الجمعة، 30 نوفمبر 2018
11 Outdated SEO Tactics You Need to Retire
Just like most aspects of marketing and technology, search engine optimization has evolved over time.
Marketing strategies that were effective for your company five or ten years ago may not be as effective today. The same applies to SEO.
Search engines have changed the way they rank websites.
If your company hasn’t been staying up to date with the latest trends, your SEO strategy is outdated.
I see this problem all too often in my consulting work. Many companies still employ old strategies that no longer work.
That’s what inspired me to write this guide.
The outdated tactics on this list vary in terms of how they will affect your business.
Some of these are ineffective but harmless, while others could potentially hurt your SEO ranking.
Every business with a website needs to read this guide. Use it as a reference to see if you’re still using outdated SEO tactics and possibly hurting your SEO game.
1. Exact match domain names
Exact match domains were popular for a while.
With this strategy, websites were able to move up their search rankings very quickly. In some instances, rankings climbed in just weeks or even a few days.
As the name implies, the whole idea behind an exact match domain is that your website matches the keywords you’re targeting. For example:
- detroitplumber
- garagedoorpartsmiami
- bestpizzanewyork
But Google adjusted its algorithm to make exact match domains obsolete. When it made this update back in 2012, the influence of exact match domains dropped nearly immediately:
Now, an exact match domain has the same chances of ranking as high or as low as any other domain name.
In fact, some of these exact match domains have a greater chance of being flagged by algorithms or manual reviews. Low-quality sites won’t be ranked high just because their domains are exact matches to the targeted keywords.
Furthermore, it’s difficult to brand a company with an exact match domain.
For example, think about Amazon. Imagine if it started with a domain like
“buyandsellbooksonline.”
That’s just not brandable. This strategy is less trustworthy, and it will make it increasingly difficult for you to build links.
Instead, you want to make it as easy as possible to increase your brand exposure by having a domain that’s brandable.
Don’t use exact match domains.
2. Link directories
For the most part, link directories are useless. There are some exceptions for niche-specific high quality directories.
This strategy worked before search engines become powerful.
People could find what they were looking for by using sites with directories.
These were easy for site owners to install and manage, and they increased in popularity. However, a link directory doesn’t provide actual value to website visitors.
That’s when search algorithms got adjusted to ignore link directories.
Now, having a link directory on your site can get you penalized if you have low-quality links. The same goes for article directories.
Marketers started to use software to submit articles to thousands of directories. But this low-quality content didn’t provide any value to people. It was a quick and simple way to build links.
Today, link and article directories are usually perceived as poor content, and they won’t help increase your search ranking.
3. Flat URL architecture
By default, WordPress will set up your pages with URLs like this:
https://ift.tt/2Q63kN4
It may look simple and clean for your visitors, but it’s not helping your SEO.
If you don’t change these defaults, it will be challenging for search engines to understand the hierarchy of your website. SEO crawlers and bots will rate all your pages with the same level of importance, but that’s not what you want.
You need search engines to recognize the importance of each page compared to its relationship within other pages.
You can manually change your defaults to something like this instead:
https://ift.tt/2RpW8YK
Then, the hierarchy of your site architecture will make more sense.
Removing the flat URL structure will make it easier for crawlers to index your site, which ultimately will improve your SEO ranking.
Search engines will be able to learn the value of each page within your site.
I recommend making these adjustments sooner rather than later. If you change your architecture, you’ll also have to change all of the redirects which can potentially hurt your ranking.
4. Automated link building
Links clearly play an important role in SEO.
Once this was discovered, many marketers tried to take advantage of link-building software to maximize their domain exposure on as many other sites as possible. They did this so their sites would be recognized by search engine algorithms.
As a result, their links got randomly posted on forums, blog comments, link directories, and guestbooks.
While I’m an advocate of using automation to improve your operational efficiency, this isn’t where you should be using that strategy.
Link building is only effective if it’s high quality. You can’t automate this process.
You have to build strong relationships and create valuable content.
For alternative methods that work, check out my post on the process of consistently building backlinks every week.
5. Keyword stuffing
When search engines weren’t as complex as they are today, keyword stuffing worked.
Sites would just put dozens and dozens of keywords throughout new content. The problem with such keywording is it’s unnatural because it was only being done to improve the search relevance of the page.
This doesn’t work anymore.
As algorithms became more advanced, keyword stuffing lost its power. Now it just looks like you have low-quality content.
