Google’s stricter qualifications in search results, the advent of mobile technology, and changes in search engine algorithms are influencing the way businesses optimize their websites today. Search engine optimization (SEO) continues to evolve and techniques that used to work before are now considered obsolete and inefficient. Indeed, many businesses still fall into traps by using old techniques in the same fashion as before—all at the risk of falling to the bottom of search engine result pages.
This doesn’t mean, however, that you should abort the intentions of old techniques. You just have to know how to adjust them to recent changes in search engines and online habits.
Guest Blogging
Once a big hit among bloggers before spammers turned it into a black hat technique, guest blogging still remains useful, but in a different and even more meaningful way. Google only targets spammy guest blogging, consisting of low-quality and irrelevant guest-posted content. As long as you concentrate on the purpose and aim of guest blogging, you can still boost traffic and find rewards from search engines.
Draft only audience-relevant content that compels your readers to contribute to the overall discourse. It may not be a real backlink, but it similarly attracts more followers who are specifically looking for the information you’re posting. This also fosters a community within your bloggers.
Over-Optimized Anchors
Gone are the days of achieving a higher ranking by using exact keywords in anchor texts, such as “best real estate company,” to gain traction in a search. This used to work, but Google now considers such verbiage unnatural. Subsequently, it cracked down on websites implementing this technique.
You must now draft anchor text that flows naturally into the content. Do this by implementing longer phrases or branded links to make it sound natural within the content while still providing value to users.
Link Volume Over Quality
Quantity doesn’t always beat quality, especially with the way Google currently operates. For instance, the more websites that link to your page is no longer a fast track to high search rankings. It all depends on the quality of the links and content from other sites. This is why link buying or exchanges, press releases, comment links, and similar means no longer work.
Instead, you should focus on creating content that compels people to share it. Such content distinguishes your site from competitors’ sites and heightens its relevance to your target market.
Overall, search engines are promoting quality in the current digital age. Consequently, websites must post content that relates to their market audience. A reliable SEO company can help you figure out ways to reform old methods and apply some new tricks to find favor from major search engines.
Sources:
6 Outdated SEO Strategies You Should Stop Using Immediately, Torquemag.io
The Evolution of SEO, Searchengineland.com
