Over the years, SEO strategies have changed in response to various search engine algorithm updates. Any professional SEO expert in Singapore can attest to the fact that some of the strategies that used to work five years ago can get your site penalized.
Our goal today is to help you avoid these strategies by giving you details of five outdated SEO strategies that you should avoid like a plague.
Exact Match Domains
For several years, exact match domains (EDMs) gained a massive traction, and so many blogs were written about their impact on SEO. You could easily rank high for an exact match domain than a conventional domain.
The approach of EDMs is using the word that you want to rank for as the domain. Here are a few examples:
- Commercialresidentialcontractor.com
- Tampaairconditionerrepair.com
- Essaywritingservice.com
To cut a long story short, EDMs have lost their ranking on not only Google but also other search engines. Nowadays, they have equal ability to be listed on the first page of Google as other domains by they have a higher probability of being identified as spam either manually or algorithmically.
Reciprocal Linking
Google views a backlink as a vote of confidence. As a result, the more backlinks that you have, the higher your chances of ranking high on search engines. Reciprocal linking was very popular a few years ago but has since then lost its glory. The philosophy behind this strategy was that if you link to me, I would as well link to you.
Google recently listed this strategy as one of the blackhats or manipulative link building strategies and so you risk being penalized if you use it to build your backlink profile.
Indiscriminative Guest Blogging
Contrary to popular belief, guest blogging is still a viable SEO strategy that you can use to get your site high up in the SERPs. It entails publishing an article related to your niche on a website that already enjoys a huge audience. The posts once published will give your brand more exposure, highlight your expertise to new clients, and enhance your brand’s credibility in the market.
In the early days, one would have to write a killer piece that is relevant to the target audience and includes a link to the main site. Online marketers were eager to post fresh content on their sites and accepted guest post requests from a multitude of authors without really considering the value of the content and topic.
Such indiscriminative guest blogging is a total waste of time and resources that would have been spent on other effective SEO strategies.
Keyword Stuffing
Back in the days, search engines could only interpret simple signals based on metrics such as keyword density. As a result, webmasters would include a load of target keywords on every page on the site and blog post that they publish to increase the chances of being displayed on SERPs. For a while, that tactic worked but nowadays, it is one of the quickest ways of flushing your good ranking down the drain.
Exact-Match Anchor Text
The anchor is the clickable test on a link – it used to be a significant ranking factor. For instance, if you wanted to rank for a keyword such as “Dallas SEO” you would strive to have multiple links with the anchor text as “Dallas SEO” as possible in every page and article that you publish.
Online marketers excessively used this tactic, and as a result, Google banned it. Websites that were found to have used the tactic lost their ranking.
Instead of using such strategies, try to use a variety of words and phrases that are related to the products and services that you offer. Let us proceed and look at three aspects that Google places more emphasis on when evaluating links.
- The linking website current authority
- Relevance or relationship of the linking website to your website
- The number of links from authoritative websites pointing to your site
Conclusion
Monitoring changes in the SEO world can be a daunting task especially for large companies that have a ton of things to do per day. It is therefore recommended to contract a good Singapore SEO company to monitor and make changes to the site on a weekly or daily basis depending on your objectives and budget.
