4 Obsolete SEO techniques you must avoid in 2016

Search Engine Optimization aka SEO helps improve traffic volumes for a website by getting the site a high-rank placement in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) such as Google, Bing, Yahoo and others. Many strategists say that SEO is dead but this is not true. Actually SEO has died for those who have failed to adapt to the dynamic rules (they always change) and increased requirements on skills, tools, knowledge and patience.

Techniques and hacks that worked great yesterday might not work at all tomorrow. In fact, with the growing rate of updates from Google and the like to contend with, even if you your website traffic spiked to the top yesterday, you could see it going down tomorrow.

Keeping that in mind, it is very important that we look at the following 4 SEO techniques that were great 5 years back but will do more harm than good today. They are:

1.  Focusing on quantity of links over quality:

   The quality of links is more important than the quantity of links. Though Google has said that websites can have as many links as they like as long as it’s a reasonable amount, but if you’re still using large volumes of links to boost your organic rankings, it’s about time you stop doing it and focus on quality links.

2. Putting keywords in Meta description:

   A decade back, putting keywords in Meta description used to be cool and got results. But as per Google, after 2009,  keywords are no longer a ranking factor for SEO. This does not mean that we should ignore metadata descriptions. We should value metadata descriptions by writing them with users in mind so that they understand what the website is about and what if offers for them so that they ultimately click on the links.

3. Overdoing keywords – high keyword density:

   Many strategists believe that over stuffing keywords in website content, metadata descriptions, titles, etc. is fruitful but this is not the case. While Google has not said anything in particular about keyword density (number of times that a keyword appears on a webpage), over stuffing keywords in your content, metadata descriptions and title harms the SEO rankings.

4. Duplicating content:

   Google has given a detailed lay down about their stance on Duplication of content with regards to SEO.  They agree that many websites require the use of duplicate content. This includes printer-only versions of web pages, discussion forums that generate content aimed at mobile devices, and saleable items that are linked via URLs which are considered distinctly different. If the above mentioned are not your idea of duplicate content then you will be penalized for manipulating search results. You can read their terms and understand the technicalities in detail here.

These obsolete practices used to be effective years ago but now it is crucial for marketers and SEO strategists to understand that methods and algorithms go obsolete very quickly. The best way to go about SEO is to keep yourself updated with the latest trends and updates and implement them to get results.

Webeesocial is a creative digital marketing agency in New Delhi India.