Best Online SEO Tools for Links, Keywords and Rank Tracking

Best Online SEO Tools for Links, Keywords and Rank Tracking

We’re always on the lookout for great tools and with a $5 billion industry, SEO is one market that has a ton of tools to help you. Whether you’re researching you or your competitors’ backlinks, trying to identify keywords and cocurrence terms, or simply trying to monitor how your site is ranking, here are the most popular SEO tools and platforms on the market.

Some key features of search engine optimization platforms

• Monitoring Keyword Rankings – the ability to enter keywords and then monitor their ranking over time is a core feature of most of the platforms. Given that search results are mostly personalized, this ability is largely used for overall trending analysis to see whether the efforts you’re making are improving your ranking on keywords or not.
• Local Keyword Rank Monitoring – since the location of the search user and your business can play a huge role, many of the keyword monitoring platforms provide a means to track your ranking by geographic location.
• Keyword Discovery – while many of the monitoring platforms provide you with accurate rankings, they don’t allow you to discover what keywords you might be ranking on that you’re unaware of.
• Backlinks Analysis – if your site is linked to on sites with poor search engine authority, you can have a terrible time ranking. Being able to analyze the volume and quality of the links that are pointing to your domains is imperative for advanced troubleshooting of ranking issues and competitive analysis.
• Keyword Research – understanding keyword related to the products and services you provide is critical to your content marketing efforts. Keyword research tools often offer co-occurrence keywords, question-related keyword combinations, long-tail keyword combinations and the competitiveness of the keyword (so you don’t waste your time trying to rank on terms you don’t stand a chance gaining traction on.
• Scraping & Internal Analysis – Tools that analyze your site hierarchy, page construction, page speed, and other associated issues are fantastic for correcting issues that might be less obvious but that could be causing you a great deal of problems when ranking.
• Social Influence – It’s only natural that the attention you attract across social media is a great indicator of the authority you’ve built with search engines. Newer SEO platforms are providing insight into the correlation between search and social and it’s paying off!
• Data Mining – Strangely missing from many of these platforms is the ability to tag, categorize, aggregate, data mine and develop reports across very large sets of keywords. For that reason, DK New Media built it’s own SEO platform for large publishers. Let us know if you’re interested!

Ahrefs Site Explorer – The largest and the freshest index of live links. Index is updated every 15 min.

AuthorityLabs – Track website rankings in Google, Yahoo!, and Bing daily. Our automated SERP tracking saves you time and helps you respond quickly to ranking changes.

Bing Webmaster Tools – improve your site’s performance in search. Get access to free reports, tools and resources.

BrightEdge SEO is the first SEO platform to deliver proven ROI – enabling marketers to increase revenue from organic search in a measurable and predictable way.

Cognitive SEO Unique SEO features that will boost your link analysis and link building results.

Colibri gives you insight into how to get more traffic and customers from SEO.

Conductor Searchlight is the most widely used SEO platform – empowering enterprise marketers to take control of their search performance.

Cuutio Inbound Marketing Platform – Know your exact positions and competitive situation on Google, keep track of the results of
search engine optimization and analyze the overall performance of your important keywords

Ginzametrics makes enterprise SEO simple and is the only platform to help marketers effectively monetize traffic from organic search.

Google Webmaster Tools – provides you with detailed reports about your pages’ visibility on Google.

gShift’s SEO software system centralizes your clients’ SEO data (rank, backlinks, social signals, competitive intelligence, Google Analytics and keyword research) and provides automated, scheduled, white-labeled SEO reports leaving more time for your services team to implement the SEO tasks that will improve your clients’ web presence.

Majestic SEO – Link intelligence tools for SEO and Internet PR and Marketing. Site Explorer shows inbound link and site summary data.

Meta Forensics – Meta Forensics is a website architecture, internal link analysis and SEO tool that helps identify unseen website problems that may be affecting your visitors, search engine crawlers and ultimately, hampering your site.

Monitor Backlinks – Keep all of your link data under one roof with our management tools.

mySEOTool – SEO Software Used by Thousands of Web Designers, SEO Consultants & Agencies to manage their SEO clients.

Ontolo – Our Link Building Toolset has become one of the most-often recommended internet marketing and link building tools by the top SEO and link building experts for it’s automation and link prospecting abilities.