You can potentially be penalized for keyword stuffing as well.
A recent study from SEMrush showed the most important ranking factors:
While keywords make the list, they’re not nearly as important as the other aspects of SEO are.
In fact, 18% of domains that ranked for high-volume keywords didn’t have any keywords in the body. Only 3% of backlinks had anchor text with keywords.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t include keywords in your content. But you need to make sure that you’re using them sparingly and that your content is written to read naturally.
You’re much better off publishing valuable content without lots of keywords than low-quality content with too many keywords.
6. Keyword variation pages
Do not create a separate page for each variation of a keyword you’re trying to rank for. This strategy won’t work.
Search engine crawlers are smarter, so you don’t have to do this in order to target these variations.
Google’s AI system, RankBrain, can even detect and rank sites for keywords not displayed within the content.
For example, let’s say you create a landing page dedicated to your B2B audiences about boiler services. RankBrain will understand that this page will also be relevant to users who search for things like:
- boiler cleaning
- boiler maintenance
- boiler inspection
- boiler repair
You don’t need to have a separate page for each one of these keyword phrases. Having too many pages on your site will make your site navigation more difficult than it needs to be.
For this example, you’d just need to have one page. Then, you’d include a subheader for each one of these variations.
This strategy will make your content more relevant and improve your site navigation.
7. Paid links
The last thing you want to do is violate Google’s webmaster guidelines.
Buying links can improve your ranking, but not if you get caught. For this reason alone, I don’t think paid links are worth it.
Some of you may have bought a few links without getting penalized in the past, but don’t think that means you’re invincible.
Sure, you might be careful with the way you’re conducting your operation, but what about the seller?
According to Google, both the buyers and sellers are guilty. It describes such practice as a link scheme:
If someone is selling to you, they’re probably selling to other sites as well.
All Google needs to do is catch one person, then follow the trail of links.
If an unnatural pattern of inbound links is identified and leads to another buyer, it can get traced back to the same seller you’re using. It’s very easy for you to get caught.
Build quality links the right way, and don’t try to take any shortcuts.
8. Building several interlinked sites
Some of you may own multiple businesses and websites. This seems like a good way to build links among them, right?
Not necessarily.
Interlinking sites need to be relevant to each other.
If you have a website selling camping equipment, it wouldn’t make sense to link to your other business offering credit loans.
You’re not rewarded for the total number of links you build. Relevant links hold more weight.
You might not be penalized for this, but it limits your opportunity and resources you can use for promoting your primary site.
However, there are certain times when this can be done properly.
For example, let’s say you have a commercial contracting company and a plumbing company. These are relevant to each other, so interlinking them would be fine.
I’ve seen some instances when people create multiple websites just for their link building strategy. This won’t work.
It’ll be difficult for you to manage this many sites for this purpose alone, so each one won’t have a high authority ranking.
Google will recognize this pattern, and your SEO ranking will suffer.
9. Prioritizing quantity over quality
Publishing ten pieces of new content a day is useless if they are all low-quality.
You’re much better off sticking to a publishing frequency you can handle without letting the quality suffer.
Write for people, not for bots. Writing for bots is unnatural.
As I said before, these new algorithms and site crawlers are becoming so advanced that they can distinguish between poor quality and high quality content.
Look at your blog for example. How long are your posts?
These are the average lengths of blog posts published over the last four years:
As you can see, the majority of these posts have 500-1,000 words.
But that doesn’t mean that’s your sweet spot. Longer blog posts are slowly trending upward each year.
For the most part, I would recommend going longer over shorter.
But don’t force a long blog post for the sake of increasing your word length. By nature, some topics will be longer or shorter than others.
But it’s definitely better to publish five 1,000-word posts a week as opposed to 50 100-word posts a week.
Those 100-word posts won’t be high quality. You can’t possibly address a topic properly in that length.
10. Irrelevant guest posts
Guest-blogging is another great way to build links, but you need to make sure you’re doing it properly.
Irrelevant posts won’t help you.
Instead, you should only be guest-blogging on sites that will increase exposure for your brand. You want to reach a new audience that falls within your target market.
The only way to do this is by publishing relevant content.
For example, I’m a content marketing expert. I have no business submitting my posts to cooking magazines.
It’s irrelevant to my personal brand, website, and target audience.
As I discussed earlier, Google will identify irrelevant links and potentially punish both parties.
