8 Spammy SEO Practices That Sound Stupid in 2021

Whenever we confront the outdated Search engine optimization (SEO) practices topic, things like keyword stuffing, article spinning, and publishing non-original content come to mind. Even though such techniques can be highly damaging to a website ranking, in 2021, they are considered the stereotypical examples of bad SEO practices.

In this article, we will go through 8 practices that, even though it may be hard to believe, are labeled as spammy by Google and are as damaging as the above-mentioned SEO practices in 2021.

 

Guest Posting without Checking the Host blog

As much as link building could be an essential part of your SEO marketing strategy, simply reaching out to a host blog without investigating it could be a terrible idea. Paying a link-building company for guaranteed links may seem a convenient idea on the face of it. However, if the interests of the host blog’s audience are irrelevant to your target market, then what is the point of such a link-building effort?

If the host website does not have a good reputation for its unique publications and high-quality content, your digital marketing strategy and website ranking are hurt!

 

Coming up with Near-Duplicate Location Pages

When developing many local landing pages or service area pages for your website, it may be convenient to create uniform content for all and change your target locations on each page. Nonetheless, a much more effective local SEO strategy suggests creating unique content for each location page.

 

Having Several Pages on the Website Competing for the Same Keyword

 

When several pages on your website target a specific keyword, you are competing with yourself. This scenario implies that you are asking Google to weigh the pages targeting an exact target keyword against each other and just show that one thinks it is the most suitable match for that keyword. This SEO blunder is called keyword cannibalization.

 

Keyword Cannibalizations and Its Negative Consequences

In this SEO misstep, you are cannibalizing your results by allocating one single keyword to multiple pages on your website. When you split your click-through rate (CTR), content, and conversion between several pages, you are telling Google that your knowledge of a particular topic is so limited that you cannot broaden the authority of your site for that query.

The outcomes of this situation are so unpleasant yet predictable: lost site traffic queries leading to the wrong page, fluctuating SERP rankings, and ultimately lost sales.

 

Optimized Anchors

Optimized anchors are anchor texts containing the keywords for which you want to rank. You may ask, what is wrong with it? Well, this practice was working until Google classified such links as unnatural links. To know more about this, read this Google guideline regarding link schemes.

Now let’s see how we can change a troublesome anchor text to a safe one. For example, the anchor text in the following sentence is one that Google surely does not like!

“If you want your website to rank on top of Google with a high conversion rate, you have to get the best digital services..”

You can change the above sentence by replacing the anchor text with:

A naked URL:  “If you want your website to rank on top of Google with a high conversion rate, you can visit www.purplez.com”  or

A branded URL: “If you want to enjoy quality digital marketing services in Orange County, check PurpleZ.”  or

A long-phrase: “We recommend you to approach a trustworthy company if you want to have an influential presence in the online market.

Last but not least, do not use generic anchor text such as “click here,” “this site,” or “this article”

 

Building Too Many Links Too Quickly

As mentioned earlier, an SEO marketing strategy without link building is pointless. However, this process should be done at a slow and steady pace for the best results. The reason is that Google likes things to be achieved naturally, so its algorithm does estimate at what rate websites typically build links. When they detect your website having too many links at a swift pace, they ensure that your website doesn’t rank too well!

Lastly, having too many links to your home page is also not a very good idea. So, build the majority of your links to your internal pages over the course the time.

 

Including Unnecessary and Irrelevant Internal Links

Neither your target customers nor search engines don’t appreciate internal links that don’t match the topic. Filling your content with internal links that are not consistent is as damaging as keyword stuffing to your SEO marketing.

 

Copying the Competitors’ Strategies

 

Unfortunately, some SEO companies think analyzing the backlinks of their client’s leading competitor and replicating those links can deliver results. This strategy doesn’t usually get them anywhere, though.

 

Missing the Full Picture

Many websites block SEO crawlers, so the backlink report that your access most probably will be incomplete. The ending result will be replicating the lowest quality links and missing the best ones.  

Google Penalties

Even if you can replicate the whole competitor’s strategy, you are taking a considerable risk. Why? Because in case a Google update decides that the copied approach deserves a penalty, you will share the pain with the competitor!

 

Only Targeting High Traffic Keywords

Even though not spammy, this SEO practice is damaging to your online marketing strategy, so we have included it here.

If your website is a new one, competing with strong domain authorized competitors over high volume keywords is somewhat vain. In such cases, a good strategy is to compete on relatively less popular keywords that are likely to be missed out on by your competitors.

 

And Finally

We just went through 8 of the practices that could be harmful to your SEO marketing in 2021. As you have noticed, an effective SEO practice this year might be regarded as spammy next year.

If an effective business presence is vital for your company, keeping up with the most current SEO practices is a must. However, doing so would take a lot of your time both in terms of training and implementation. In this case, entrusting at least the SEO part of your digital marketing to a professional digital marketing agency and focusing on other facets of your business is undoubtedly a profitable idea.

If you look for a team of SEO experts to boost your small or medium-sized company’s website ranking in Los Angeles, call +1 800 213 7303.

 

Contact  Us Today to Get Started Get in Touch 

 

 

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