What NOT To Do!
I came across some information that I thought was quite interesting that you and I can both benefit from.
We are constantly focusing on all the things we need to be doing to be more successful. We all want to be noticed by our customers, partners, increase our brand awareness, gain more leads and contacts, and of course generate more opportunities for our business to grow.
You and I also know that the best way to do this is through SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
I have talked a bit before the importance on reputation, how important it is to gain the trust of our readers and clients, how our reputation effects viral marketing, whether it be for good or bad. If you are doing some things that will bring about negative publicity, you may find yourself banned from Google as well as facing some legal issues in the future. So, in this blog, I am going to be going over a few Don’t s, the ‘black hat methods’ to stay away from, no matter how innocent you may think they are.
You don’t want to be on the odds with Google or your clients. A good reputation takes a long time to build, but a bad reputation can spread like wildfire in a day.
There are many who debate the ‘black hat vs white hat’ strategies. But in my opinion, it doesn’t matter the name you give it, there are things that are just not a smart idea and need to be avoided.
These methods have a common denominator and that is trying to trick the search engines and changing search results.
If you have any inclination that it may not be ethical, or that if being looked at by the human eye, could be detected, then don’t do it.
Below, I will give you a list of the Don’t s and Avoid if at all possible;
1. Link Farms
We both know the biggest influence on your search rankings is the amount and quality of links coming into your Web page. Link Farms are a group of Web sites that have been created for one purpose and that purpose is to create a high number of links to a website. What’s wrong with this? Well, for one, these links are not “real”, which in turn, changes or distorts the search engine ranking.
2. Generating and Duplicating Content
Content is king. The search engines love great content, and they like it updated on a regular basis. This takes time, money and energy on your part. There are those who try to trigger the search engine spiders from a particular website by taking Web content from other sites or some auto-generated content and publishing it on their own site.
If you are doing this, you are risking your business. If you don’t think Google knows about this, they do, and they have been pretty good at finding out what is computer generated content versus “real” content. And if you are using content from other Websites without their permission, you are in violation of copyright laws as well as it being totally unethical. Again, remember you reputation is on the line.
3. Have You Heard of Keyword Stuffing?
This is just as the name applies, using a given keyword over and over hoping that the search engines *will pick it up. This was made known to Google and other search engines many years ago, so nothing new to them, but yet, it still continues to be popular.
4. What About Cloaking?
Cloaking is when you deliver different Web content to the search engines than what is being delivered to the people searching the web. The reason this is done is to send search engine spider content for SEO ranking on one term, but sending totally different content to the readers.
As you can see, this is a choice that needs to be made as you are marketing your blogs, products, websites, etc…Do the right thing!
