should use to be current.

9 years ago

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vinaya

I have something to add to the point #6. "Don't focus on ranks, focus on organic traffic."
Organic traffic means search engine traffic. You get traffic from search engines when your website appears on the top of SERP. IN order to secure your SERP position, you will have to focus on ranks. If you do not think about rank, how can you get organic traffic?

9 years ago

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overcast

I think this is true in many cases. If we consider ranking and even the organic traffic, that does not mean it converts. People need to purchase something from say e commerce sites. they don't care organic or PPC but it is the buying traffic that counts. That's what matters at the end. I guess we learn from our efforts in the SEO.

9 years ago

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kgord

I think that organic is the best and it is one of the options that you need. However, it is one of the choices that you have to make if you make artificial one of the choices you use. It is just one of the possibilities that you need and can take advantage of in the future. Just consider where you are getting your choices you need.

9 years ago

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overcast

Organic also does not lead to conversion. Because if organic to be converting we would never need the PPC. And that is something we have to understand as well. So for that reason I think organic is also limited to some extent. After that you have to be considering what may or may not work for you.

9 years ago

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vinaya

Organic traffic means people visit your website when they find it on the search engine. When people click your link when it appears on the search list, they are doing it because they are interested in your link. Since they click out of interest, it is very likely that they will also engage with ads and products. Organic traffic does not guarantee engagements with ads and products but increases the chances of ad clicks and product purchase.

9 years ago

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overcast

I have to agree with the fact that organic traffic does not mean that your SEO needs any specific help. You have to make sure that SEO is properly tweaked. And things are taken care of in that regard. And another thing is that we have to be really cautious about how to handle things and how to fix the SEO on the right point there.

8 years ago

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treecko142

As a viewer, I really hate those sites with keyword variation, it just makes me not go to their site. I feel that it's unprofessional, and it's good that people are learning to stay away from those practices as they don't help the business at all.

9 years ago

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Martinsx1

I have come across such sites with strick warnings on ensuring that you make use of keywords in all your posts on the site and I never bother myself registering on the site not to talk more about doing any single post on the site. It feels annoying having to put such strick instructions on a website.

9 years ago

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treecko142

Yeah, some websites even prevent you from registering or block you the moment you commit a single mistake on their website. I just don't bother anymore with those kinds of businesses.

9 years ago

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aeon

Too many ads above the fold also, since the google punishes websites that have many ads above, the part of a page that is visible without scrolling. If you suddenly saw a decrease in traffic then you should check if you were affected by the page layout algorithm.

9 years ago

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Kakashi2020

You've summed all the basic no no's and I agree specially with #6. There's a lot of people out there who are totally fixated on getting their rankings up and they tend to forget about basic traffic and internal traffic. What happens is they forgot the most important thing of all and that is 'to make a sale' and 'meet the sales quota.'
In which SEO is just a factor of the game.

9 years ago

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kgord

Yes, these are very helpful tips indeed and should help everyone who has a website they are trying to earn from. SEO is something that we must need to do to keep our business growing at all times. It is beneficial to us and need to use the best practices most certainly.

9 years ago

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treecko142

Yeah, I think this tip is most helpful to those who are just starting out, as they tend to get sucked into the rankings part, since they usually just look for various tips online and most of the stuff are focused on how to improve your ranking.

9 years ago

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jpyy

Another problem would involve ignoring social media. Social media signals would be important I think. Also, people should focus on creating a website that engages people so they will stay longer. Anyone know of more possible problems and tips?

9 years ago

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Martinsx1

Social media is one major tool that should never be overlooked by any site owner because it have the possibility to pushing your site into a better frame of getting lots of traffic and potential clients that would patronize in your services. I have never excluded the use of social media in my site activities.

9 years ago

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treecko142

Yeah, especially in this day and age, everyone who can handle computers, no matter how young or old, has a social media account, and this is just a huge market waiting to be tapped. Using social media is one of the easiest ways of generating traffic and publicity for your business or brand.