Posirank – Our wholesale platform not only centralizes every imaginable SEO service into a single dashboard – it also supports total automation.

Positionly is powerful, user-friendly tools that make improving your website an enjoyable experience. Monitor daily changes, measure SEO performance, and improve search engine rankings with simplicity.

Pro Rank Tracker – Get the most up to date, easy to analyse ranking information on all your websites, so you can stay one step ahead of the competition and maximize your profits.

RankAbove’s Drive SEO Platform and business intelligence software enables you to dig deeper into SEO information already at your fingertips.

Rankinity – Check your website positions and analyze your competitors in popular search engines in real-time.

RankSonic – Track daily changes in your rankings, get advanced site analytics, spy on your competitors and improve your search engine rankings.

RankRanger – daily reports and insight into your website traffic and marketing achievements.

RankScanner – Monitor your keywords’ positions on Google with a free account.

RankWatch – Rank analysis, backlink watch, keyword suggestions, white labeling, reporting and website analyzer.

Raven has 30+ tools to help you get results in all of these online marketing tasks.

Rio SEO is the best SEO platform to deliver global search success across Organic, Local Search, Mobile and Social Media for Top Brands & Agencies.

SE Ranking – a universal search engine monitoring system offering both hosted and self-hosted solutions.

SE-Intel is the world’s first SEO platform specifically designed with internet marketers in Asia in mind, complete with a full set of features that meet the needs of the vastly different search environment in Asia.

Searchmetrics – Our search and social analytics software Searchmetrics Suite with data-based analysis and intelligent solutions enables marketers and SEOs to monitor and optimize national or international SEO actions and thus increase market share, revenue and profits.

The Search Monitor – Unlimited reporting on all competitors and affiliates listed within universal search results on your keywords.

SEMrush is created by SEO/SEM professionals for SEO/SEM professionals. We have the knowledge, expertise, and data to help you take your projects to the next level. We collect massive amounts of SERP data for more than 95 million keywords and 45 million domains.

SEO Rank Monitor – Boost your rankings, Track your competitors, and monitor SEO performance with the most comprehensive rank tracking in the industry.

SEO Scheduler – Affordable small business SEO software for budget conscious website owners.

seoClarity is the first and only Enterprise SEO Platform that provides you complete visibility into ALL of your SEO efforts

SERPS.com – Improve your SEO results. See how your SEO is working with this beautiful dashboard. No code to install. Fast 5-minute setup. Keyword rankings updated daily.

SERP Scan – tracks your website’s search engine position for the keywords that matter to you.

SERPWoo – Monitor ALL Top 20+ Results For Your Keywords and get alerts when competitors increase their backlinks, social signals, rankings, and more.

sg.SerpStat Keyword Suggestion Tool — popular keywords and their various forms used by people who are looking for interesting products, services or information.

Simple Rank – Discover where your keywords are positioned on Google and Bing. We make it easy to check your Search Engine Rank Position in a glance and see whats improving and what needs work.

SpyFu exposes the search marketing secret formula of your most successful competitors. Search for any domain and see every place they’ve shown up on Google: every keyword they’ve bought on Adwords, every organic rank, and every ad variation in the last 6 years.

SyCara’s SEO Platform provides users with industry-leading workflow management, local search rankings, social media reporting, and SEO analysis.

UpCity – Let UpCity help your small business get free traffic from search engines, social media and local directories.

WebMeUp SEO tools combine the convenience of online SEO software with the data-richness only desktop apps could provide.

WooRank is a dynamic grade on a 100-point scale that represents your internet marketing effectiveness at a given time. (The average score is 50.) The WooRank is based on a website review of 70 factors ranging from keywords to usability and social monitoring. Far more than a number, the WooRank review provides you with valuable insights and tips to help you take the online world by storm.

Wordtracker offers Keyword Research tools for SEO and PPC, Rank Tracking and Site Analysis tools.

Note: We don't have affiliate accounts with any of these platforms.

Top 13 SEO Resources: Become a SEO Expert

Being a SEO Expert means understanding how skills such as SEO, content, social media savvy, and other skills impact our ability to move the needle for ourselves and the organizations we work for.