Take this into consideration when managing guest posts on your site as well. You won’t want to publish irrelevant guest submissions for the same reasons.
11. Ignoring local SEO
It’s a misconception that you always need to focus on the big picture.
Many companies are just trying to get traffic and ranking by targeting mass audiences as opposed to their actual target market.
This is especially important to local business owners. If you have a local business, you should be prioritizing traffic from people in the area.
Don’t put too much emphasis on generating traffic from people out of your market.
Sure, traffic can improve your site ranking, but local SEO will be much more beneficial to your overall strategy.
Here’s a recent study from Search Engine Land looking at the factors of local SEO:
Use this graph as a reference.
Are you making the right effort to improve your local SEO strategy?
If you’re ignoring these areas, it’s a big mistake.
Conclusion
SEO has changed. It’ll continue changing in the future.
If you are still using the outdated tactics on this list, it’s time for you to put those behind you.
You need to start implementing new tactics.
I’m referring to things such as voice search and mobile-first indexing. I’ll be coming up with more in-depth guides on those topics in the near future.
But for now, just worry about retiring the strategies on this list. They’re a waste of your time and could potentially be hurting your ranking.
What are some new SEO strategies your website has had success with?
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My Husband Died and Left Me With Debt. I Want to Use My IRA to Pay It Off
No, no, no, no, no. Like all the others, I will tell you not to do this.
But you want to know why? I can tell you that, too.
I’m sure you feel like wiping out those student loans quickly would relieve some of the weight on your shoulders. But what happens if you hit age 65 and don’t have any retirement savings left?
If you can let that IRA grow as long as possible, it will continue to earn, even while you take distributions when you hit the minimum age. It will provide necessary income when you retire, or in the event that you can’t work anymore before your ideal retirement age.
I want you to consider a couple factors about your husband’s student loans, if you haven’t already.
First, make sure they aren’t federal direct student loans, which are typically discharged if the borrower dies. Second, if they’re private loans, consider contacting the lender for what’s called a “compassionate review,” which in some cases will result in a loan being discharged if the lender deems you unable to pay.
It sounds like you’re on the right track paying down credit cards during a no-interest period, even if you’re dealing with new bills right now. Your debt is not insurmountable. But when it’s finally paid off, you need to make sure your future is secure.
Consider meeting with a debt counselor who can take an objective look at your situation. To find someone near you who’s qualified, visit the online directories of the Financial Counseling Organization of America or the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. Brief debt counseling would have been part of your bankruptcy process, but it’s often just a cursory session; what you need now is someone to tell you if there’s a way you haven’t considered to ease your debt burden without putting your future financial security at risk.
Are you dealing with difficult financial choices made by someone close to you? Write to Dear Penny at https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/dear-penny/
Lisa Rowan is a personal finance expert and senior writer at The Penny Hoarder, and the voice behind Dear Penny. For more practical money tips, visit www.thepennyhoarder.com.
This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.
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The Baboon and the Salt
Earlier this month, I watched a wonderful excerpt from an interview with the semi-retired comedian Dave Chapelle (I think semi-retired is the best description, having read up on him a little). Chapelle walked away from his hugely popular Comedy Central program Chapelle’s Show at the height of his popularity, leaving $50 million on the table. People questioned his sanity at the time.
After the interviewer asked him about how his decision to quit really wasn’t about the money, Chapelle offers this anecdote.
I watched one of these nature shows one time and they were talking about how a bushman finds water when it’s scarce, and they do what is called a ‘salt trap.’ I didn’t know this, but apparently baboons love salt. So, they put a lump of salt in a hole and they wait for the baboon. The baboon comes, sticks his hand in the hole, grabs the salt, the salt makes his hand bigger, and he’s trapped and can’t get his hand out. Now, if he’s smart, all he does is let go of the salt. The baboon doesn’t want to let go of the salt. Then the bushman comes, grabs the baboon, throws him in a cage, and gives him all the salt he wants! And then the baboon gets thirsty, the bushman lets him out of the cage, the first place the baboon runs to is water, the bushman follows him, and they both drink to their fill. And in that analogy, I felt like the baboon, but I was smart enough to let go of the salt.
Let’s break down this wonderful analogy a little bit.
Dave sees himself as the baboon, obviously.
The salt represents short-term pleasures – a burst of money and wealth and so on. It sits in the hole and he wants it and reaches in for it.
The television executives are the bushman in this analogy – his bosses at the time, in other words.
