SEO tactics that have outlived their time

Google is always working, it seems, at cross purposes to anything we’re attempting to do to get better rankings for our pages. If you’ve been doing this (trying to rank pages) for any length of time, you’ll have acquired a bag of tricks that you’ve used for this purpose. Over time, many of these become ineffective. What worked a year ago doesn’t this year, or worse, it hurts you. So it’s time to have a look at some of the SEO tactics that worked over the past few years that you should no longer be using.

SEO tactics to throw in the trash for 2014

Keyword stuffing – The days of sliding your primary keyword into every space imaginable are not only gone, if you still do this your page will get pounded, so far as visibility is concerned. Write for readers, not search engines, and don’t think Google won’t notice all those keywords you stuffed in the footer.

Micro content – These days the pages that rank on the first pages of Google are similar in that they sport longer, more in-depth content. The days when we could get by with throwing up 250-300 words of dubious quality are no longer, as far as your main blog and site pages are concerned. There’s a place for micro-content; such as on sites like Tumblr, Facebook as well as other primarily social sites.

Article marketing – From the time that cute little Panda descended from his tree, article directories have been insignificant. You can post articles now, but they involve strategies like doc sharing sites and social pages.

No variance in keyword anchor text – Google is no longer fooled by our efforts to sway the search engine results pages (SERPs) with phony link profiles. It is much better now to get your links naturally, and try to get no more than 20-30% of anchor text in your main keyword. Let some Click here’s, some naked URLs and other random link text find their way onto your page. This is a far more natural occurrence, and won’t raise any red flags.

The lack of social media – Not so long ago, if you were completely put off by the idea of dealing with social media on your site, you didn’t have to. Now, you may as well start selling shoes. (Offline) Be sure and make your posts and pages socially sharable and start your own social sites if you haven’t already.

Inbound run of site links – Getting, or God forbid buying, run of site inbound links, is a sure-fire way to get yourself punished. Wish to make it worse? Have them all use the same keyword!