When it comes to SEO, marketers don’t need to gain an intimate understanding of search engine algorithms. Rather, marketers simply need to have a basic understanding of how SEO impacts the “findability” of content. The following ten resources will get you there, and then some.

For Beginners: If you’re completely new to SEO, building a sound foundation of knowledge is your first step. Check out these three resources to get up to speed on the basics.

1. Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (pdf). While I wouldn’t tell anyone to do “Whatever Google says” to do to get your website to rank, it’s important to know what Google’s public position is on a variety of tactics/techniques you might employ.

2. The Beginners Guide to SEO by Moz. This classic resource from Moz includes chapters on how search engines work, keyword research, analytics, and other SEO topics. Check out the ground-level introduction to discover best practices you can put to immediate use in your content marketing.

3. Periodic Table of SEO Success Factors.
Get in the know about on-the-page and off-the-page elements that impact your SEO with this SlideShare presentation from Search Engine Land. Discover how content quality, keyword use, site architecture, and other factors influence search engine results pages (SERPs).

4. An Introductory Guide to PPC by HubSpot.
This eBook outlines the potential benefits of paid search and how campaigns work. Find information on creating a keyword strategy, setting a PPC budget, optimizing ad copy, measuring performance, and other aspects of campaigns.

Taking to the Next Level: Tips and Tools from the Experts: Take your knowledge to the next level with specific tactics and tool recommendations from well-known SEO experts. These next four search resources are chock-full of insights you can use to optimize content.

5. Google SEO Guide: The Ultimate Resource by WordStream is one of the best SEO resource available online. It covers Keyword Research to How to get authority backlinks.


6. Learning SEO from the Experts “Solve for the humans!” Another HubSpot Guide.
This touchstone advice from HubSpot CTO Dharmesh Shah kicks off an eBook that provides SEO direction from the pros. Chapters from search authorities address keyword fundamentals, on and off-page SEO techniques, and link building best practices.

7. 21 Simple and Free SEO Tools to Instantly Improve Your Marketing By Buffer.
Buffer Content Crafter Kevan Lee observes in his blog post, “It’s amazing the difference a good tool can make.” Kevan goes on to provide resources for tasks that include checking the speed and usability of your site, analyzing links, and identifying duplicate content.

8. 37 Awesome Tools to Get the Most from Your SEO Campaigns by SEJ.
Because search engine optimization is so tool-dependent, there seems no better way to cap things off than with this listicle from Search Engine Land. Access tools that can immediately make you better at SEO analysis, link prospecting, and measurement.

Becoming Your Organization's Resident SEO Expert: How would you like to become the go-to SEO resource at your organization? Get there with the help of these final three advanced SEO resources.

9. The Advanced Guide to SEO by Neil Patel.
Go beyond the basics with Neil Patel and Sujan Patel in this Quick Sprout resource for getting more out of SEO initiatives. The infographic-style presentation provides a deep dive look at topics like indexation, accessibility, site performance, and advanced data research.

10. Search Engine Journal YouTube Channel.
Another must-subscribe for anyone interested in what’s next in SEO, Search Engine Journal’s YouTube channel offers frequent posts with industry newsmakers. Hundreds of archived videos cover SEO strategy, local search, and much more.

11. 58 Resources to Help You Learn and MasterSEO by KOSSmetrics.
Dig into this KISSmetrics post for a nice blend of quick tips, resources, and insights. Explore information on Google and Bing Webmaster Tools, review industry-specific SEO best practices, and get a list of bookmark-worthy blogs on content marketing.

12. Webmaster World.
Most SEO bloggers are guilty of writing too much theory and too little in the way of concrete examples. As a result, we’re often left thinking, “sounds good, but how do I know this really works?”

Webmaster World is one of the oldest and most trusted forums on topics related to web development and marketing online as a whole. These are real webmasters sharing their thoughts and issues in an environment conducive to open discussion. As a result, the threads often involve specific issues, a variety of voices and, most importantly, no-holds-barred discussion of the issue at hand.

13. The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Search Engine.
This the legendary paper submitted by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin during their Ph.D. work at Stanford. It is a blueprint of sorts of the original working model for Google.

While in its current form Google in many ways dwarfs the original concept, the original Google concept was truly an engineering work of art – and reading the paper above will take you a long way in understanding the processes that are at the core of the search engines we know today.

