1. Keyword misuse SEO Technique
Webmasters and marketers misunderstand keywords’ role in SEO and how to use them daily.
Let’s look at specific types of keyword misuse, including irrelevant usage, keyword density, and keyword stuffing.
Mistargeting/Confusion
Beginner SEO company india often try to fit their content and messaging into their keyword research (and not much else).
They will shape content and metadata to represent keywords it’s not properly aligned with or the proper intent of users conducting searches for high-volume keywords.
This causes brands to lose readers’ attention before they can communicate effectively.
If marketed keywords don’t match page content, the disconnect will hurt content’s success, even if it’s otherwise good.
Don’t mislead users with high-volume keywords to boost visibility.
Google knows this is an obsolete SEO practise (and often a “black hat” technique).
Density
Like many keyword-focused marketing tactics, keyword density writing is ineffective.
Google no longer uses keyword density to determine if a page is a good search result.
It’s beyond simple keyword crawling. Google’s search results are based on many signals.
Keywords are important for the topics and ideas they represent, but not for high-value search queries.
Content quality and delivery are key.
Stuffing
This is a classic.
Keywords drive SEO, right?
So, loading our webpages with keywords – especially the same high-value keyword we’re targeting throughout the site – will help us rank higher in search, outranking our competition. Right?
Never.
Search engines have long understood keyword stuffing and unnatural text combinations. As attempts to manipulate search results, they demote the content.
Yes, there may be valuable content that uses simple keyword stuffing, either intentionally or unintentionally, that is not demoted.
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Webmasters used to put every keyword variation of a high-value keyword in the footer to game the system.
Or, they may make keywords the same colour as the site’s background, hiding them from humans but not search engines.
Webmasters do this with links. Not okay.
Write for people, not search engines.
2. Robot-Writing SEO Techniques
Unnatural writing is…unnatural.
Google knows.
Writing for the web means repeating a subject’s name every time it’s mentioned, using variations and plural/non-plural versions of the word to “cover all bases.”
When crawled, crawlers see the keyword repeated in several versions, leading the page to rank well for the keyword variations used (over and over… and over).
Nothing works.
Search engines understand repeated keywords, their variations, and bad content.
Write for humans, not bots.
3.Article marketing
In SEO, game-playing rarely works.
People still try.
Especially when these tactics improve a brand’s website and/or digital properties.
Article indexes worked. And they lasted a while.
Article syndication was one of the earliest forms of digital marketing. It made sense because TV and print already use syndicated content.
In 2011, Google released its game-changing Panda update.
Panda targeted content farms and directories, as well as other websites with bad content (whether it was bad/false, badly written, illogical, stolen, etc.).
In today’s world, high-quality content must be original, demonstrate expertise, authority, and trustworthiness.
4. Spinners
Spinners use software to rewrite quality content with different words, phrases, and organisation.
The result was a garbled article that repeated the source’s points.
This is no surprise.
AI is getting better at creating content, but it’s still inferior to what a human can create: original, helpful, and substantive.
5. Link-Buying
Still biting webmasters years later.
If it seems shady, don’t use it.
Linking is similar.
Once upon a time, it was common to pay for lots of backlinks.
Backlink profiles need to be maintained and optimised just like the websites we oversee, and low-quality domains with too many backlinks may be harmful to a website’s health.
Google can easily identify low-quality sites and sites sending too many links.
Today, you must earn links to boost your website’s authority and visibility, not pay for them.
6. Anchor Text Overuse
Good site structure and user experience require internal linking.
Anchor text, an HTML element, tells users what to expect when they click a link.
Some anchor text types (branded, naked, exact-match, website/brand name, page title and/or headline, etc.) are more favourable than others, depending on usage and situation.
Using exact-match and keyword-rich anchor text was once standard SEO.
Since Penguin, Google can spot over-optimized content better.
This goes back to producing user-friendly, natural content.
If you optimise for search engines, you’ll fail.
7. Outdated Keyword Research SEO Technique
Over the last 5-10 years, keywords have changed dramatically.
Marketers used to have a wealth of keyword-level data, allowing us to see what works for our brand and what doesn’t and to better understand idea targeting and user intent.
“(not provided)” killed much of this.
In subsequent years, tools replicated keyword data. True recreation is impossible.
Even with stripped keyword data, marketers must do keyword research to understand the industry, competition, region, etc.
Google’s free Keyword Planner helps marketers do this. While the data has been criticised over the years, it’s a free Google-owned product that gives us data we couldn’t get before (myself included).
But remember what keyword data means.
“Competition” in Keyword Planner refers only to paid competition and traffic, so it’s useless for organic search.
Moz Keyword Explorer and Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool are paid alternatives.
Google Trends is free and useful for competitive analysis.
8. Creating keyword variant pages
This used to help rank for all of your brand’s high-value keywords.
Google’s Hummingbird, RankBrain, and other algorithm updates have helped it understand that similar words are related.
The best, most useful content about these entities should be most visible due to the value it offers users, not just one word.
This leads to site self-cannibalization and makes a website harder to use and navigate due to similar content.
Negative user experience is enough to not do this. Google won’t overlook this practise, so it’s a no-brainer.
This tactic led to many content farms that targeted traffic for keyword value and visibility.
This was due to optimising websites for keywords and search engines rather than users and their intent.
9. Exact-match queries
Targeting exact-match search queries in hopes of ranking for them solely for the traffic numbers was a popular practise before Google Knowledge Graph.
Marketers aim to rank first for exact-match searches to trigger a breakout box and increase click-through rate.
Exact-match domains
Using keyword-rich URLs makes sense. Partially.
When it’s confusing or misleading, you must draw the line.
Keep domains consistent with your brand.
Short, meaningful brand names are best.
Why shouldn’t your domain be secure?
Google has long valued exact-match domains as a signal.
Behavioral data has helped Google make this and other clean-up changes.
Google will make your brand visible when relevant searchers look for it if you run a good company and offer great products and/or services.
10. Using third-party domain authority scores
Have you used a list of high-quality sites for a link-building or content-distribution campaign?
If the list ranks websites based on domain authority alone, you’ll need to do more research to make sure they’re useful for your campaign.
Is your website’s content relevant?
Does the website get organic keyword traffic?
Does your website get North American traffic?
Relevant website links?
Domain authority helps you find quality sites. They shouldn’t be your only marketing metric/factor.
12. Subpar Content
Look. Poor content once ranked well.
What a change!
Stolen, thin, keyword-stuffed, and non-credible content can all pass search engine crawlers and be returned as results.
Nope.
We know how to create search-engine-friendly content because search engines tell us what’s right.
SEO success today requires doing what’s right.
You must be best.
When creating new content, research what ranks for your keywords. First-page search results likely have high-quality content.
To outrank competitors, your content must be above average.
Have an editor edit your first draught. They can fix errors you miss and improve content readability.
If you can’t hire an editor, try Hemingway Editor, Grammarly, or ProWritingAid.