Are You Still Practicing Outdated SEO Tactics: 11 Tactics To Avoid!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 In this article, I'll tell you what outdated SEO tactics don't work and why.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Search engine optimization has changed over the years, are you still practicing outdated and ineffective SEO strategies? outdated tactics you are using actually do nothing to improve our search engine rankings. So, Stop wasting your time on outdated SEO strategies.

To help you save your precious time and money, I'm going to discuss below outdated, ineffective, and obsolete SEO strategies you should stop using right now.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

How to Increase the Domain Authority of Your Site: Infographic

The concept of Domain Authority was started by Moz (Previously known as SEO Moz) and represents the best prediction for how a website will perform in search engine rankings. It is calculated by combining all of Moz's other link metrics—linking root domains, number of total links, MozRank, MozTrust, etc.—into a single score.

It is one of the most important Phrase known to SEOs. The greater your DA, the more likely you are to have strong traffic and high rank.

Want to know How to Increase the Domain Authority of Your Site? Well, the Infographic Explain it all.

7 Best Free Tools for Creating Infographics Online

Internet Surfers today are incredibly visual. Most of them would rather look at a graphics than read an entire article or report. Fortunately, there are now ways to fit just as much information into n graphic as there would normally be in a text article.

For all the importance we place on text, it's an undeniable fact that graphics is processed in the brain faster than words. Henceforward the rise of the infographic which, at its best, transforms complex information into graphics that are both easy to grasp and visually appealing. No wonder magazine readers and web visitors love them.

The days are gone where you need an entire graphics team to create them. If you have information to present, there are tools for creating infographics and charts that help you to visually bring it to life.

Here's a list of Best Free Tools for Creating Infographics.

Canva (canva.com)

Canva is filled with options, whether you are working on a project for work, personal, or social media. Each new project comes with a template for the project you choose to work on. With the dimensions done for you, you can focus your attention on creating beautiful designs in seconds.

Easel.ly (easel.ly)

Easel.ly has Very basic design layouts and assets. You can drag artwork onto the canvas, and move around or add different elements as needed. New charts feature allows some basic editable charts in your design and Easy downloads for JPG and PDF versions.

Piktochart (piktochart.com)

Piktochart is one of the best looking programs on this list. This grid-based infographics tool features pre-designed themes that you can customize with text, colors, and various shapes and design elements. Pictochart offers a free version with 7 different themes, along with pro versions that have more than 100 themes and don’t include any Piktochart branding.

Their intuitive user interface is where Piktochart truly excels. All the tools you need to create are laid out intelligently, making your new job as a “designer” so much easier.

One of the coolest aspects of this program is that they show how versatile infographics are for different projects. Whether you’re creating for a classroom, office, website, or social media setting - Piktochart gives you the heads up on how to use infographics effectively.

Infogr.am (infogr.am)

Infogr.am has got the best charts. For illustrating data, there are more than 30 different types of charts to choose from. Anything from bubble charts and tree maps to simple pie charts.

You can use Infogr.am to create infographics from scratch, or you can import existing CSV or XLS files to simplify the process. The site also includes built-in sharing and embedding features so that you can make sure your graphics end up in the right place.

Vizualize (vizualize.me)

Vizualize.me is one of these services, an app which allows you to produce an infographic style resume. You start by filling in the sections present in the app (things like education and skills), then choose a theme and save. It’s a simple and straightforward service with some fun customization options and pretty cool results. Stick with me after the jump to see the kind of things you can create with Visualize.me.

Venngage (venngage.com)

Venngage tool developed by the team from Visual.ly – an online dataviz sharing community, which aims to make reports easier for analysts who don’t want to install expensive software. There’s a free demo mode with most functionality, but the Professional version offers export options and the ability to publish documents privately. It also allows you to use connections to Social Media analytics with some standard report templates set up.

Visme (visme.co)

If you’re looking for a way to bring visual content to life, then Visme could be the answer. Formerly known as Easy Web Content Presenter, the free browser-based tool allows marketers to easily create a range of visuals, including Web and mobile animations, Presentations, Infographics, Banner ads Graphs, and charts Product demos.



Which Infographic design tools have you tried? Which tools are your favorites? Post in the comments.

What are the Best Keyword Rank Checker Today?

Keyword Rank Tracking is an Essential part of every Online Marketing Campaign. It's especially important to all SEO Professional who work on Search Engine Optimization Project. Rank Tracker retrieves search engine rankings for pages and keywords, Some tools also track selected rankings over time to see which efforts are making the most impact on your SEO Campaign and show you the ranking changes.

Now, there are  a lot of free and paid rank checker out there that help SEO Professionals to track keyword rankings. Some tools that work great at certain tasks but terrible at others. Before Writing this post, I did a lot of Research to bring you the Best Keyword Rank Checker for your SEO Project.