Improving your SEO is a great way to make sure your hard work gets noticed by the right people. Rounding out your knowledge doesn’t need to be hard; just nailing the basics can do wonders for your brand’s visibility. Use insights, practices, and tools from these resources and you’ll be well on your way to earning your “SEO savvy” label.

22 Effective SEO Tips by SEO Experts

How great would it be if we could gather all the Awesome SEO experts in just one room to talk about search engines ranks with a focus on the best SEO tips available out there? It would be glorious! Since we don’t have a room big enough to gather all the best experts in one place, we took advantage of the online “meetings” and gathered all the up to date SEO tips into an awesome expert roundup post. That is how we got the idea of interviewing 22 renowned SEO experts and how we found out 22 awesome and unique search engine optimization tips … the best of them.

22 Effective SEO Tips by SEO Experts for 2017

We’ve got answers from some of the brightest minds about the most actionable tips from the digital marketing world. We’ve found interesting news, insights and really helpful tips and guidelines about mobile optimization, metrics, qualitative content marketing, testing, technical SEO and customer centric websites. These 22 SEO Tips are some of the best for small businesses or large enterprises. Make sure you get the best of them.

1. SEO Is Not Just About Rankings

I’ve talked with many business owners that think ranking high in Google is all you need to be successful. The reality is that SEO is just one of many tactics to drive prospective customers to your website. Sure, ranking high in Google is great, but it’s also worthless if you don’t have a website that is set up properly to convert that traffic into leads and sales. Plus, you won’t rank high for long unless you have proper tracking in place and a process to monitor and analyze your SEO efforts. As you can see, SEO is not just about rankings; it’s also about website conversion rate optimization and website analytics and tracking. That’s important to understand before you start to invest in SEO.

2. Optimize Website for Visitor and Not for the Search Engines

Producing content that’s irrelevant and insignificant to your audience’s wants and needs leads to only one thing – people stop taking you seriously. People click on your links in the SERPs but they do not interact with your website and leave quickly – wasted opportunity to turn visitors into customers.

So how do I find what my buyer persona (not to be confused with ‘buyer profile’) is looking for? Glad you’ve asked, so let me give you some actionable tips. Finding questions that people are asking about your products or services. A very good place to start is Quora. I just went there and typed something very uninspiring like “carrots” (Writing content for a boring industry? No Problem).

3. Understand How Your Site Is Actually Performing Away From Vanity Metrics

If you track for the right KPIs, auditing will supply you with ongoing changes and help you focus on making the highest priority changes for you to hit KPIs and plan for the future.

4. Don’t Underestimate the Power of Creative Technical SEO

People often neglect testing in SEO, mostly because it’s not easy, but optimizing CTR is a way to get some huge wins. Check out how Etsy is doing it or this recent look at approaches from Wayfair and their learnings.

I’m talking about coming up with novel ideas and analyses that help move the needle but are less about copywriting and more about technical proficiency. A couple examples: digging deep into semantic keyword research and data mining or dynamically populating title tags using the Google Search Analytics API.

5. Have Content Deliberately Written to Be Highly Linkable

Highly linkable content is content written on a broad enough topic that you can work it into guest posts and other link opportunities naturally, without the article having to be directly related to the content you’re linking to.

For example, I wrote a big piece on customer delight – a thorough guide on how to make your customers happy at every point in your relationship. I’ve been able to link to this piece within articles on topics ranging from marketing and sales to operations and employee management. Having a few of these kinds of pieces means you’ll never miss an opportunity to link to your content.

6. Do Not Underestimate How Important “Branding” Is to SEO

Do not underestimate how important “branding” is to SEO.

7. Build Your Website on a Solid Foundation of Data and Keyword Research

Your goal should be to build a customer-centric destination that works 24/7 at attracting fresh business.

My company, Search Planet, specializes in E-commerce SEO. I often see even large e-commerce Web shops leak revenue and profit because they’ll mirror their own needs and organizational structure online, instead of focusing on their customers’ needs. So the best prospects don’t find them in search results. Or when they do, they won’t buy from them – but go to their competitors instead.

