SEO can go wrong. Here in Part 1, we’re sharing what can go wrong. In Part 2, we’ll explain how to make it right.
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is one of the most important factors in getting as much traffic to your webpage as you can. This we know. But can the use of too many keywords (called keyword stuffing or over-optimization) be your downfall? Are you focusing too much on technical SEO and not enough on actual content marketing?
Here at Strong Estate Marketing, we’ve seen too many clients who try to get quick results when it comes to SEO. This can have dire consequences for your business! We want to keep you from falling into the traps that too many people fall into… we want you to succeed instead!
Here are some reasons why you shouldn’t over-optimize. In Part 2, we’ll share some great ways to promote your business without resorting to bad SEO tactics!
Why You Shouldn’t Use Keyword Stuffing
Although SEO stuffing might give you short term benefits, these benefits are not worth the long term consequences. Since keyword stuffing focuses on beating the search engine algorithm rather than the user experience, Google will take your site down if your site is overusing keywords or over-optimizing for search engine optimization. As of 2012, Google’s penalty was to completely de-index the sites that were stuffing keywords and links.
If your site is “blacklisted” by Google, it will take you a lot of time and effort to build it back up and begin to re-optimize the right way for search engines. The time it takes for you to rebuild your site can cost you a lot of visitors and, therefore, a lot of business. Doing SEO the right way might take more time initially, but the long-term benefits will greatly outweigh the time it takes for you to establish your site.
Signs That You Might Be Over-Optimizing Your Site
You have too many keywords in internal links. Internal linking is good, but too many keywords in an internal link is bad and qualifies for over-optimization.
You are using non-relevant keywords. Google ranks your site for relevance and too many keywords that don’t relate to your actual site take away from the overall credibility of your site.
You are pointing all links to top navigation pages. A good link profile has links that take users to deeper internal site pages in addition to the home page. If your links only take the user back to your home page or other higher traffic pages, then it is pretty obvious that you are over-optimizing.
You are using multiple H1’s (Heading 1’s) on your page. H1 is just for the page’s main heading. Using more than one of these does qualify as over-optimization.
You are linking to toxic sites. If your site links to a spam site, then your website will most likely receive negative repercussions.
You have a keyword stuffed footer. Over-optimizing the footer of your page is the best way to get your site shut down. In fact, footer optimization should not be used at all. Google devalues footer links and because they are at the bottom of the page, they receive minimal recognition anyway. Over-optimized footers add little to no value to the page.
You are using a non-branded, keyword dense URL. Because your brand name is so incredibly important, choosing a hyper-optimized URL instead of a balanced brand name compromises your business too much for it to be beneficial.
Stay tuned for Part 2, where we’ll discuss some of the good SEO tactics that we use here at Strong Estate!
(Source + more info: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/avoid-over-optimizing/)