9 years ago

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Martinsx1

Having too many backlinks all of a sudden only signifies one thing which is that you rushed creating all the backlinks. One thing I have observed about rushed backlinks is that they are always of low quality which generally affects its impact on one's website and affects its ranking as well. It's very important to take out good time to build a good high quality backlink because it serves you better than having 10 backlinks that are completely worthless.

9 years ago

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Kakashi2020

People are just posting back links everywhere one thing that's contributing to this is affiliate marketing companies. These companies instruct their affiliates to post their links.

There are effective ways in posting back links and there are very ineffective ways of doing it in which no positive results can be achieved.

So why do people do bad back link postings even though it's not effective in the first place?

My first answer is I think lack of education and basicsll these people doesn't actually know what they're doing.
Second is It's because their getting paid as an affiliate to do it or rather they think they're gonna be paid.

Okay some companies pay per click while some pay per post and some pay per sale. So its a cutthroat business lacking good online morals and etiquette just to earn a quick buck. And analyzing the whole situation I think Facebook is right in its step in regulating links. Link postings in Facebook is getting harder now.

9 years ago

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vinaya

Backlink is one of the important SEO strategies. However, backlinking is not the only one way to get a higher rank. Well, having more backlinks means you will have higher domain authority, higher page rank, and higher position in search engines. Therefore you cannot ignore backlinking, however, in order to gain backlinks, you should never seek out to inferior sites. Low quality backlinks are as bad as not having any backlinks.

9 years ago

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Barida

I always tell some of my online freelance friends that the goal is not on making contents, but the way we write good quality contents for those sites. Making original contents can be a good way to rank higher in Google for the search engine will quickly pick that what we are saying are really of a good quality and deserves to be ranked higher.

9 years ago

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Kakashi2020

Number one was quite funny I think only people that doesn't know how to do things right would resort to ever doing it. It's easy to have an effective site all you have to do is regularly post good if not excellent content in it.

9 years ago

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vinaya

I think it is very common to have the same keywords on various pages. If you are publishing content on depression, depression is your primary keywords and stress, anxiety etc. will be your secondary keywords. You will be using similar keywords on the similar topics. However, having a page for every keyword variations is a bad practice. You should never create a content for the sake of keywords, you should create contents for readers and add keywords in order to attract search engines.

9 years ago

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Kakashi2020

I think it's better to create your own traffic by using funnelling techniques and not rely on Google search engine made traffic. It's easier, faster and you get a lot more conversions.

9 years ago

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Barida

Creating your own type of traffic can be stressful and tiresome especially for those sites owners that are trying to get back at seo, but the truth of the matter is that doing so will help me not to depend fully on Google generated traffic, since these sites should also rank better in other search engine boxes.

9 years ago

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kgord

Thanks for alerting us to this. I did not know all of this to be honest. and it is good to be aware of the pitfalls in SEO. I think it is just one of the issues that we will need to look at and correct as it comes along. Thank you for the information on this topic.

9 years ago

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onlinephp

This is an information that saves on the stuggle and pain of a life time.
Truely Knowledge is key.

9 years ago

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Russet

Are you really suggesting rank doesn't effect traffic? Rank is what determines whether you are one page 1 of Google or page 1000. Certainly other things matter,but if you are seeking search traffic--rank is still one of the most important variables for any website.

8 years ago

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Barida

I doubt this is what he was saying, but the truth is that how you are ranked by is always going to be determined by how many people are visiting your website and that is something that we should always take serious concern about as long as Seo is concerned

8 years ago

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Corzhens

When it comes to content, I have no issue with the wrong content because my stance is to write for my readers. I should not care if the search engine will not be happy with my content as long as my readers are satisfied with what I write. I always remember that writing for the readers should be the priority because we may become stupid writers when we write for the SEO capability of the site.

8 years ago

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