The debate is on! Do marketers fail fast or win safe with SEO. What do you think? Is it easy for a digital marketer to work wonders by playing the SEO tricks right! Well, I will vote against it. Marketers do fail fast as most of them think they have earned their stripes in SEO, but the truth is with changing times, some of the SEO activities are downright not relevant. The major disadvantage of Search Engine Optimization is that it is time-taking, and there is no shortcut to it. In that case, those looking for speedier results tend to bypass some of the quintessential SEO rules. So, while a marketer can win safe with SEO, they usually fail because nothing comes easy and fast.
In this blog, we will consider all the aspects of why it is not simple to win safe with SEO. Why SEO is tricky at times! And, what are the common mistakes a marketer/SEO expert does to succeed fast?
Let’s discuss 7 reasons why marketers fail to score with SEO and can’t win easily:
#1 Obsolete Content Marketing SEO tactics
Most of the SEO analysts will not agree to what all will be mentioned now. But, do take it with a pinch of salt. Now you must be thinking of what outdated SEO as all the time is it is about content and getting backlinks. Well, let us tell you, the content will not help you always. Here is what you are doing wrong:
- Mass content production
When an SEO person is hired the first thing he starts doing it is putting a lot of blogs and articles, and to an extent it helps a great deal, especially when the content is fresh and you are charging up the Google search engines, calling out loud that, “hey, we have arrived!”. Unfortunately, it fails to work like this on a long run.
Nothing against content marketing as that is the backbone of web optimization. However, producing low-quality mass content with some relevant keywords peppered here and there is a sure no-no.
What is the fix? Concentrate on the questions asked by the users. If you are not answering the things that are bothering the customer, Google will not help you with the SERPs. The hint would be: Go after the keywords that are in question format. Have an FAQ page and dedicate quality articles to each question, answering in detail weighing all the pros and cons.
- Keyword stuffing
Whether you agree or not, it is happening. SEO content writers who have writing for years and have seen the internet boom, really find it challenging to write without using the keywords twice or thrice. Keyword stuffing is certainly outdated but using the right keywords in the content piece is not.
To fix this issue, keyword placement needs to be taken care of, and every keyword should fall seamlessly into the very fabric of the content piece.
- Trying to rank for short keywords
Agreed your SEO research gives you a lot of short keywords, and it is much easier to write content surrounding these keywords. But ranking for short keywords is a Catch-22 when they are usually high-on-competition keywords with high keyword difficulty.
Along with short keywords, use long-tail keywords. It will actually help you rank also for single keywords because the way people are searching on Google is very specific these days. They are even mentioning the area. Placing long-tail keywords will combat keyword stuffing too.
- Not strategizing Long-tail keywords
Not all is hunky-dory with long-tail keywords. You will be surprised to know that keywords that get penalized are usually long-tail keywords. For instance, take the example of long-tail keyword “cheap subcontractor services Florida.” If you place this keyword two-three times in an 800-1000-word blog/article, you are just a step behind getting doomed.
The easy fix for this issue is to take long-tail keywords. Your content piece should be a heady mix of all sorts of keywords and related keywords. For long-tail keyword “cheap subcontractor services Florida,” related keyword could be “house remodeling services” or “general contractor near me”.
- Low-quality content in the guest post
Guest blogging has been a tower of strength for SEOs and content marketers. But ill-practices in using this tactic had have been effecting the very idea of guest blogging. Some of the common mistakes while doing guest blogging is writing low-quality content. Blogging for the sake of blogging will not lead any company’s marketing strategy anywhere.
Marketing experts call it spammy blogging. What you shall be doing when guest blogging is:
- Don’t write irrelevant content – stick to the subject matter
- Don’t write low-quality content – means it should be rich in vocabulary and grammatically correct, divided point-wise for better comprehension
- Don’t stuff long-tail keywords thinking that you can rank.
- Using Optimized anchors in your guest posts
For starters, what’s an optimized anchor? A web-optimized anchor means an anchor text that is using a keyword for which a company wants to rank. For example, if a company’s website wants to rank for the keyword “top construction marketing services,” it will use the same in the anchor.
SEOs have been using anchor texts for a long time to improve SEO. And, experts know that it worked. But right now, optimized anchors have been outdated. Placing keywords everywhere and anywhere is backfiring, and optimized anchors are an example of that.
#2 Link building activities
What SEOs are running after most of the time is, of course, link building activities. Is it fruitful? Well, it is always debatable. For some, getting backlinks has worked tremendously. But that’s not the deal all the time, especially when the concentration is not in quality content, but throwing up articles for the sake of backlinking. It’s a usual notion that backlinks will help you foraying into high rankings, staggering online traffic, and good domain authority. Well, that doesn’t happen. An efficient SEO can't be just about backlinking, right! Check how and why backlinking can go awry.
- Quick and fast backlinking
An SEO agency tackling too many clients usually have this method of building backlinks fast. They just go by one mantra, and that is growing as many links to rank better than the competitors. You tell me, frankly, how quickly can SEO be done.
There are cases where people have built more than 10,000 links in a short span and started ranking on top but within three-four weeks their sites collapsed. A thorough professional will always say slow, and steady wins the race. And deep inside, marketers know SEO picks up slow and will maintain consistency if done right.
- Homepage is not everything
It is a usual mistake that marketers do, and they don’t even realize it. The homepage is not everything, and thus you need not send every link to the homepage. What you can do instead of growing links to the homepage is build links to the other crucial pages of the website, means diverting them to service pages or blogs or About Us page. So, if you want to have high rankings, link-back to the homepage less and to the internal pages more.
