Avoid These 7 Simple But Stupid SEO Tactics

On the internet, there are numerous articles and people promoting “quick SEO fixes.”

In less than a second, a Google search for “SEO tactics” yielded 14,100,000 results.

But if the last few decades have taught us anything, it’s that you can’t believe everything you read on the internet.

Some of the SEO advice you come across will be outdated, incorrect, or even stupid.

It’s possible that the author’s recommendations and tactics were based on a misunderstanding of how search works.

They could be due to a lack of experience or knowledge of the industry.

Here is a list of seven of those stupid SEO tactics to avoid so they don’t seriously harm your long-term SEO performance, regardless of where they came from.

1. SEO Strategy for an Assembly Line

“Assembly line SEO,” in my opinion, is when a person or company uses the same exact tactics for every client with no variation.

Because it’s easy to manage, many of the larger SEO agency use this strategy for their SMB division.

Following the first round of on-page optimizations, the site’s routine tactics usually include blogging and link buying.

However, just because something is simple does not always mean it is the best option.

This strategy may be successful for a short time, but unless there is no competition, the website will eventually reach a growth plateau.

Instead, what should you do?

Rather than getting stuck in a routine “task-based” strategy, concentrate on coming up with new ways to provide value to your website’s visitors.

Look into what your competitors’ most popular content is and how they approach content strategy.

Make a list of all of your competitors’ strategies and look for areas where you can fill in the gaps in their content.

Take advantage of these opportunities to ensure that your content is designed to assist your audience at each stage of the buying process.

Continuous research and content creation may take more time, but it will inevitably yield more results.

Another benefit is that it will demonstrate to your stakeholders that you are genuinely concerned about their performance.

2. Algorithm Updates to Blame for Performance Drops (Without Evidence)

Depending on the website, performance drops can happen as quickly and frequently as algorithm updates.

Algorithm updates happen so frequently these days that it’s easy to blame Google and claim that they’re to blame for a drop in your rankings and organic traffic.

It’s true on occasion!

Performance drops, on the other hand, can happen for a variety of reasons.

The following are some of the most common causes of organic performance declines:

Newly discovered technical issues on the site.
Significant content changes.
Seasonality.
Competitor changes.
Manual actions.

Keeping those possibilities in mind, it’s critical that we don’t blame an algorithm update as a quick fix.

Disclaimer:

Don’t be alarmed if your website has recently been hacked.

Some things simply happen, and your traffic will naturally return.

What you don’t want to do is make major changes to your website. This could cause even more issues with your organic performance.

Instead, what should you do?

There are several SEO recovery guides available that provide more in-depth instructions on how to recover from organic performance drops.

Here are some quick tips for determining whether your site was truly affected by an algorithm.

Is It True That Google Has Found New Technical Issues?

One of the most common reasons for a site’s performance to suffer is a technical issue.

This usually occurs when a site administrator updates various parts of the site without realizing it, resulting in serious technical issues.

Check the following places to see if this is a problem:

In Google Search Console, look at the coverage report.
To check for structural changes and crawl traps, run a Screaming Frog or Sitebulb crawl.
To find any hidden errors, run an automated audit in your SEO tool of choice.
Any new disallow directives should be checked in robots.txt.
To see how Google may be rendering your site, perform a fetch and render.

Significant Content Modifications

Another common cause of significant ranking changes is this. Content on some sites, such as eCommerce, is frequently updated.

If your site rarely updates content and you notice a drop in organic traffic or rankings, you should look into whether your client or another site admin made any unintentional changes.

You can look into site changes in a variety of ways, including:

In the Wayback Machine, use the Changes tool to see what has changed.
To keep track of your site’s changes, install an activity log plugin.
Look into which Google Analytics pages took the most hits and analyze those pages.

Seasonality

It’s rare to come across a location that isn’t affected by seasonality.

Make sure to check your year-over-year benchmarks whenever a stakeholder comes to you with concerns about site performance.