By transforming your online presence to be entirely customer-focused, you’ll cut through the clutter, dominate search engines, draw a flood of targeted traffic to your website, and make more sales.

8. Spend the Time and Money to Have Your Site Analyzed in Terms of Its Existing SEO

You could have all kinds of issues that you aren’t aware of and rather than just trying to throw links at the site or find someone to write better content for your home page, put some focus on doing a thorough SEO audit.

9. Make the Best Page on the Internet for Your Topic

So here’s how I think about SEO:

• If you made the best page on the internet for your topic …there are 2000 Math PhD’s trying to HELP you;
• If you didn’t make the best page on the internet for your topic …there are 2000 Math PhD’s trying to STOP you.

Of course, it’s not enough just to make a great page. But it’s step one. Combine this effort with a clear understanding of off-site SEO, links and basic understanding of how to increase your domain authority and everything is going to work out well for you.

10. When It Comes to Link Acquisition You Need to Be Looking for Trust

The landscape has changed so much, we’re seeing a lot more weight shifting towards user experience, and link building has become a game of trust.

SEOs need to forget about them; there isn’t a metric out there that gives a true reflection of the value of a link, we have come across so many links with good domain authority or domain trust that we would class as toxic websites. When it comes to link acquisition, you need to be looking for trust, and you can only do this through a manual review; is this website the kind of website Google would trust and want to pass value through, is it a trusted source of information? You should then focus on how your links appear on that site, links that look like ads, in the footer or sidebars are going to be less likely to pass value in the long term.

We’re seeing a huge increase in the influence site speed has on rankings. We have run a few tests now with clients and are seeing a direct and almost immediate correlation with speed improvements and an uplift in rankings. Make it a priority, work with the development team and ensure your website is as fast as possible.

11. Invest Time and Effort into Developing a Link Earning Strategy

Do not take any shortcuts to buy or build low-quality links. While links are still a ranking factor, that is no longer their sole purpose. An effective link will provide the opportunity to improve three things; your traffic, your brand, and build trust. These are the links that should be your focal point. These types of links are found in building relationships with relevant websites and companies, creating valuable (not just quality) content, and a consistently having a giving mentality. Though it takes times, the reward will be worth it.

12. If Everyone Else Is Zigging, Then Zagging Is a Strategic Opportunity

If you just want one SEO tip, then let me share the insight that led me to co-found SEO-PR back in 2003. Hundreds of SEOs optimize web pages hoping that they will get a high ranking in Google search results. And many of them do a great job. But only a small handful optimize news stories, blog posts, or press releases hoping that they will get a high ranking in Google News search results.

Now, the Google News algorithm is similar but different than the Google algorithm. Why? Because inbound links aren’t as strong a signal of the importance of a story. This puts a premium on relevance. But, the big mistake that many SEOs make is assuming that the popularity of keywords used on Google is the same on Google News. They often aren’t. You can see this for yourself by using the Google Trends Explore tool. The default result for any keyword will be web search interest. But you can use the drop down menu to see news search interest. And the trends are often different.

In addition, Google says that 16% of searches that it sees every day are new. Well, ask yourself: “Where do baby search terms come from?” And you’ll discover that the stork doesn’t bring them. They are generated by the “news.” So, these are search terms that your competitors haven’t been optimizing their web pages to get high rankings for 15 years. So, you have a better shot of getting your news stories or blog posts (if you’re a news source) and even your press releases to get high rankings for than you would for yet another web page.

Now, admittedly, your ranking in Google News may only last a day or two. But, for near term news and events, this is the opportunity to drive traffic to a relevant landing page on your website. Now, the links in press releases are no-follow, so there is no “link juice” in them. But, they can still drive visitors to a page with more information — if it’s relevant and important. We used unique tracking links in four press releases for Southwest Airlines to generate $2.5 million in ticket sales. And when the CFO asked how we knew that they came from the press releases, we showed him that the tracking parameters on the links weren’t used by any other element of the company’s marketing. And when he suggested that we were merely harvesting interest that had been generated by the company’s excellent TV advertising, we showed him that the releases were for new service to cities where Southwest Airlines had never run an ad. He asked what else we knew. Well, we’d analyzed the database of people who had purchased tickets and found that two-thirds had never flown Southwest Airlines before and that they were generally purchasing round-trip tickets for two people.

