As the internet improves and changes, some SEO and keyword strategies become outdated. Here I’ll detail some older keyword strategies that you shouldn’t bother putting putting any effort into.
1. Keyword Stuffing
Sites used to pick a keyword or two and use them all over their site, hoping that the algorithm would favor the sheer quantity of the word. But, this not only no longer works, but Google actually penalizes this, potentially flagging it as scam.
2. Meta Keywords Tag
An HTML tag for keywords used to help Google find sites, but today search engines no longer use this for ranking, as their algorithms improve. Instead, titles and descriptions tags are more important for click-through-rates.
3. Exact Match Search Queries in Content
Often, sites would use unnatural phrases, like “best laptops cheap buy now” in order to try to guess how a searcher would look something up. Now, Google understands natural language better, especially with AI. So, conversation writing is preferred.
4. Short or Low-Quality Content
Creating a lot of sparse or short articles just to get some keywords down on the site is not effective. Now, Google’s algorithms, especially the Helpful Content Update, now prioritize high-quality, user-focused content instead. They can tell which pages are low quality based on how the page is used.
SEO is an ever-changing field, so make sure you stay up to date with the most current strategies as search engines continue to update and improve.
One Response
These are some great tips that weren’t really covered in class. Prof. Sweet went over meta tags a bit and how we should and shouldn’t use them. I agree that they are much less important than title, heading, and description tags. And your point about content is applicable to what we just talked about in class: SEO requires good content because it’s increasingly geared toward the user, not search bots anymore. Good job!