Moz Pro

In the Moz Pro plan, you can run up to five different campaigns at the same time. Because Moz limits the number of keywords you can track per campaign to 60, that totals 300 keywords you can track overall five campaigns, which can be limiting if you're running campaigns with different themes or that span multiple verticals. Rank tracking is thorough, though, with competitive analysis baked right in; you can see where you rank for your top keywords as well as where your top competitors rank.

Price: Moz Pricing Plan Start From $99 to $499 /month and the also offer a 30-day free trial.

SEMrush

SEMrush's Pro version offers keyword suggestion and keyword rank tracking. Using SEMrush, you can track up to 500 keywords over five campaigns. The tools available for keyword research can display a keyword's search volume and help you gauge how well a keyword will perform on your site. The phrase match report will show you keywords related to prime keywords that can also help drive traffic to your site, but they may be less competitive, so it will be more possible to rank with them.

Price: $69.95 – $549.95 / month

Advanced Web Ranking

Advanced Web Ranking allows you to closely monitor your keyword's performance and Rank Tracking from three different search engines: Google, Bing, and Yahoo. You can easily sort your keyword information to see how each of these search engines views your keywords. This is useful because, while you may be hitting all of Google's targets, you may be weak in Bing's search results and missing key traffic flows from them.

Price: $49 – $499 / month, also offer FREE 30 day trial on all plans..

Ahrefs

Ahref's provides estimated keywords ranking data for keyword sets on both Google and Bing/Yahoo in multiple countries (US, UK, AU, DE, FR, ES, IT, BR, RU). The tool shows following information:

• Position 
• Keyword 
• CPC 
• Estimated cost 
• Ranking URL 
• Global search volume A
• dvertiser competition 
• Last date checked 
• Rating (estimated visitors per month based on assumed traffic distribution)

Price: $79 – $1,299 / month, and the also offer a free NEWBIE plan.

Link-Assistant Rank Tracker

Link-Assistant Rank Tracker Feature:

• Automatically check your search engine rankings.
• Show if your site moved up or down in search results: Every time you check your keywords search engine rankings, Rank Tracker will conveniently show you the ranking difference so you can easily see if your site has moved up slipped for whatever reason.
• Collect data from 456 different search engines: Rank Tracker supports 456 international and local search engines so you can track your rankings using the ones that matter most to you. The currently supported SEs include Google, Yahoo! and Bing with their localized versions plus hundreds of others!

Price: Free – $124 - $299 / month (one time cost – this is desktop software)

WebCEO

WebCEO Rank Tracker Feature:

370+ Global & Local Search Engines Rank Checking: You'll be able to check keyword rankings on more than 370 global and local search engines, including Google, Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, Goo, Voila, Seznam, Rediff, and more.

Search Engine Mobile Rankings vs. Desktop Search Results: Set Web CEO Rank Tracker to monitor both desktop and mobile rankings: go to settings and add the mobile versions of every search engine that you target.

Automated Rank Checks on Schedule: Automate your rank checks with Web CEO: have them monitored quarterly, monthly, weekly.

Email Alerts about Website Ranking Changes: Set email alerts regarding website ranking changes that occur above configured levels. You can be notified if one of your keywords left the top positions, a keyword lost more than a specified number of positions, your competitors' positions improved, etc.

YouTube Rank Checker: You can add YouTube.com as a standalone search engine in your WebCEO Rank Checker settings and start tracking your YouTube rankings.

Competitor Ranking Analysis: See if your competitors have better search engine rankings for the keywords that you target. Just add the URLs of competing websites in the Competitor section of the WebCEO Rank Checker settings.

Price: $75 – $375/ month (Discounts available), also offer a limited free plan.

AuthorityLabs

What Does Authority Labs Do?

• Tracking keywords daily 
• Tracking Google, Bing, and Yahoo SERPs 
• Viewing estimated search volume (via a bar graph) for your tracked keywords 
• Selecting a location all the way down to the zip code 
• Viewing daily ranking charts for a selected keyword 
• Exporting PDF reports for monthly, weekly, quarterly, *since added* date, and/or daily 
• Comparison reports Comparing rankings against a competitor 
• Sharing a public URL with a client for their project 
• Exporting one domain or an entire account history in CSV format as part of a backup process 
• Producing white label reports

Price: $75 – $99/ month (Discounts available), also offer a limited free plan.

Raven Tools

Raven's Rank Tracker lets you view average keyword ranking data that comes directly from Google and Bing. You have access to Impressions and Click Through Rates (CTRs), helping you to target high value keywords for a quicker SEO win. You'll be able to show clients progress over time as you work your way through the best keyword choices based on conversion potential.

Price: $99 – $249 / month, and offer a 30 day limited free plan.

Traffic Travis

Traffic Travis keyword ranking reports allow you to see how your site is progressing using graphs and charts. These reports can be viewed online or exported as CSV and PDF files.

Price: $97 / year, also offer a free plan.

Market Samurai

Market Samurai's rank tracker allows you to view your site's keyword progress as graphs, which clearly show increases and decreases in traffic. It also stores historical data on your keywords and your URLs so you can continuously view their progression. After viewing your reports, you can export data about any of your keywords as a CSV, where you can analyze it using Excel.