13. Invest More in Content

Invest more in content. This is without a doubt the thing that people underinvest in the most, yet, doing so almost always brings great yields, both in terms of conversion and SEO.

14. Run Your Own SEO Tests Across Different Search Categories

Don’t believe everything you read and watch on the internet about SEO. Most of the best SEO’s I know don’t even have a Twitter account. Run your own SEO tests across different search categories.

15. Perform an In-Depth SEO SWOT Analysis

My best SEO tip is to do an SEO SWOT analysis. What are your SEO Strengths? What are your SEO Weaknesses? What are your SEO Opportunities? What are your SEO Threats?

If you create a basic SWOT grid and start to detail your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, you can start to get a better idea what kind of SEO you need. This is exactly how we work at Bowler Hat and even our SEO service page details how you need to identify what kind of SEO is right for you.

16. Understand What Your Targeted Audience Might Be Looking For

Make sure you understand what your targeted audience might be looking for when they might search for a site that you are optimizing.

What words they might use when they search for it, how they might construct their query and what words they will expect to see on your pages. Also what questions they might have about the goods or services offered on that website; and the answers to those questions, so that you can provide answers, and begin the journey towards having them become customers of your site.

17. Test Longer Strategies over Tactics and Measure Each Step of the Way

Is it possible that a single implementation could make a big difference? Yes. Is it likely? Not really. If you’re investing in SEO, you’re accepting a long game.

Google wants to rank the sites that earn their users’ satisfaction. Google isn’t as easily influenced, thanks to new search models and AI that are designed to truly understand the value of a page the way a user would.

18. Make Sure Your Site Is Mobile Friendly

There are many things you can do to your website to improve SEO, but I would say right now that you should focus on making sure your site is mobile-friendly.

At the moment, Google uses your desktop site to rank you on desktop searches – Mobile First turns this on its head because it will base your desktop rankings on your mobile site. So if your mobile site is very poor, or even if you don’t have one, expect mobile first to cause you problems.

19. Create Your Own Websites and Experiment Things Risk-Free

The one SEO tip I would offer, that applies to both those who are new or more experienced, would be to start your own websites as soon as possible.

When I started out in the industry I was obsessed with consuming every SEO article that was published, but ultimately things really took off when I started launching websites. None of them are particularly successful, but they allowed me to try things risk-free without jeopardizing a client’s campaign. I was able to freely dive into onsite SEO, and I also dabbled in the ‘dark arts’ of link building which of course led to one of my sites being penalized..all fun and games! In order to truly understand how a website works I think it’s important to have some hands on experience, and getting that is easier than you might think. WordPress websites are simple to set up, and building up a bit of traffic can also allow you to experiment with advertising, log file analysis and more!

20. Focus on Content Quality

The single biggest tip I can give SEOs for 2017 is focusing on content quality. Over the last year, I have extensively been running experiments on how much the swing of search results has moved to the quality of the content.

It seems that the Google algo is getting better and better at pulling out content and really starting to understand how that content answers a query. Traditionally we used to talk about “content” and used to hammer in content in areas where really there was no structure, for example on product category landing pages in eCommerce websites. That used to be good enough to dominate the short, mid and long tail of queries as long as you had a decent volume of links.

21. Find a Way to Create Attention

Attention creates awareness, which in turn creates (brand) traffic and links, which will improve your SEO. You need to find a way to create attention (to your product/service/brand/company/website).

22. Hone Your Technical SEO Skills as Much as Possible

If I had to give one SEO tip it would be to hone your technical SEO skills as much as possible.

While SEO is a relatively broad discipline, the technical aspects of it are relatively opaque to many, and there is no shortcut for. On top of that, it is a skill that will likely always be in demand.

Are You Still Practicing Outdated SEO Tactics: 11 Tactics To Avoid!

Last week, I wrote about SEO Best Practice in 2015 and On-Page SEO Checklist, So I think I should write about SEO tactics that don't work anymore. In this article, I'll tell you what outdated SEO tactics don't work and why.

Search Engine like Google always improving their search algorithm to give you the fresh, relevant and authentic result based on your query. Because they don't want to see you unhappy with their search result and don't want to see you switching to others search engine. To keep you happy and serve you the fresh, relevant and authentic result, they managed to develop state of the art search algorithm.

