Search engines are changed and updated daily, which makes optimization an ever-evolving process. A typical and inexperienced internet user may not realize this, but search engines use a variety of algorithms each year that require an improved or completely changed approach as part of SEO strategy.
These algorithms increase the chances of penalties for many sites that just don’t keep up with the latest SEO changes.
Fortunately, by staying up-to-date on industry trends, you can thrive as a seller and increase your search engine rankings. Here you will find two lists: one of the dos and one of the don’ts of a good SEO strategy, rules that apply to all sites or blogs, regardless of time or industry.
Most Important Do’s And Don’ts For Google SEO
Do’s Of An SEO Strategy
1. Get Backlinks From Relevant Sites
To improve your SEO, you need to get more backlinks from relevant sites in your industry. Do your best to get links to the most reputable sites in your niche.
2. Write Well Researched And Engaging Content
Quality content makes the difference between a common website and one that dominates the Internet. Your articles should be well researched and engaging with your readers. Always ask people to write comments and share articles with their friends on social media.
3. Use Keywords In Your Titles, Meta Descriptions, And Body Text
To increase your chances of getting a high ranking on Google, you should put your main keywords in your titles and meta descriptions. It is also important to have your keywords in the body text.
4. Do Keyword Research
Every time you start writing an article, research your keywords with the Google Keyword Tool and determine what phrases people use to search Google.
5. Become A Guest Blogger On Trustworthy And Reputable Sites
Being a contributor to popular sites in your industry will help you reach a new audience and potentially gain new loyal readers. Just write for reputable sites and make sure your content is at least as good as the content on your site. Your articles must be excellent.
6. Monitor Your Backlinks
Tracking your site’s backlinks is at least as important as creating them. Maintaining a clean backlink profile is vital to SEO success. Use the Monitor Backlinks SEO tool to stay up-to-date with the links on your website.
7. Create Internal Links
Internal links are one of the easiest ways to link to your best pieces of content. Internal links are also a Google ranking factor and can help search engines easily find and index your content.
In addition to SEO benefits, it also offers your readers the opportunity to discover related content on your site and keep them longer.
8. Create Infographics
Infographics are popular and help you create quality backlinks and generate relevant traffic to your website.
9. Create a Sitemap
Sitemaps don’t offer an increase in SEO, but they do provide search engines with an easier way to find and index all the pages on your site. Creating a sitemap is easy and will increase your site’s indexing and crawling rate.
10. Make It Easy For Others To Access Your Site
While you should never publicly ask for a link to your website, you can encourage webmasters to do so by creating a small “link to this article” widget.
Make it easy for others to link your site and you will get more backlinks.
11. Be Patient, Seo Takes Time
You will never get results overnight. SEO is a process that can take months, or sometimes years. It is a continuous process and you never end up optimizing your website. As long as you are using SEO best practices, the results will come and your ranking will increase.
12. Make Your Website Easy To Use
Your website should be intuitive and very easy to navigate.
13. Write Long Content
Your content should be long and useful to your readers. The longer the articles, the more keywords they have and the greater the chances of ranking for new search phrases. Do your best to write more comprehensive guides than your competitors.
14. Learn From Your Best Competitors
Always study your competition and try to learn from its success. Replicate what works for them and try to create the same quality backlinks.
15. Remove And Disavow Bad Links
To ensure you don’t incur a Google penalty, check your site’s backlinks frequently and remove suspects. With the links, you can’t remove, create a disavow report, and submit it to the Google disavow tool.
16. Post-New Content Frequently
The new articles will show your readers and search engines that you are still updating the site and that it has not been abandoned.
17. Make Your Website Mobile Friendly
Currently, more than 50% of users are accessing the Internet through mobile phones. Based on this, Google launched an algorithm optimized for mobile devices that give an advantage to sites with a responsive design or mobile version.
18. Create Your Website With SEO In Mind
If you are just starting your website, consider SEO from the beginning. Make the entire search engine friendly and help Google and other search engines to crawl easily.
19. Improve Website Speed
Although it is not an important factor, the speed of your website will provide a small advantage for SEO.
