How many of you want to generate more leads and customers at a quicker, sustainable pace? SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is one of the most powerful ways to get some prospects and new customers to a business.
The SEO conversion rate is around 14.6%, which is way above traditional outbound methods, that hovers at a 1.7% conversion rate.
Image Source: ImageX
What is so amazing about Search Engine Optimisation is that your efforts are an investment. Unlike Facebook Advertising and other forms of advertising, you don’t have to pay for traffic in the hope of getting enquiries (conversions).
The return on investment is so enticing that people want to get on the top of search results, either by hook or crook. According to a study, over 90% of the total clicks happen in the first page of search engine.
Numerous people use black hat SEO techniques to get in the first page of search engines at a much quicker pace. However, you must keep in mind that Google and other search engines are not like before where you can get on the top with black hat SEO techniques.
Unfortunately, it is still possible to get to the top of Google using black hat SEO techniques, but websites that do this will get caught thanks to the ever-improving algorithms updates. Google has a web spam team that is dedicated to removing low quality and spammy websites from the search results.
Avoid Black Hat SEO Techniques
If you want to improve your search rankings, you should opt for an excellent Online SEO training. You will get a much better return on investment if you focus on white hat SEO than black hat SEO.
Without further ado, let’s review the top black hat SEO techniques that often results in you being booted off the search results.
Over Optimising Your Website Content
Only 25% of your search engine ranking positions depend on your on-page optimisation (Source). However, you can get into a severe problem if you over optimise your website to increase your rankings.
Some of the examples of over-optimisation of websites are keyword stuffing, over-optimised links, hidden texts and links, using irrelevant keywords, and using commercial anchor texts all over your site.
Keyword stuffing: This means that you are using the same keywords over and over again in your website content in an unnatural way. The best practice is to brainstorm keyword ideas and sprinkle keywords into your content when appropriate. Contact us to get a content audit to see if you’re making this mistake.
Image Source: Varvy
Stuffing Keywords in Links: Using keywords in the text link that points to your website is an example of manipulating back links. You will also be penalised if you use exact-match keyword links for pages like About Us, Contact Us etc.
Using keywords in blog articles with no relevancy is an example of irrelevant keywords. An example of this is if you use keywords like “Trip to London” on a technology website. Hidden text and hidden links are when you stuff keywords and links into your content and hide them from website visitors.
Manipulating Content Marketing Tactics
Content is King, so you should not mess with the pieces of content on the internet. Back in the old days, you could rank on Google by spinning the material and submitting crappy articles on many article directories. However, those days are over.
Here are some of the things that you should avoid in 2019 and beyond:
- Having duplicate content on your website
- Using software to generate/write content and blog articles for you. These are almost always low quality and the content is often hard to read.
- Deceiving your readers with a click bait (shocking) article title that has nothing to do with your content. Click-Bait blog post titles are used to increase the click-through rate from other websites to your article. An example of a click-bait blog post title is, “8 Things website developers don’t want you to know – the results will shock you!”.
- Writing two set of articles (one for users and the other for the search engine) – this practice is known as content cloaking.
Links Exchanges & Paid Links
These strategies worked wonders for many website owners when search engines were not using sophisticated algorithms. However, search engines will penalize you today if you make use of link exchange and paid links strategies.
Link exchange is a technique where two website owners agree to link to each other’s website. It may sound friendly, but it is a scam in the eye of Google.
On the other hand, a paid link is a back link that you get to your website in exchange for incentives like money, gifts, and so on. P.S. Paying someone for accepting guest post is also a kind of paid link strategy.
Website Referral Spam
There are some dodgy tactics that people use to increase their rankings. Some of the despicable tactics to avoid are:
- Sending unnatural links to your competitors’ websites. For instance, sending them back links from adult or gambling websites to make Google penalize them for something they did not do.
- Overuse of ping feature for increasing your traffic. It is OK to ping now and then when you release a fresh piece of content, but overusing it is a scam.
- Using referral scam, which means using fake websites to send unnatural traffic to your competitors’ sites to increase their bounce rate and drop their rankings. Just check out the bounce rate in the image below.
Image Source: Neil Patel
Making use of web 2.0 and other social networks to create tons of back links or posting irrelevant comments on as many websites as possible to get traffic and back links.
Private Blog Networks (PBNs)
Private Blog Network is another famous black hat SEO technique. Many people have found success with this technique recently, but it will not work in 2019. In this strategy, you host many website domains on a specific niche and link them to each other for backlinks.
We can even see many people selling links on Private Blog Networks (PBN). We recommend you stay away from using this technique to be on the right side of the SEO rulebook.
SEO Optimisation Is A Long Term Investment
To build a real business, you need to have a long-term vision. Building a business is not about making some quick bucks. Using black hat SEO techniques can crush your reputation, so it is better for you to stay away from black hat SEO techniques and those spammy guys who provide the services.
Focus on white hat SEO, and you will be fine. It is true that results won’t be seen quickly, but over time you will build a sustainable business with a long-term return on investment.
If you’re looking to get a company to help you with SEO then Lacey Tech Solutions can help you. We keep up-to-date with the latest SEO news so you can focus on your business while we get results.
Alternatively, if you want to learn more about SEO then SimpliLearn offer Online SEO Training that can help you learn the basics.
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Disclaimer:Lacey Tech Solutions publish blog articles to help small businesses. We are not liable for any damages if you choose to follow the advice from our blog.