STOP DOING YOUR SEO!!
If you’re anything like the 45% of the world marketers who don’t even know what SEO means, yet forge on ahead with their weekly optimisation tasks anyway, then you are killing your website.
Stop it now!!
Notoriously complicated, ever-changing and a wormhole of hacks, tactics and processes, SEO is one of the most valuable marketing practices you can do for your business. But it can also get your site into trouble hella quickly with out of date tactics (the black hat kind) and a lack of appreciation for user experience.
Quit Missing Out!
Making sure you have a knowledgeable and experienced SEO guru on your team is a must for any modern online business. Not just to make sure your site is visible, user friendly and properly targeted, but to make sure that you are on top of the latest developments in the SEO landscape, and that you are ready for any updates from Google that could potentially penalise and damage your site.
You’re too busy to do this all yourself, that’s understandable, but what’s not acceptable is not making sure that your site’s precious SEO is being managed by someone who knows their stuff. It’s too important these days, as suffering just one penalty from a change in Google’s algorithms can set your site back pages worth of search results listings and months of laborious optimisation work.
It’s not worth it, and you’ll only be missing out on bigger and better opportunities as you try to fix your mistakes.
And don’t think just because you may be a startup or a SME that this doesn’t really apply to you; all sites are equal in the eyes of the Google algorithm. If Nike messes up on their site, they’ll be just as penalised as your local dog food supplier site.
Black Hat Doesn’t Pay
American department store JC Penney had a terrible time a few years back, all thanks to some black hat SEO tactics that cost them more site traffic and revenue than they’d probably care to admit.
What’s ‘black hat SEO?’ you ask. SEO practices commonly fall under two terms; White Hat and Black Hat. White Hat SEO are Google approved, organic and ‘honest’ processes that SEO marketers use to optimise their sites. Things like high-quality content, related keywords and meta optimisation.
Black Hat SEO are ‘dishonest’ marketing practices, ones that Google penalises websites for using, like keyword stuffing and hidden text, but the tactic that cost JCP all that money was a prolific use of Paid Links.
Unbeknownst to the top dogs at JCP, their SEO agency was buying huge amounts of paid links from completely unrelated sites to increase their keyword rankings for some of their top performing online products, like ‘dresses’ and ‘menswear’. Now these were all keywords that they were ranking at number 1 for in search listings, and that was great! But when the overlord Google found out about all the paid links, it penalised the site by dropping them like a stone from the top positions. It sentenced them to a 2 month penalty period, where they languished in the bottom of the search listings, missing out on all that ready-to-buy page 1 traffic.
Google hates paid links for a good reason; when users make a search, Google pulls in the most valuable, user-friendly and related websites for their search query. Paid links deceive Google, and therefore the innocent users, into thinking a particular website is more valuable and related than it really is, by purchasing links on random websites that have nothing to do with the actual site content.
It’s basically electronic lies, and Google hates liars.
Your site needs to hold valuable information and links for your users to learn from, else Google sees this as spam and will unleash its wrath upon your site. Of course there’s way more black hat tactics that you should steer well clear of, but here’s the 4 main ones to stay vigilant against.
The Black Hat Big 4
Paid Links
Like above, Google hates liars, and that is essentially exactly what paid links are.
In the eyes of Google, websites with a bigger backlink profile (more sites that link to them) are more valuable to a user and will get pushed up to the top search listing pages. But paid links do not relate to your site, making them worthless and end up pushing unrelated and subpar websites into the top search results pages.
So in order to find these dishonest sites, Google created Penguin, an algorithm designed specifically to sniff out paid links and penalise the sites that use them.
At the end of the day, paid links don’t pay, so stay smart and build your site’s rankings through quality user content and engagement!
Keyword Stuffing
Unlike the exquisite stuffing we enjoy with a roast chicken dinner, keyword stuffing is not something that should be a regular practice.
Back when websites were new and shiny, it was relatively simple to get complete nonsensical, unrelated and awfully designed websites to the top pages of Google, thanks to the keyword stuffing tactic. Sites would fill their site pages with unrelated keywords, hundreds if not thousands of times, in order to get Google to rank up their ‘related’ content. You could have a hair salon using the keyword ‘George Clooney’ 5000 times on their homepage, in the same colour as their background (sneaky huh!) and it would show up on page 1 for George Clooney searches every time.
Obviously Google doesn’t link that, so it decided to penalise sites for deceiving users, and drops them from the top search results pages. Some sites recover from this within a year, but some never get their rankings back thanks to the harsh competition out there. Stay in your lane and use your keywords wisely, else your wallet will feel it.
Link Directories
This relates to the paid links black hat tactic, but I feel it’s worth reiterating here as I know a lot of marketers that have done, and continue to do this, as there is a sneaky grey area that catches well-meaning SEO’ers out more often than not.
Finding index directory sites that indiscriminately put company links and information on their site is a sure fire way to get penalised by the Google Penguin algorithm. These sites are seemingly easy wins for building your sites link profile, and it definitely isn’t hard work to find one. But they will crush your site, and your dreams, and get your site hit with hefty penalties from Google.
The only way an index site will be ok-ed by Google is if it is moderated, if there is an actual person deciding whether or not your site is relevant and valuable enough to go up on their site. These sites you can link to, but you must be on the lookout for spammy directories!
Random Guest Blogging
True fact; guest blogging is a great way to build your audience, attract new site traffic and build on that social media empire you’ve been working on. But guest blogging on random sites just to get links? No, Google will get you for that.
The whole point of guest blogging is for you to open your expertise and wealth of knowledge on your core subject, to a willing and interested audience. Whether this is through an industry peer’s blog site or a social media influencer in the same field, you are able to expose your business to a wealth of new potential customers, and that is invaluable in this competitive climate.
Where this goes awry with some companies, is when you have a shoe design brand blogging on a car enthusiasts website; what car enthusiast wants to read about shoes on their website? It’s not valuable to the reader, and it’s not related to the site’s topic, so Google will recognise this as a foolish play to get more site traffic and will penalise your site.
Don’t waste your time creating content for uninterested viewers. Build organic, mutually beneficial and engaging relationships with people in your industry, to share knowledge and grow your business.
Play Fair, Win Big
As a small business it’s tempting to be a Jack of All Trades and get stuck into everything. It’s not the way to do things though, you need people who you can trust supporting you in all areas of your business, and SEO is a key aspect to make sure you have adequately covered. Google is a harsh but fair master, and you need to respect its rules, and your users, by providing a high-quality and naturally optimised website.
Being on top of the latest developments in the SEO landscape is crucial to staying ahead of the algorithms and keeping Google on your good side, and our team of Google experts are always ready to help get your site to the top of the search results pages organically and quickly.
Be good to your site and stay in the game with up to date and effective SEO tactics, and watch your audience and your revenue grow.