- Building too many reciprocal links
2020 is round the corner and here we are going to discuss reciprocal links. Isn’t it an outdated tactic which SEO community has stopped doing! No, not at all. It is being done and the new way of doing it is through networking. A site A knows site B because B used to be the client of A. The former asks the latter to exchange links, and they did. Reciprocal links work in this way. And now, thanks to LinkedIn, professionals and companies are getting speedily connected, helping each other in growing business.
It’s being said that a certain percentage of reciprocal links is perfectly fine, and Google will not penalize the website links. But doing it in excess will have consequences. Next time when you are doing the “dofollow” act keep it minimum and do it with the trusted sites.
- Paying for the links
You are doing it right! In some way or the other many websites, especially e-commerce websites, are doing it. We will not get into how paid linking is working for influencers and brands on Social Media. Here will talk as per SEO. Well, search engines, especially Google, strictly bans the selling and buying of links.
“Any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site's ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines,” – mentions Google clearly. It is a blackhat SEO technique and Google has a method to crack it down. It usually asks users to tell them about cases where people have asked to sell or buy links. They will penalize both the parties. So, if you are doing paid links, be extra careful.
- Relying on irrelevant low-Quality links
Sometimes an SEO witnesses a unique phenomenon, and that is finding their link on a poor-quality website. How does it happen? An SEO expert is particular about the domain authority of the site before publishing the article. Well, not all sites with valuable domain authority can maintain it. Some of them see a sharp drop and soon become irrelevant turning quality links to low-quality ones.
Another point of consideration would be checking the website even if it has a worthy domain authority. For instance, consider eHow. The site appears on top for many “How to do” searches. Interestingly, there are over 5 million pages dedicated to content and have millions of backlinks too. But the quality of ehow content is not worthwhile. It is considered fair to middling. If they can do better articles, they will rank much better. Though eHow is not a poor-quality website, sites trying to ape the same success story, doing mediocre content in surplus, certainly can land up as low-quality. Beware of such sites for links.
#3 Don’t ignore Social media
How SEO works? Is it just about the content everywhere and the backlinks? Absolutely no! A backlink strategy needs to have the right balance with all the other SEO activities, and that includes Social Media. Having your blogs and articles posted on Social Media not only helps in the brand building but it can also fetch you more page views. If you are looking forward to having page visibility and prominence as a brand on search engines, again Social Media is the key.
One can't afford to be a silly billy ignoring social media, saying that it doesn’t suit the business or brand. Social Media channels with their high domain authority surely help in getting more clicks.
#4 Going overboard with internal pages
A content-rich website is a Google treasure. Take, for instance, Wikipedia. The site has millions of pages helping it in getting top page ranking and thus more traffic. So, going by the model of Wikipedia, more pages would mean better ranking. Isn’t it! Well, yes! But for a website which is into marketing services will this work! No! They will have limited pages, and all the pages need to be optimized for service-related keywords. Increasing the internal pages for them will not help. And even if they do it would mean putting quality, holistic and relevant content into every page.
#5 Spamming with Commenting on Blogs
Commenting on blogs is a common practice. Just see Quora, and you can find answers splattered with links. Is it a good practice? It’s spamming! SEO experts have stopped doing it as Google algorithm has an unfavorable take on this. It is now a Black hat SEO technique.
To combat this problem, what authoritative blogs and sites are doing! They have “nofollow” by default. By doing this the website owner lets Google not to crawl it. Some websites have a tedious process before the user can see the comment on their blog. They scan your comment first and if there is a link, they will delete it.
#6 Trying to rank for high search volume keywords
Do your content marketers keep a tab of search volume while writing a content piece? Well, it’s the job of an SEO expert, but content writers should also pay attention to it. What happens is sometimes targeted keywords get low searches and that happens because you might be catering to niche and has specific keywords for which you want to target. But it’s not happening because these keywords have low search volume.
Going by the SEO tactics, one should be using keywords with high search volume, but also keep in mind that those keywords should have low keyword difficulty. Trying to rank for high keyword-difficulty keywords can lead to a failing situation. A content writer should be using both the variations after analyzing both sets of keywords.
#7 Questioning, “Why does SEO take time?”
There can be n number of SEO tactics failing now and then, but then you don’t ask why "SEO takes time." For most of the SEO experts making their clients believe that SEO is an ongoing process and that should be patient to see the results is like eating a frog. There is no easy fix when it comes to SEO. Web optimization should be in constant motion to yield desirable results. It is like a plant that needs to be watered and maintained daily to grow with time, and then there is no looking back. However, one can say that SEO a lot of times is hit and trial. So, don’t fear to hit hard.
Concluding the long story short, mentioning here about the site’s speed or producing exceptional relevant content and getting quality links is passé. With the advent of new decade, SEO will undoubtedly see significant changes breaking in, all thanks to Google. However, there is one sure thing, and that is, any SEO tactic would be half-baked without proper content. Now voice searches are getting popular and the way people are using the technology will change the way how keywords will behave in the future. A good SEO and a marketer will fail when they are not keeping abreast of modern digital world changes.
Conclusion
Marketers can win safe with SEO by optimizing their content and website using some of the best SEO Software solutions. SEMrush, Ahrefs, MOZPro, Advance Web Ranking, Google Trends, are few to name who have well established as the top SEO Software solutions in the market today. You can even start testing your SEO tactics with the free and open source SEO software. Stay aware, stay connected, stay ahead of others, and you win.
