SEO would still be playing a pivotal role in growing your brand and business even in 2024. This is particularly because the significance of the social media has gone down to some extent in terms of driving traffic while Google became the chief referral traffic source ever since 2017 by effectively driving almost 35 percent of website visits.
You could boost your site’s overall rankings on Google’s SERP and you must focus on achieving top rankings on the search engine results page simply because we know that the first result on search would surely be getting far more clicks in comparison to other search results that follow.
As per https://www.huffpost.com, SEO techniques and best practices keep changing with ever-evolving Google algorithms to complement the search engine algorithms. As per Rowe Digital’s Founder, Kevin Rowe, Google algorithms are updated more than 600 times every year. Moreover, things have become far more advanced in terms of evaluation of the relevancy of a website to the specific search term used. Hence, it becomes mandatory on your part to keep track of top-ranking websites to comprehend the latest SEO ranking factors.
Businesses or organizations need to be innovative and updated with the latest SEO techniques for evolving along with the precise search engine. SEO-centric content marketing has been fueling organic marketing for years now. Without best SEO practices, your content would surely be missing out opportunities of gaining leads via organic user searches and earning more traffic eventually.
Let us identify and understand some of the bad SEO practices that must be kept at bay if you wish to achieve SEO success in 2024 and beyond. However, before delving into the SEO bad practices to avoid, you must understand precisely why Google and SEO are important for business success in this highly dynamic digital era. You may seek professional assistance from a renowned Toronto SEO marketingcompany for perfect SEO solutions.
Reasons Why Google and SEO Should Matter
There are broadly two precise reasons why Google and SEO would still matter in 2024 and even beyond.
A Majority of the Internet Users Depend on Google
Almost 50 percent of the global population utilizes the Internet. That is quite impressive. Moreover, 60 percent of those Internet users initiate their online browsing with precisely a Google search. If statistics were to be believed over 3.5 billion searches are taking place on Google every single day as per data collected by Jumpshot & SparkToro.
Google is Relevant & Relating 100% to the User
Google is known to be 100 percent about users. A majority of the web traffic originates from Google and we know that Google is everything about the end-user. Right from their Webmaster Central Blog to their Search Engine Evaluator Guidelines, the focus is primarily on the UX or the user experience. Good search engine practices are precisely keeping both Google and users happy. The better you are at doing this job, the more highly-placed you would be on the SERP rankings.
Bad SEO Techniques to Be Dumped for Good
Let us now explore the bad search engine optimization tactics that would make both your important audience members (Google and humans) irritated, confused, annoyed, and frustrated.
Utilizing Your Precise Target Keyword Improperly
An obsolete SEO practice that you must avoid is targeting a single keyword per page particularly, semantically related or similar keywords. Rather it is a better idea to go about targeting both secondary and focus keywords within the same content. This would go a long way in aligning your SEO stratagem with an advanced and cutting-edge semantic search that is precisely what Google seems to be concentrating on achieving in the future.
In this context, you must understand that semantic search would be examining the overarching topic of a page versus individual keywords for determining its relevance to a search query of a user. When you incorporate a focus keyword along with other variations, synonyms, or related terms into the same high-quality content, it is an indication to the users and Google that the webpage is relevant topically to the precise search query.
Implementing Shady Tactics Such As Purchasing Links
If you wish to follow SEO bad practices, link buying and link schemes are surely the ways to go about doing it. Google has specifically mentioned in the standard guidelines that any links that are intended for manipulating PageRank or influencing a website’s ranking on specifically Google search results would be treated as a constituent of a specific link scheme. Moreover, it would be regarded as a sure-shot violation of the precise and well-defined Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
Not Giving Importance to Customer Reviews & Posting Fake Reviews
You must have realized by now that 70 percent of consumers online are in the habit of reading customer reviews of a company or a product first before freezing the decision. You simply cannot ignore the importance of genuine customer reviews. Some marketers focus on posting fake customer reviews just for boosting their reputation. In this context, you must realize that the Washington Post has been successful in unveiling the fact that 61 percent of all electronic reviews present on the Amazon site or platform are fakes. Today, the review platforms are fast becoming more competent and advanced at identifying and even eliminating fake reviews.
Fake reviews are just not required provided you understand effective ways of earning great reviews from genuine customers. Here are some tips to gather genuine and positive customer reviews.
- Request happy and satisfied customers to submit their reviews specifically on the platforms which play a pivotal role in building your brand’s reputation such as Yelp Review or Google Review, etc.
- When a customer is extremely happy and delighted with your service or product, you could consider seeking appropriate customer reviews.
- Provide free samples to all your influencers and request an honest review online in return. This should be doing great wonders provided you are having a feature-worthy product.
- Online customer reviews go a long way in building trust, authority, and reputation. You must consider identifying happy customers and ask them to generate online reviews.
Conclusion
Steer clear of the bad SEO techniques. Come up with content that would be shinning like a beacon attracting consumer attention. Content must have attributes such as depth, quality, and insight. Remember to avoid the obsolete SEO techniques discussed above if you wish to come up with a winning SEO stratagem.