Search engine optimization has changed over the years, are you still practicing outdated and ineffective SEO strategies? outdated tactics you are using actually do nothing to improve our search engine rankings. So, Stop wasting your time on outdated SEO strategies.

To help you save your precious time and money, I'm going to discuss below outdated, ineffective, and obsolete SEO strategies you should stop using right now.

Tactic #1: Meta Descriptions

Some SEO Professional believe that Meta Descriptions help increase search engine ranking, and if you are on that side, my friend I would like remind you an old announcement from Google in back in 2009 that they won’t have an impact on the rankings of a web page algorithmically.

Why?

SEO Experts Opinion About Meta Descriptions

MOZ says…
“Meta description tags, while not important to search engine rankings, are extremely important in gaining user click-through from search engine result pages (SERPs). These short paragraphs are webmasters opportunity to advertise content to searchers and let them know exactly what the given page has with regard to what they’re looking for.”

Search Engine Land says…
“The meta description tag won’t help you rank, but it will often appear as the text snippet below your listing, so it should include the relevant keyword(s) and be written so as to encourage searchers to click on your listing.”

The next question you might ask is, Still it matter? Yes, it is important Because, your website meta description provides the best chance of search engines displaying the snippet of text right below your website title and URL. A Descriptive and well-written meta descriptions have been proven to lead to significantly improved click-through rates, And if it's missing Google will show text from your website content.

Tactic #2: Exact Match Keywords

Stuffing Exact Match Keywords in the website do not help increase your website search engine ranking. Keywords do not need to be repeated exactly throughout your website.

If you want to rank for a phrase like “clean my carpet,” you do not need to repeat the term exactly in your website, instead you may use "immaculate my carpet," which will google see similar to “clean my carpet,” If you use “immaculate” instead of “clean,” you'll have opportunity to rank for both phrases.

Why?

Because, Google’s algorithm uses Latent semantic indexing (LSI), which help Google identify patterns in the relationships between the terms and concepts contained in an unstructured collection of text. LSI is based on the principle that words that are used in the same contexts tend to have similar meanings.

Tactic #3: Google Authorship

In June 2011, When Google introduced their Authorship Markup, SEO experts were thought that it's the future of search engine optimization, Today it is just another quest of Google.

Why?

August 28, 2014, John Mueller of Google Webmaster Tools announced in a Google+ post that Google will stop showing authorship results in Google Search, and will no longer be tracking data from content using rel=author markup.

Here's few recent article about google authorship published in Search Engine Land and written by SEO expert like Danny Sullivan.

• Authorship Is Dead: Long Live Authorship
• Google Authorship May Be Dead, But Author Rank Is Not
• It’s Over: The Rise & Fall Of Google Authorship For Search Results

The nutshell about Google Authorship is, it won't help your website rank higher in the search.

Tactic #4: More Pages Mean Higher Ranking

Some expert have the opinion that if your website has more pages, It'll get higher organic ranking. More pages with content are good, but creating content just to have more pages will not help you in SEO, You have to Make sure you are focusing your content on quality, not quantity. If your website doesn't have enough good content, It will not rank well and all of those pages you created will not help.

Tactic #5: SEO is All About Good Code, Content, and Links

About 5 years ago, SEO used to be all about Good Code, More Content and Getting Tons of Links. At Present, most of the websites that are ranking really well have a large social following and presence. People argue whether social media directly or indirectly affects search rankings, but either way it does have an impact.

Why?

Think about it, the more popular your website is on the social media, the more eye you will draw to it. The more people see it, the more traffic and backlinks your website will receive. Additionally, social media is a great way to send out content and get the traction you are looking for.

If you want better search engine rankings, don’t just focus on code, content and link building. Also, focus on building up your social profiles. Read how to manage your social media.

Tactic #5: Anchor Text Optimized Backlinks

This is a fat one, the question of anchor text is still heavily debated. In the past, experts found this to be important to dominate in the search rank. However, the search engine like google adjusted their algorithm to prevent manipulating their search result by this tactic.

Why?

Google launched the Penguin Update in April 2012 to better catch sites presume to be spamming its search results, in particular, those doing so by anchor text optimization or obtaining optimized links through networks designed primarily to boost Google rankings.