The cage is the contract that Chapelle would have to place himself under. His creative choices, his personal freedom, all of that would trap him – but he’d have plenty of salt (short-term pleasures)!
The water is what they both want – long-term security.
Dave makes the astute point that he was the baboon, but he saw the bushman and the cage and he chose to drop the salt. He reached in for some short-term pleasures and rewards, but he saw that if he didn’t let go of it, he was going to wind up in a cage for a very long time. Sure, he might eventually get to the water, but he’d have to be in a cage for a long while to get there and he didn’t want to do that.
So he dropped the salt lump. He walked away from his popular show and the all-encompassing fame and the prospect of wealth to forge a path with a lot more freedom. He’ll get to the water eventually, but on his own terms, without being trapped in a cage.
I Am the Baboon, Too
I could not help but see myself in this story, too.
Much like Dave, there was a point in my life where I was the baboon, so let’s start there.
The salt was the short-term pleasures of the world, all of the stuff I kept spending my money on that was bringing me short-term pleasure but almost no long-term joy. Things like the latest gadgets or new clothes or going out for drinks or playing golf… on and on and on like that.
The cage, of course, was the career track that I would likely have been on had I kept holding onto the salt. I would have likely worked until I was in my seventies at a job with crushing bureaucracy. I did enjoy my actual work, but there was so much bureaucracy around it that it was soul-crushing. But I could have pretty much all the salt I wanted!
The bushman represents all of the forces that wanted me to be in that cage. In a broad sense, it represents society in general, of course, which encourages people to follow traditional career paths and nudges people to want an endless train of short-term pleasures. Think of all of the companies out there that exist to encourage people to buy things for the short term.
The water is what we actually want out of life, our long-term goals. We gorge ourselves on salt (the short-term stuff), thinking that’s what we want, but we end up thirsty for water, the long-term stuff.
I am the baboon. You are the baboon.
The Trick Is Letting Go of the Salt Before You Find Yourself in a Cage
When I look back to where I was before our financial turnaround, I was definitely the baboon standing there with my hand in the hole, fiercely gripping the salt and refusing to let go.
It’s not that I was unaware that I was well on my way to being tossed in a cage by the bushman and find myself stuck on a career path of debt and financial dependence on constant employment at a high salary. I knew that it was going to happen.
It’s that I could not bring myself to let go of the salt, and that went on for years. I kept holding onto an expensive standard of living, one where I outspent my income and added to the debt load I already had from my student loans and my car loan.
I wanted the salt. I felt like I needed the salt. The salt made me feel good. Buying things made me feel good. Going out for dinner made me feel good. Having nice things made me feel good.
The thing was, those good feelings were fleeting. I might feel good buying three books at the bookstore, but then I was left late at night feeling worried about my financial future. I didn’t see a clear path to owning a home. I didn’t see a clear path to providing for my son or for any other children I might have. I certainly didn’t see a bright path to retirement or to the other big goals I had in life.
All I could really see was the short term and those short-term bursts of pleasure. So I gripped that salt with all of my might and I stood there with my hand in the hole, watching the bushman build my cage.
One day, I realized that I was going to soon be in that cage, if I wasn’t already.
I realized that those big dreams I had for the future were actually fading away and becoming even more distant.
I realized that all of the stuff I’d accumulated and all of the little expensive experiences I’d had didn’t bring me any real lasting happiness.
What I wanted from that salt – and what I thought it was bringing me – was lasting happiness, but what it was actually bringing me was short, smaller bursts of happiness that would fade.
I was holding onto that salt, but what I really wanted was water.
Water is lasting happiness. Water is a sense of financial security. Water is a life that bubbles up consistent joy without having to spend money for it. Water is a life filled with possibilities.
The salt I was holding onto? It was delicious, but only for the first lick or two, and it didn’t quench my thirst. It only made it worse.
So, I dropped the salt. I stood up and stretched and began the journey toward water.
It wasn’t easy. The journey was long. I often missed the salt. Along the way, however, I found little puddles of water here and there to sate me and keep me going. My immediate thirst was quenched and I felt better without the salt at all.
In other words, I began to discover that I didn’t need pleasures or expensive things or costly experiences to have a joyful life. Joy comes far more reliably from good relationships, from time spent on things you’re passionate about, from having some semblance of security in your life, from living a virtuous life. Fill your life with those things – the real water of life – and you’ll find happiness bubbles up naturally.