Price: One Time Fee $149 and also offer a free limited edition.

Positionly

Positionly Track your keywords ranking results on the local or global market, depending on your needs. You can track everything in the most popular search engines - Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex.

Analyze your progress on a daily basis and understand how rankings affect your growth.

Price: Plan starts from $16 - $84/month, has a 14-day free trial.

SERPs

International keyword rankings: SERPs Check keyword rankings positions in Google or Yahoo from over 100 country and language combinations. SERPs free rank checker can lookup rankings in dozens of countries. Use it to spot check keyword rankings anytime.

Mobile keyword rankings: Select mobile or desktop rankings. If mobile is selected, SERPs also highlight if Google is showing the "Mobile-friendly" tag next to a URL. If you want to track mobile rankings at a larger scale, read more about our mobile rank tracking solution.

Local keyword rank checker: See rankings from specific cities or zip codes. Check one keyword in a hundred different cities.

SERP checker: SERPs tool will return the top 250 SERP results for any given keyword if the site field is left blank. That way you can see what sites rank in the top 250 for any SERP.

Price: Plan starts From $497 - $1,997 / month and a Full Featured 30-Day Trial.

RankWatch

RankWatch Rank Checker calculates all your keyword rankings accurately and in an instant, whether you have 50 or 50,000 keywords, we will display your current rank, highest rank and Initial rank along with search volumes in top 100 serps.Trackers Track your site rankings on 177 search engines including Google, Yahoo, Bing and more using Rankwatch Rank Checker.

Price: Plan starts From $29 - $449 / month and a 14 days free trail.

SERP Scan

SERP Scan Automatically Generates Search Engine Ranking Reports Clients want proof that search engine optimization works for them. Increased rankings are the best way to prove to your clients that your hard work—and their money—is making a positive impact and return on investment for their business. SERP Scan also offer Local Rank Tracking and YouTube Rank Tracking.

Price: Plan starts From $99.99 - $399.99 / month with 30-day money back guarantee.

RankScanner

RankScanner Keep track of your search engine rankings through time, and quickly get an idea of which SEO tactics work the best.

RankScanner Track up to 500 keywords per domain, for an unlimited number of websites. Even monitor your competitors' SEO rankings as well.

Price: Plan starts From 9€ - 49€ /month and FREE for Up to 30 Keywords.







What Keyword Ranking Tools do you use? please drop your recommendation in the comments and I'll add in this list.

About Internet.org

84% of the population who are not experiencing the virtue of internet - Internet.org is a joint initiative of Facebook and six companies (Samsung, Ericsson, MediaTek, Opera Software, Nokia and Qualcomm) that plans to bring affordable access to selected Internet services to less developed countries by increasing efficiency, and facilitating the development of new business models around the provision of Internet access.

It has been criticized for violating net neutrality and favoring Facebook's own services over its competitor. Until April 2015, Internet.org users could access (for free) only a few websites, and Facebook's role as the gatekeeper in determining what websites were in that list was criticized for violating net neutrality. In May 2015, Facebook announced that the Internet.org Platform would be opened to websites that met its criteria.

Internet.org Participants: 

Below is a selective history of launch dates, Country and participating mobile networks:

July 2014: Zambia
October 2014: Tanzania
November 2014: Kenya
January 2015: Colombia
January 2015: Ghana, with Airtel
10 February 2015: India with Reliance Communications
18 March 2015: Philippines with Smart Communications
31 March 2015: Guatemala with Tigo
20 April 2015: Indonesia with Indosat
10 May 2015: Bangladesh with Robi
13 May 2015: Malawi with TNM and Airtel
28 May 2015: Pakistan with Telenor Pakistan
5 June 2015: Senegal with Tigo
19 June 2015: Bolivia with VIVA
1 July 2015: South Africa with Cell C

Internet.org FAQ

Is Facebook app on my mobile also free of charge: Facebook browsing from internet.org is free of charge, but the Facebook app is not free.

Internet.org app: Currently only android app for internet.org is available which can be downloaded from Google Play Store.

How will I know if I am clicking on an external link and will be charged?: When you click on an external link a pop-up will appear informing you are going to be charged. If you click ‘Continue’ you will be taken to the next page where you will be given a choice to buy an internet pack, use existing internet pack or browse on pay per use.

This pop-up will still appear even when the subscriber has an existing pack.

About internet.org packs: Internet.org pack can also be used for browsing on other websites.

If subscriber purchase internet.org pack more than once, the volume will accumulate and the validity will increase to the validity of the newly purchased pack.

Internet.org packs can only be purchased through internet.org platform or app. Packs cannot be purchased through USSD or self-care.

If I browse the sites of internet.org by writing the URL in the address bar in the browser, will it be free?: No, the sites of internet.org are only free when subscriber browse on them through internet.org platform or app.

Video browsing through internet.org: Videos are not available through internet.org. On Facebook and Messenger, video upload will not be charged, but download (or watching) is chargeable, however, you can purchase internet pack to access the video.