5 Bad SEO Practices You Should Avoid

Whenever I think about pure SEO, I always feel pity that lots of bloggers, webmasters and SEOs (search Engine Optimizers) are still out of track while practicing SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

I call it bad SEO practice, which is meaningless, without any results, and resulting in loss of time, energy and money.

The main aim of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) should be Conversion, Customer engagement, Brand awareness and Better ROI. SEO is not about improving Alexa Rank or Page Rank. Or, not about – my height is 6 ft 4inch, or I have a Golden Retriever Dog.

That’s the reason why BuySellAds.com (one of the largest advertising market places on the web) has recently removed a bunch of useless public stats from the ‘Buy Ads’ pages to help advertisers make correct purchasing decision, without any distraction.

Do you think advertisers buy your Ads by seeing your Alexa Rank, or Page Rank, or Klout Score. Nope! Never!!

So, what do advertisers look for when buying Ads? They look for – quality content for their target audience, enough quality traffic and a well-designed, clean looking website where their Ads standout. That’s all! You are selected. Start receiving your Ad revenue from tomorrow.

Let’s talk about – What are the 5 bad SEO practices you should avoid to evolve as a better SEO.

1. Alexa Rank

Lots of bloggers and webmasters feel proud to show their Alexa Rank.

To some extent it’s OK. But, for the sake of improving Alexa Rank only, commenting on 300 blogs in 24 hrs is not OK. It’s a clear case of insanity.

Firstly, Alexa is not a reliable indicator, because it counts traffic originated from browsers installed with Alexa toolbar only. Do you think 50% of bloggers and webmasters have installed Alexa toolbar in their browsers? Nope! Not at all! It’s much less than you think.

Sadly, there are ‘n’ number of software and tricks available online to manipulate Alexa Rank in a short span of time.

Still lots of bloggers work hard to improve their number and check their rank on daily basis.

Do you think advertisers will put their hard earned money on your blog by seeing your Alexa Rank? May be one-odd novice advertiser will do that. But, not large companies who seek quality.

2. Page Rank

I receive plenty of Emails from webmasters stating as -

Dear Sir/Madam,

Our XYZBlog is Google PR 5. Which shows how much Google trust on our blog. If you are interested in link exchange, we offer you 3 links in exchange of 1, on our 3 sister sites.

What a funny ending of the mail. 3 links in exchange of 1! On 3 sister sites. A beautiful example of 3-way link swapping. And, it’s anybody’s guess, the 3 sister sites are sub-domains with PR 1 and PR2.

It’s time to throw your Google PR in the dustbin!

Time and again, Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s web-spam team has told not to give more importance to the tiny green bar on your browser extension which shows a numeric page rank.

Of course, a Google PR 7 website is much more valuable than PR2 and ranks higher in SERPs for same keywords (usually). But, you shouldn’t think this is the most coveted trophy from the Google you possess, and obsessed with frequent checking and false proud.

Checkout this video for more on Google PR.

3. Klout Score

Do you still think, the numeric Klout score accurately portrays your social media influence? Just continue reading the below example (true story)..

I know a lot of my blogger friends whose Klout scores are 90 and more. Still they are struggling for traffic, revenue and finally higher search rankings.

Do you know, how they achieved this envious Klout score of 90 and more? Playing FarmVille, Bubble With Saga, Words With Friends on Facebook !! They are great players of these famous Facebook games. And, gets plenty of likes and comments from their playing buddy everyday.

Do you want to know, how these bloggers have huge fan following on Twitter? Most of them have 10,000 and more Twitter followers. A figure every blogger dreams to achieve. And, they achieved it by subscribing to Twitter services like Twiends.com and many others. Most of the time they don’t go to the Twitter also for twitting.

Still you think, this high Klout score is their SEO talent? No way. At least for me and my readers.

4. Blog Commenting

Over a period of time blog commenting has lost its shin. Mainly due to the ongoing spammy activities.

There are software and services, which can bombard hundreds of thousands of blog comments in minutes.

Is there any value left in links from blog comments? Yes! A drop or two link juice is still there. Because Google has still not diffused the link-bomb completely. SEO is ever changing. And, Google changes its rules even faster than SEO. And, we are talking about long term SEO, not short term gain.

Aside from backlinks, people comment on blogs for traffic. I bet you, the traffic originates from blog comments are much lower in quality than organic traffic or PPC. They never converts.

Blog commenting for SEO is a fool’s strategy.

So, the ROI on blog commenting, whether it’s time, energy or money is very less.

5. Guest Blogging

Now guest blogging is the hot topic in webmaster community. Specially after the Penguin update, and Google penalty for link acquisition from blog directories and article directories.

Guest blogging is an easy way of link acquisition. It’s proved!

You take a great article from a top blog. Spin it. then offer it to a newbie blogger for an exchange of 1 or 2 links. The innocent blogger will be happy to accept your offer.

In the name of guest blogging plenty of link-manipulation is going on. And, Google is worried that webmasters are manipulating links (Via guest blogging) which she considers the currency of the web!

Due to this manipulative action, guest blogging for authority, brand awareness, traffic and links has come on the suspicion radar of Google.

Read – Why you should refrain from guest blogging?

My view on Guest Blogging: For authority building, brand awareness and traffic Guest Blogging is OK. I’m a strong supporter of guest blogging, provided, you use this weapon sparingly. But neglecting your own blog for excessive guest blogging is not a good practice at all.

In recent past, just one year back, directory submission was considered as a hot SEO technique to acquire links. Anybody talking against it were being considered fool.

Now look. The same webmasters, who were feeling proud of their backlinks on XYZdirectories are sending legal messages to the directory owners to remove their links, after Google penalty.

My point is, every trend has an end, due to excessive use for undue gain. “Trend is your friend” may be the perfect formula in stock market, where traders always try to bet inline of market momentum. But not in SEO world.

We should strive for timeless SEO. A technique, or a set of technique which helps us (bloggers and webmasters) to achieve our aim, our ROI. I know, MoneyCTL readers are always smart, and they understand this fact very well.

P.S. – You are free to disagree with me regarding the above 5 SEO practices. Express yourself by adding your comments below.