Regardless of how big or small your business is, finding ways to attract attention from consumers should be your top priority. Most business owners understand how important having an online presence is when it comes to informing the general public about their products and services. Once you have a website in place, driving traffic to it is something you need to focus on.
Using effective search engine optimization techniques is one of the best ways to accomplish this goal. As you start to find out more about search engines, you will probably encounter information about penalties. Popular search engines like Bing and Google have very complex and sophisticated algorithms they use to crawl websites. If these algorithms detect blacklisted SEO tactics on a website, they will penalize it.
Here are some of the SEO strategies and tactics you need to avoid when trying to avoid these serious penalties.
Keyword Stuffing is a Horrible Idea
Modern business owners spend upwards of 8 percent of their gross revenue on marketing. A key component of any successful marketing strategy is well-written and keyword-rich website content and blogs. In the past, marketing professionals and business owners alike would stuff keywords in where they didn’t belong in an attempt to attract attention from search engines. In most cases, the practice of keyword stuffing made the content unreadable and confusing.
This is why search engine juggernauts like Google now have a way to both detect websites with keyword stuffed content and penalize websites with it. This is why you need to find a better way to optimize the effectiveness of your keyword strategy. Doing things like using long tail keywords is a great way to get some traction. Not only is there not a ton of competition with longer keywords, they are also being used more by people performing voice searches.
Broken Links Can Be Problematic
Developing a great linking strategy is also something you need to be passionate about. Not only do internal and external links provide the reader with more context, it can also help you increase your website’s search engine visibility. However, if the links you have embedded in your content are broken or point to a website that is currently down, you may be penalized.
Taking the time to regularly review your links to ensure they are still working is crucial. If you have a slue of broken links, then you need to replace them with working ones immediately. The time and energy invested in this process will be worth it in the long run.
Poorly Written Or Thin Content
Changes in Google’s search algorithm now allow it to assess the overall quality of the content on your website. If you have poorly written or thin content on your website, changing it is a must. Ignoring the need for a content overhaul can cause lots of problems like low search engine rankings and virtually no sales leads.
Need Help with Your Content Marketing Efforts?
If you are tired of getting no leads from your website, it is time to step-up your content marketing efforts. With our help, you can reach a larger audience and increase the number of quality leads you receive.
By, Peter Roesler, President of Small Business SEO. 25+ years in marketing! Yippee.
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