Don’ts Of An SEO Strategy
1. Avoid Irrelevant Links
Links from unrelated sites will have your site penalized. There is no point in having links from irrelevant sites, from completely different niches. For example, if you are an e-commerce site that sells baby clothes, links to sports sites will not be helpful.
2. Don’t Get Obsessed With The Amount Of Backlinks
The number of backlinks still obsesses many beginners. The truth is that the amount of links you have is not important.
3. Don’t Use Pagerank As A Metric To Decide A Backlink Value
Google stopped updating the PageRank toolbar more than two years ago. You should NOT use PageRank as a metric to compare your backlink value.
4. Don’t Do Keyword Stuffing
You should never use too many keywords in your content. Write for your audience, not for search engine robots.
5. Don’t Get Links From Blog Networks
Blogging is a way to spam your search engine rankings. It may work for a few weeks, but will eventually be penalized. Avoid blogging at all costs.
6. Do Not Use Covers And Front Pages
Google devalues sites that have doorway pages and use cloaking techniques.
7. Avoid Sitewide Backlinks
Sitewide backlinks will quickly alert Google that you’re doing something suspicious.
8. Don’t Write Guest Posts On Bad Sites
Don’t waste time writing for sites with very bad reputations. Never write for sites with a lower quality than yours.
9. Don’t Use Hidden Text Or Links
The hidden text and links are from the 90s. Using this technique today, you will be penalized very quickly.
10. Avoid Backlinks From Pages With More Than 100 External Links
Many external links are a sign that the page quality is not very high. Very rarely, a good website will have more than a hundred external links.
11. Don’t Build Backlinks Only To Your Home Page
When creating backlinks, you must make the whole process look very natural. Creating links only to your homepage can raise a flag to Google.
13. Do Not Optimize The Anchor Text
Over optimizing the anchor texts of your backlinks, Google will penalize your site. Most links should use the brand name instead of the money keywords.
14. Never Buy Seo Services From The “Offers” You Receive By Email
You probably received an email from “Cheap SEO Services” this month. Never consider giving money to these spammers. Their outreach itself is a method of spam. Just think about how they will spam your site.
15. Don’t Spam Website To Build Backlinks
When creating backlinks, do not spam other sites. Instead, use smart ways to create quality links. You can see what your best competitors are doing to get links and replicate your strategies.
17. Don’t Buy Cheap Seo Services
Most cheap SEO service providers are scammers. You must understand that SEO is not cheap. If you can’t buy services from a trustworthy company, it’s better to do SEO on your own.
18. Do Not Copy Content From Other Sites
Your website must have unique content. Duplicate content is not something you should be using.
19. Don’t Trust “Seo Experts” Promise To Rank Your Site First For Your Main Keyword
SEO is not an exact science and no one can guarantee the ranking of the first page. Those who make such guarantees will get your money and start spamming your website. You’ll be the one to lose because you are the one risking having your site penalized.
20. Do Not Link To Penalized Sites
Always pay close attention to the sites you link to. Linking bad sites can decrease the value of your site. Never link to untrusted sources.
21. Do Not Exchange Links
Reciprocal links are outdated and you should stay away from this technique.
22. Do Not Post Low-Quality Content
Although it is important to have a lot of content on your site, if the quality is low, Panda will penalize you. Especially if your content is very thin and short.
23. Do Not Accept Spam Comments On Blogs
Approximately 90% of the comments are spam. You must moderate all comments before approval. Never accept comments without real names. If the “cheap design” says your content was great and leaves a link, hit the spam button as soon as possible.
Don’t Trust Everything You Read About SEO
There is a lot of misinformation about SEO. There are guides who will encourage you to use black hat or gray hat SEO techniques. Before jumping to conclusions, always do some research and make sure other experts agree with what you read.
25. Ads Above The Fold
Ads above the fold will affect the user experience, and Google will penalize sites with many ads above the fold.
27. Don’t Sell Dofollow Links
When you get money for do-follow links, you will participate in schemes that manipulate Google results and you’ll get a penalty.