SEO RISKS: DO’S AND DONT’S

With any aspect of business development and growth, it is almost essential to take the risk that will help your business to get more leads or clients. After all, without any risk-taking, it isn’t effortless to get any real long-term growth. Many business people find it challenging to see the value of SEO. With a lot of information and misinformation available on search engine optimization, it increases the complexity of such a decision.

While it may take months to yield good results for the company by an effective SEO strategy, the strategy may not make sense to not-SEOers, it can make a significant contribution to a company’s online exposure. Though many companies are nervous while trying out something they don’t know, any business decision has some risk with it. The critical thing to keep in mind while taking such risk is that though they might be worth it, they should still be taken slowly and carefully. It is best to hire a professional seo company to get this job done.

While some risks should be avoidable, some can be worth it and take you on the path of growth. Now, which SEO risks are worthy, and which SEO risks are avoidable?

Below is a list to help you out.

SEO RISKS TO TAKE:

• MAKING AND TESTING LARGE AND SMALL CHANGES

The main aim OF SEO is to get traffic and ultimately for people to transact on your business. But for this to happen, people should click on your website link. What if no one clicks your link even when your website ranks well and the only way to figure out the reason is through A/B testing. You will have to take an element and test it with a new variation. You will find the combination that does the work and the one that reduces traffic. You should keep track of the changes. The risk here is like trial and error to find the appropriate word and layout, which will result in maximum traffic but will end up with good returns for you.

• IMPROVING URL STRUCTURE OF SITE

Your homepage URL should be short, with only the company name. It should be easy to remember and concise. Subsequent pages should have targeted keywords and specific content. The risk is that any changes can impact the ranking. But if you do it right, you can end up with a good structure that is appealing to both the users and the search engine.

• GETTING HIGH-QUALITY BACKLINKS

Backlinks are a well-established section of SEO, and many businesses want it to improve ranking and build authority. The risk here is that you can lose some traffic by giving the links to other sites, but at the same time, you are telling Google that you are referencing reliable sites with authority. But remember, websites feature links to some spammy and malicious websites knowingly and can get penalized by Google. If you add too many links, your site can get penalized for poor quality.

• REDESIGNING THE WEBSITE

Now and then, your website needs redesigning and updates. Though this might be expensive, time-consuming and comes with the risk that Google might re-evaluate it. But Google understands that sites go through this process, and updated website have a chance to bring more clients with time. Patience works in such a scenario.

• BUYING AVAILABLE AND EXPIRED DOMAINS

Some website owners don’t renew their website domain, which makes them available for others to buy. Buying such a domain and redirecting them to your website can be an excellent way to earn more traffic. The risk here is dangerous. The domain should be related to your business, should be legitimate and professional, and shouldn’t be full of spammy content.

SEO RISKS TO AVOID

• USING EXACT MATCH KEYWORD IN ANCHOR TEXT

The practice of using the targeted keyword as anchor text got abused by a lot of black hat SEO users with its massive amount of matching keyword usage and anchor texts. These links don’t come from a legitimate website, and Google punishes overdoing these practices. So you should avoid risking it.

• NOT ALLOWING NEUTRAL BACKLINKS

Neutral links might not give enough SEO boost to your website, but they also don’t keep your site in Google’s harsh penalty zone. It is difficult for a website to be punished by Google for malicious backlinks. If Google does not take any action against the website, the backlinks are safe, even though they are not good enough to boost the search rankings and traffic of the site. You can disavow some links but have to be quite careful in taking this step. Because these sites can potentially help you in improving rank so disavowing this neutral links can be a risky job.

• POOR QUALITY DOORWAY PAGES

Doorway pages are easy to create and simple to target specific keywords. Google’s view on such pages is a good enough reason for you to avoid such a risk. They only way Google lets such pages go away is if they provide unique and valuable information and content. So it is better to avoid this risk.

• DELETING OR MERGING PAGES

Deleting a page might seem easy to you as the product or service is discontinued by the company, but when you remove it, you lose the keywords and URLs which directly affect your ranking. Even when you merge pages, make sure you include 301redirects on old URLs so that you don’t lose traffic.

• MAKING TOO MANY SMALL CHANGES

It is good to update the content of your website occasionally; also, Google loves updated fresh content. But such constant changes aren’t ignored by Google or the users. These changes can raise red flags for Google, which will see your page as malicious and can punish you. Even the users can think your site is suspicious.

SEO plays a significant role and is vital for any business. Many risks are worth and should be taken with care while few are avoidable. Social media has its own risk, so take steps carefully. As much as risky SEO is the only thing more dangerous is not to do any SEO at all.