What Should You Not Do In SEO?

SEO isn’t about gaming the system anymore; it’s about learning how to play by the rules. — Jordan Teicher

Arsalan Haroon
Better Entrepreneur
7 min readAug 25, 2021

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What should you not do in SEO?
Photo by Mitchell Luo on Unsplash

SEO has changed a lot since 2011 and, it is still changing. Search engines like Google are advancing their technology for search results. SEO also is evolving with it. You have to keep updating yourself, with SEO.

Knowing what you should do in SEO is essential. But knowing what you should not do in SEO is also important.

SEO is a valuable skill for every website owner and, knowing what you should not do in SEO, can prevent you from making mistakes that other people made in the past.

It’s always better to learn from other people’s mistakes.

There are a lot of things that you should not do in SEO. But we will discuss some of the most critical things that you should not do in SEO because it can ruin your overall SEO strategy.

So let’s learn what you should not do in SEO.

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Quantity of links over quality

This is one of the big mistakes site owners, and even SEO experts make.

For example, if you can, get backlinks from 10 websites that don’t have much domain authority, or get one backlink from a website with high domain authority and traffic. What do you choose?

You should prefer one backlink from high-domain authority websites. Google trust that site that has high domain authority. If you get a link from a high domain authority website, It can deliver value to your website.

But if you get ten backlinks from a website that Google doesn’t trust because they don't have much domain authority. Then these links cannot deliver much value to your website.

In backlinks, quality backlinks are more important than the number of backlinks.

You should not measure your backlinks with quantity. You have to focus on backlinks with quality because that is what matters to Google.

Mediocre content

If you are too focused on putting keywords on your content, doing internal and external linking. Then you might forget about the quality of your content.

Most people think that their ranking will only determine by doing keyword research and backlinks other SEO tips.

But that’s not true your ranking will also determine if you have good content which can solve audience problems more effectively than anyone.

When websites follow all the SEO tips and do whatever they can in SEO to rank on Google. But they still don’t rank on Google. Then they have mediocre content problems, They don’t provide great content like other top pages websites are providing.

It’s easy to create mediocre content if you are too much focused. On optimizing your content for SEO. Although it’s important for ranking on Google, it’s not the only thing that determines your ranking, because it’s only the half task for ranking on Google.

The other half is how good your content is if it provides all the information your audience needs to know about a topic.

If you explain difficult concepts easily to your audience, then surely you can rank on google.

You have to remember that following some SEO tips and optimizing your content for SEO is only a half thing to get ranking on Google.

The other half is to create valuable content which can solve audience problems effectively.

You need a lot of text to rank well

Websites think that if they have 2000 words of the article. then they would rank well because it has a lot of words in it.

But that’s not true, Putting unnecessary words into your article because you just want to make a 2000 word article will not guarantee that you can rank on Google.

But why do most of the time long-form content rank on Google?

High-quality long-form content can rank on Google, but they are very different from other articles. Which are written to create 2000 words articles. Rather than providing value to the audience.

If you are creating long-form content then forget about how much word it has. Write content intending to solve your audience problem in your article.

So they never have to see another article on the same topic.

Ranking on top can help you if you have high-quality long-form. But it does not help you if you have written content intending to write 2000 words of the article.

Google values quality over quantity.

Backlinks are the only factor that can rank your website top on Google

Although, backlinks are one of the most valuable and important ranking factors in Google.

But that doesn’t mean it’s the only thing Google looks at when ranking websites on top pages.

Backlinks are important, and every website owner should focus on building links. But it doesn’t mean you have to do only this to rank on Google.

Other google ranking factors impact your website ranking, such as loading speed, internal-external linking, etc.

You have to understand that other SEO tips and tactics are also important because if you optimize your website only for backlinks and not for other SEO tactics, you have a hard time ranking on top pages.

Google will not only see backlinks for ranking and decide where you get rank on Google. Google also analyzes If you have great content and a mobile-friendly website, and many other SEO tactics.

Most people are getting into backlinks and, they never focus on other SEO tactics.

Make sure you should not only focus on backlinks but also optimize your content and website for SEO.

SEO takes few months

Most people think that they can get results for their SEO efforts in few months.

Well, that’s not true because SEO takes at least 6 months or sometimes 12 months you will see a change in your website traffic.

But if you did SEO someday and someday not, then it may take longer to see results.

There is not a perfect specific time when you get results. You may get results in under 3 months, which very few people get, you can get results in 6 months, or it may take longer for you to get results if you are in a competitive industry.

If you are in an industry that is not competitive. Then you can expect to see results in under 6 months.

If you are in a competitive industry, it may take 6 months or more to see results.

But don’t get into the trap when some SEO experts say they give you top ranking in Google in 3 months. Because even SEO experts themselves don’t know when they will get results.so make sure you don’t fall into their false promises.

SEO takes time to get results, You have to be patient and work hard to make your SEO successful.

People get disappointed when they don’t see results quickly. Especially today, people are addicted to instant gratification. They want everything instantly.

But you have to understand if you want your SEO effort to pay off you have to wait and keep working without seeing results for months or even years then you will notice some changes in your results.

Doing unnecessary internal and external linking

When website owners understand that internal and external linking increase their traffic. They do a lot of it and, Sometimes they link to things that are not needed. It impacts their website negatively.

Internal and external linking is a great way to increase your traffic. But if you are linking to something which is not relevant for the audience. then it may impact your website negatively.

For example, If you have a website about mobile phones and you link to something about fitness.

Then it impacts your website negatively because you are linking to content that is not useful for your audience.

You have to link to content that is relevant and useful for your audience. If you have a website about mobile phones. Then link to content related to this topic because your audience is interested in this topic.

But it doesn’t mean that if you have thousands of relevant content. Then you link them in your page content because that’s too much.

You have to provide 4 or 6 internal links and 2 to 4 external links in your page content that are enough to optimize your page for internal and external linking.

Remember that internal and external linking may hurt your website. If you are doing unnecessary internal and external linking.

Conclusion

If you do the SEO correctly and don’t make these SEO mistakes, you would be successful.

SEO plays a crucial role in every online business, especially if you don’t want to spend thousands of dollars on ads.

You have to learn from other people’s mistakes to avoid making the same mistakes in your SEO journey.

SEO can be frustrating if you don't get the result quickly, but it is all about being persistent and patient in your SEO journey because that’s what makes SEO successful.

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