Many people have a tough time seeing the value of SEO. This is because there is a lot of information and misinformation about SEO services. While an effective SEO strategy takes months to yield the positive results for a company, it can make a huge impact in a company’s online exposure SEO Risks to Take and Avoid!and profits.
Many companies may not try something they are not familiar with, but let’s face it. Nearly any business decisions has risks with it. Some can be avoided and some can lead to serious growth. The question which needs to be asked is what SEO risks are worth it and which should be avoided.
SEO risks to take!
1. Making and Testing Large and Small Changes
The goal of SEO services is to get traffic and ultimately, transactions for your website. But this will not happen if nobody clicks on the website in the first place. There could be several reasons and will take sometime to figure out why isn’t it performing as well as expected. You can do this through A/B testing. You will take one at element at a time and test them against variations. But what is the risk? The risk is that there maybe some combinations which may not work well and end up reducing the traffic you have – at least for a while. HOwever, the risk is worth it as once you find the best results, you will be able to focus on the element and continue to drive more traffic and get better returns.
2. Getting and Giving High Quality Backlinks
Backlinks help increase rankings and build authority. However, the SEO services experts says that it’s not always about being the one with most links. Sometimes you need to give a little back. You may risk losing a few web visitors by providing a link to other high-quality sites but at the same time, you are showing Google that you are using and referencing reliable sites with established authority.
3. Enhancing site’s URL structure
Ideally, your homepage URL should be short. Subsequent pages should have targeted keywords and be more specific about the content of the webpage. The risk, here, is that any kind of change like this can impact the rankings. As you alter the old URLs and 301 redirect traffic to the new ones, you may see some drops in the traffic and rankings. However, if done right, you can end up with a streamlined structure which appeals both search engines and internet users.
4. Overhauling the website
The websites need to be updated and redesigned every once in a while. It is risky, expensive and time-consuming. Your website may be optimized for search engines with users finding it a little tough to navigate. There are a number of reasons to take another look at your website and consider reconstructing it. The changes come with a risk to your rankings as Google tries to re-evaluate the site. It comes with the risk of alienating customers who are accustomed to the website.
However, Google understands that websites go through these overhauls once in a while, so your ranking will bounce right back.
5. Buy available or expired domains
Some website owners do not renew the domains making them available for others to buy and use. Buying domain with a history and redirecting them to your site is a quick and easy way to increase the number of valuable backlinks. However, there are some serious risks associated with this. The domain, for example, should be related to the business. It should be professional as if it still receives rankings, the visitors will be redirected to your site and it is frustrating for the users if it isn’t related to the original search.
SEO Risks to Avoid!
Here are some SEO risks which are likely to do more harm than good –
1. Poor doorway pages
Doorway pages are simple and easy to create to target specific keywords. Google greatly dislikes them and penalizes sites. The only time Google lets doorway pages slide is if they offer unique, clear and valuable content to the visitor. However, there is no reason to bother with them so don’t risk it.
2. Disallowing Neutral Backlinks
The neutral backlinks may not give your website the SEO services boosts it needs, but it also won’t subject the site to Google’s harsh penalties. The only way you can tell if the backlinks are low quality is if you have noticed that Google has taken manual action on the site. If no action has been taken by Google, the backlinks are safe. It is possible to disallow certain links but be careful. Don’t disallow all the neutral links as you may risk potentially blocking the sites which improve the ranking.
3. Deleting Content or Pages
It may seem like no big deal to delete a page but remember, the keywords it once ranked are now gone. The same thing happens to the URL of the page which includes page-specific keywords. Instead of risking the loss of those rankings, consider keeping the webpage. The SEO services expert suggest to leave a message on the page for the visitor which redirects them to a similar page with a relevant product or service.
4. Using Exact Match Keywords in Anchor Text
This practice got abused by black hat SEO experts who used excessive number of exact match keyword anchor texts to link to the websites. Since then, Google has greatly cracked down on the practice and punish those who overdo it so don’t risk it.
5. Making too many small SEO changes
It is good to update the content on the website, occasionally. But constant changes for SEO services and purposes will not go unnoticed by Google. Making too many changes to your website or making the changes too often will raise red flags for Google which will likely see your webpage as suspicious and likely penalize your site.
