Is SEO Bad?
You may have heard about SEO being bad. When you search for it in Google, the search engine will likely to auto-suggest that SEO is dead. But how SEO earned a bad reputation when in fact it is a beneficial online marketing strategy?
SEO is beneficial as it ensures your website will appear on the search engine results page when users use a particular term. The overall idea is that if the search engine knows what your site is all about, it can show your page in response to a search query.
Marketers know the value of optimizing a site for search engines. Unfortunately, some website owners consider SEO as spam, and they don’t need it because of its bad reputation.
But how did this beneficial marketing tool go wrong?
Unsolicited Emails
Some self-proclaimed SEO professionals are deceptive and fraudulent. They email potential clients to let them know that their site receives a very poor rating from the search engine. Then, they continue to explain that SEO is the only solution to the site’s low-traffic problem.
But that is actually a misconception. SEO may help, but it is not the only fix.
Keyword stuffing
SEO scams use this practice by repeating keywords several times to manipulate the search engines. This practice was once a standard method to improve a site’s ranking. Today, however, it is no longer effective. In fact, it can get your site penalized.
Legitimate SEO professionals discourage this practice. Unfortunately, it still happens to a lot of websites. Remember that Google and other search engines are combating it.
Buying links
This practice is another reason SEO has a bad reputation. Some SEO professionals are still buying links to manipulate search engine rankings. It is different from buying an advertisement as ads include a no-follow link.
Paid links, however, are generated to trick the search engines. It is a deceptive practice because the search engine does not understand the relevance between two sites.
SEO Is Not Bad
SEO has a bad reputation only because it is associated with those deceptive practices. That’s why reputable SEO professionals only recommend white hat SEO techniques. These methods focus on providing a better user experience and organizing information within the site so search engines can understand it.
For that reason, you must only use white hat SEO and hire an SEO professional who uses the right SEO techniques. Stay away from those SEO experts who will promise you that your site will land at the number one spot on Google search engine result page.
