If you’re a Small Business Owner, then the chances are that your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) ranking is something you’re putting a bit of time and effort into improving. If it isn’t, it should be. The unfortunate truth is that when it comes to organic rankings, there’s no longer the option of cheating the system. Search algorithms are now pretty complex beasts, and the old tips and tricks just aren’t as effective.
Below we discuss 3 techniques that not only no longer work, but can actually have a negative result on your SEO.
1 Trying To Use Every Keyword Under The Sun
It used to be pretty common practice to try and cram as many Keywords as possible into a Website’s written content. This practice has the rather unattractive name of ‘Keyword stuffing’, and basically describes any attempt to trick a Search Engine by deliberately overusing words or phrases.
Although early users saw some success, Google and the others have long since latched on to this, and now are actively working to stamp it out by negatively ranking Sites that look a little too plump on Keywords. It’s important to target phrases and search terms in your written content, but you need to make sure you’re not overdoing it. As a general rule of thumb, if it becomes annoying to read, it’s probably over the top.
2 Not Having A Mobile-Friendly Site
In this day and age not having a Site that caters to Mobile users should really be a criminal offence. We’re not going to bore you with statistics on the prevalence of smartphones and tablets, because you already know, and if you don’t you can find out by having a quick look outside. Google are definitely tech-savvy enough to know these statistics, and punish the ranking of any Sites that don’t offer a clean experience for Mobile users.
If you’re at all unsure whether your Site is Mobile-friendly, just boot it up on your own device and have a look around. If this leaves you scratching your head a little, Google have built their very own Mobile-friendly test tool for you to have a play with. Finally, there’s never any harm in asking your Web Developer if there’s anything else you can be doing.
3 Favouring Quantity Over Quality
Alongside Keywords, it used to be fairly common (and sometimes good) practice to stuff your Site with so much Content that your server was bulging at its Digital stitches. The theory was that more pages meant more Keywords, which meant more traffic, which meant higher ranking.
Again, Google and others picked up on this practice fairly quickly and moved to stamp it out. Now, any content that you produce needs to offer some kind of value to a prospective reader, as this is always Google’s goal. If people are landing on pages and quickly exiting, that seems reasonable evidence that what you’re serving up isn’t up to par.
There’s No Need To Panic
When it comes to your SEO, you need to continually ask yourself whether your content serves any purpose other than helping you to climb the rankings. As long as the answer to this question is yes, you’ve probably got no need to panic. Keep your Site fresh, readable, and interesting, and you’ll be on the right track.