Tactic #6: Micro Sites Helps Your SEO

A lot of SEO Professional build Micro Sites (links from web 2.0 sites such as blogger, weebly, tumblr, squidoo or hub pages) these links can be good for website SEO, if you build them perfectly. For instance, a perfect web 2.0 link will have a well written engaging content, one that will help your audience out and engage them to visit your website.

Why?

A poorly written micro site will be filled with garbage content that has usually been created by a content spinner or a low paid outsourced worker. These contents don’t do anything to help your website SEO at all and usually considerate as duplicate content. Once search engine find out these duplicate content, means your rankings will drop significantly, don’t let anyone build these kind of content for your website.

Tactic #7: Higher Ranking Means More Traffic

There are some Statistics about search ranking placement and click-through rates, ranking is no longer a factor.

Certainly, more people will see your listing, but it doesn’t mean you will get more clicks. I attribute this to user behavior and awareness of search engine optimization tricks.

Why?

Because today's internet surfer is intelligent than ever, They will be aware of the business, product or service but their knowledge and experience will force them to continue searching for the best business, service or most relevant product.

Advanced Web Ranking has a CTR Study Running, Where they present fresh data on the click-through-rate from Google’s organic search results. The data is taken from Google Webmaster Tools Search Queries reports from large accounts. Check it out here.

Tactic #8: Link Exchanges

This used to be a huge one.
If you handle link exchanges properly it can help, if you are doing it with websites in your niche and providing each other value. But there’s a risk involved in behind and interestingly this all works on very short-term basis! How? Let me Explain.

Why?

The problem occurs when you/your SEO “Experts” start exchanging links with Link Firm. This break Google Link schemes, and search engine webmaster guidelines. It may even increase your website ranking and traffic for a short amount of time, but just wait a few days, then your website ranking will drop down dramatically and your website will never rank again.

If you find that your SEO firm is doing link exchanges from websites that aren’t related to yours, get rid of them and find someone who knows what they are doing.

Tactic #9: Low Price Gig

Do you know, some SEO firms outsource all of their SEO work to Low Price Gig sites like Fiverr, SEOClerks, aDollarSEO, ETC. They purchase SEO services for only $1 - $5, and sadly they get exactly what they pay for.

Why?

This kind of sites are infamous in the SEO world and for good reason, they can't deliver ranking or related traffic within $5. They can only bring you bot traffic from China and North Korea.

If you find out that your SEO Specialist/firm is outsourcing your SEO work to these kinds of site, abandon them right now and find someone who works personally in his client project.

Tactic #10: PBN Means SEO Authority

This is another fat one, Another myth is believing that Private Blog Links that you/your SEO professional own link back to your main site will help build SEO Authority. Incorrect! That’s like voting for yourself in an election a hundred times — that still counts as one vote.

Why?

Because most of the PBN built with one hosting account and same domain registrar data, meaning all sites live on the same IP address and same registrant name/organization. The search engine like google's algorithm check C Class IP and has full access to the WHOIS database. So if you get 10 links from a PBN, google may count 10 links as only one link. And if you have 'too many' backlink pointing from one PBN, then google may think the blog network as a link firm and penalize your website.

Tactic #11: Guaranteed First Page Rankings

I see these all the time (I also get a lot of emails from SEO agencies), Many SEO Companies offering “Guaranteed top 10 search engine rankings” and “Guarantee first page Rankings”.

Do they really deliver what they offer?

Well, they might deliver the result for a couple of keywords, or it might be for ten or more keywords depending on the keyword competition. They can only deliver if the keyword competition is very low otherwise not.

Why?

No one can give you a number one or top 10 ranking guarantee because there is no such thing in SEO. Neither you nor they control search engine search result. I'd say, don’t listen to them, most of them are scammers and thieves. Be aware of this kind of agencies/companies.

Conclusion

If you’re new to SEO or a seasoned SEO professional, it’s important to understand the common outdated, ineffective, and obsolete SEO strategies.

These outdated methods will have you implementing ineffective SEO tactics or even tactics that can hurt your SEO efforts.

Understanding the latest SEO Tactics will improve your internet marketing strategy and increase user awareness when searching for information about your business, product or service.