Now, I see that river before me. The bushman and his cage are long behind me. A little salt once in a while is nice, but I know it’s easy to drop it whenever I feel trapped by it and I also know it’s not the real source of happiness. A bit of salt enhances the flavor of life, but too much of it ceases to be a good thing.
May you find the courage to let go of the salt and to walk away from the bushman’s cage.
Good luck.
More by Trent Hamm:
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Switching to Low-Flow Toilets Could Save You Hundreds Each Year
How? By replacing your old toilets that are heavily reliant on water with new low-flow (also called low-flush) toilets.
What Are Low-Flow Toilets?
Before the 1990s, the toilet game was like the early American West — untamed, with little to no regulation. But in the early ‘90s, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) mandated that new toilets use no more than 1.6 gallons per flush (gpf). Before this standard arrived, toilets could use anywhere from 5 gpf to 7 gpf, making them inefficient and expensive to use.
The original 1.6 gpf toilets were not perfect. Toilet manufacturers were forced to quickly comply with the new regulation, and their original designs were often unsuccessful at whooshing away all the waste with a single flush, meaning you had to flush them multiple times to do the job. Pretty crappy, right?
Over the last two and a half decades, however, toilet designs have become more advanced and efficient. The new gold standard is 1.28 gpf. Though 1.6 gpf still meets federal guidelines, some states, like drought-stricken California, have moved to a 1.28 gpf requirement. The 1.28 gpf toilets are called “high-efficiency” and earn the EPA’s WaterSense seal of approval.
Are They Worth the Investment?
If you’re renovating your bathroom and a trusty toilet from the 1980s is still your throne of choice, you should consider an upgrade. Why?
According to the EPA, toilets account for 30% of the average family’s indoor water consumption — and don’t forget that a portion of your water bill is actually sewage costs, or what you spit back out of your pipes. Upgrading from an old model to a 1.6 gpf or 1.28 gpf model can reduce water usage for your toilets by 20% to 60%.
Each upgraded toilet can save $110 on your water bill each year — and more than $2,000 over the life of the toilet — according to the EPA.
“They pay for themselves, and fast,” says Brian Moore, owner and master plumber of The Plumbing Express (and my dear old dad). “Even people on a well system would benefit from reduced electricity costs from the well pump not working as hard.
“I have several customers who live in a condo community who have had their condo fees rise sharply because of the cost of water and sewer fees in their county,” Moore continues. “The management office is currently trying to convince all of the residents to change out their 3.5 gpf toilets to the new low-flow toilets to cut their condo fees or keep them from rising more. There are real cost consequences of not switching.”
Some cities even reward you for switching to a low-flow toilet. St. Petersburg, Florida, for example — home of The Penny Hoarder — offers a $100 rebate when you replace a pre-1995 high-flush toilet with a high-efficiency WaterSense model.
So what’s the investment? A basic 1.6 gpf model averages $176 without installation. High-efficiency models can climb between $300 and $400, depending on the model. So if these toilets save you roughly $100 a year, they can pay for themselves in two to four years.
If you are going the federal mandate route (1.6 gpf), Moore recommends the American Standard Cadet Pro 1.6 gpf. He sees great results from Toto’s 1.28 gpf models if you’re after high efficiency. “Toto has been making low-flow toilets for a long time and was the industry leader when the federal government came out with the new mandate in the early ‘90s.” Any toilet with the EPA WaterSense label will optimize your savings.
Other Ways to Save on Your Water Bill
Low-flow toilets are one of the greatest ways to lower your water bill — but they’re not the only way. Aside from simply reducing the amount of water you use around the house, Moore has a few solid recommendations to lower your water bill.
“Changing the aerators on bathroom and kitchen sink faucets can reduce water consumption,” Moore explains. “Newer construction homes can also have greywater systems installed. A greywater system utilizes water from bathtubs, showers, laundry tubs and washing machines that have a separate drainage system that routes the water into a holding tank. The water is then pumped from the holding tank and used for flushing the toilets, therefore recycling the water.”
If you are doing multiple home renovations, you can also purchase high-efficiency washing machines and dishwashers. These are large financial investments, but if it’s time to purchase a new appliance, look for one that will net you more savings over time.
Not ready to replace the toilet? Here are some ways to save on water costs while keeping your current porcelain throne.
Timothy Moore is an editor and freelance writer with a real passion for toilet humor. It took everything in him not to dump a bunch of toilet-themed puns into this article.
This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.
The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make money.
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