SEO Tactics That Work And Those That Don’t

Since SEO is an ever changing landscape, what used to work in the old days may not work well today.  As a matter of fact, the old school tactics might get you into more trouble than it’s worth.

First of all, Google and the other search engines are a lot smarter as to how to index websites.  They know all the dirty tricks in the book and then some.  Google has so many pieces of new software with algorithms that can detect spam and irresponsible tactics, SEO experts are constantly on their toes to strategize to make the best out of their efforts.

Link building the old school way is one of the worst tactics you can use.  Just piling a bunch of links on your site and having links to your site that are irrelevant and only for the purposes of trying to get a higher ranking are over. Google will beat you down so hard you’ll be lucky if you can find your site using a magnifying glass.

Instead, use relevant links and use proper anchor texts.  Anchor texts are the descriptions you use to describe what a link goes to.  So if you link to “Joe’s Garage”, just don’t leave a “Joe’s Garage” anchor text, instead be creative and relevant with something like, “Joe’s Garage is a site that helps with awesome auto repair information”.  This way Google and the search engines will feel that your site is being informative and authoritative

Guest blogging is another hazard.  The good ol’ days are gone whereby you would just write a blog post on any old blog and have a link back to your site.  Nowadays if your guest post isn’t on a site that’s relevant to the site you have a link from and to, you’ll just be looked at as a marketer/spammer.  Instead, only post to blogs that are specifically relevant to your site and only to those blogs that are authority and top notch.  You’ll look like a contributor to the public good and Google likes that.

Keywords.  Trying to get the top keywords is a major chore and less effective than you might think.  Trying to compete for single word keywords like “computers” is just ridiculous.  It could get you tons of traffic, but if that traffic isn’t relevant then you’re just burning bandwidth.  You want traffic that converts and retains.  Looking to use long tail keywords is more effective in combination with well tagged photos, well done and relevant anchor text.  For example, instead of “computers” you might better be off with “computers that families can afford”. This narrows down the hunt and appears as a more helpful and relevant keyword option. Be creative but also be efficient.

At this point in SEO time, it’s best to go back to basics and study what the latest tactics are.  Getting a Google “Webmaster Account” is a good start and chatting it up with other webmasters to keep on your toes.  It’s only inevitable that Google’s software is only going to get better as with other big search and social media sites like YouTube and Facebook.  That being said, being late to the game is not a good thing.

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