By superimposing quarterly trend lines on top of one another, you can demonstrate to your stakeholders that these dips aren’t unusual.

You should also forecast ahead of time to inform them of any future expected dips based on the previous year’s trends.

The important thing to note here is that you’re still improving year after year.

Changes in Competitors

Some changes in traffic may occur as a result of a competitor’s improved organic strategy.

This is usually indicated by a steady decline in organic performance; it is uncommon for it to occur with sudden drops in performance.

Don’t get too worked up if you think your competitors are stealing your rankings.

I’ve written a Python script that lets you spy on your organic competitors. It will show you who is consistently ranking for the keywords in your topic.

Manual Procedures

Although manual actions are not as common as they once were, they still occur.

If your site’s traffic has dropped dramatically, check Google Search Console for any manual actions.

3. Copying the Location Page

Creating unique copy for each location when developing location pages for large websites with many locations can be tedious and time-consuming.

Using the same copy for each location page may appear to be the easy way out, but I strongly advise against it.

By focusing on unique copy for each location page, you can significantly improve your local ranking performance.

To learn how to create the ultimate location page, check out my location page checklist.

4. Using Strategy-Driven Automated Auditing Tools

Using automated tools to drive your organic strategy may not be the best option.

Many new SEO professionals use automated tools to conduct their initial SEO audits and then use the results to guide their overall SEO strategy.

What exactly is the issue here?

These SEO grading tools don’t “ask questions,” as the term implies.

The key to any successful SEO strategy is to ask questions such as, but not limited to:

What information do they need to take action, and who is my target audience?
Are there any barriers in the way of Google crawling and interpreting my site?
Is it possible to optimize entities using my internal linking structure?

Instead, what should you do?

Learn how to look at a site holistically using a tool like Screaming Frog or Sitebulb.

Analyze the structure of a site using visualization tools.

Look for content gaps and make sure your technical structure is in good shape.

Search engines may have an easier time discovering, crawling, and rendering your web pages if your technical foundation is sound.

5. Link Exchange Fees

Now, I understand that this article is intended to focus on white hat tactics, but there is a grey hat method of link building in which you can pay companies for guaranteed links.

This is an excellent way to ensure that your clients receive a certain number of backlinks each month.

Quality and relevance, on the other hand, are almost never up to par.

Instead, what should you do?

Link building has a tendency to snowball.

It’s possible that if you get links in well-known publications, another writer will find you and link to you in their own articles.

With smaller DA backlinks, however, this is a less common occurrence.

I recommend hiring a public relations firm to assist you with content creation and placement in notable publications.

Because of the snowball effect, these larger publications have a higher rate of organically growing your backlink profile.

6. Not Being Afraid To Ask Questions

It’s far too easy to simply Google your questions’ answers, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

When it comes to strategy or solving specific problems, however, Google may not always provide the best solution.

It’s perfectly acceptable to seek assistance from your peers. Even the best of us use Twitter to conduct polls and solicit assistance. That’s not something to be ashamed of.

It is, in fact, strongly encouraged!

No decent SEO will make fun of you because you don’t know something.

We must all learn in some way.

If you’re still nervous, submit your anonymous questions to Search Engine Journal’s Ask an SEO column to have them answered publicly. Others may benefit from the shared knowledge in this way.

7. Ignoring Other SEO Pillars

The three pillars of SEO, according to most SEOs, are content, link building, and technical.

However, I think “local” should be added as a fourth pillar because it combines elements from all three in a unique way.

Ignoring any of these pillars for an extended period of time can either slow or stop your rankings from improving.

If your initial audits reveal a large number of technical issues, for example, you may be eager to get them out of the way and spend all of your time cleaning them up.

If at all possible, try to devote your resources to each SEO pillar at the same time.

If you spend all of your time fixing technical issues or conducting link outreach but neglect to improve your content, your rankings may not improve as quickly as you hoped.