I hope all of you enjoyed my post, SEO 101 where I talked about the commonly under-defined key terms of search engine optimization. A lot of business owners are newbies when it comes to SEO, so they feel embarrassed about asking what a robots.txt file is or even what a permalink is for. One way a small business owner can accommodate for their lack of SEO experience is to hire an SEO specialist. However, most people who claim to be “SEO specialists” have to constantly stay updated about the changing world of SEO. SEO is constantly reinventing itself, and it is easy to get left behind. Because of this, make sure you check a SEO specialist’s credentials before you trust them with your business. You should double check the history of specialists that can “guarantee” increased traffic on your site. The SEO specialists you need to be weary of are the ones who use an archaic strategy called “stuffing” that can potentially get you banned from Goggle. This article is all about saying no to stuffing.
Stuffing: stuffing is an unethical SEO technique that is a one way ticket to a banned site. It used to be what SEO was all about in the late 90’s, but it’s outdated now and doesn’t work. The actual technique is when a site owner or “specialist” picks a keyword and uses it every single chance they get in order to boost ranking for that particular niche. For instance, let’s pretend I am a SEO specialist who is trying to boost the rank of a coffee shop. A page on my site, if I were using the stuffing technique, would look like this:
If you drink coffee, and you are a coffee drinker, than you should buy coffee, at this coffee shop where we sell coffee. Not the bad kind of coffee, but the good kind of coffee. The coffee that coffee drinkers like, like you, the coffee drinker. You know coffee, and we know coffee too. Let’s talk coffee. Coffee, coffee, coffee. YUM!
Now, that was annoying to write, it’s annoying to read, and as a reader you might begin to question the sanity of the writer. It’s neither helpful nor informative to have a page like that. It’s only used as a technique to get people to see the site because the increase of keywords boosts it’s Google ranking. But, it is guaranteed to boost your ranking with such densely packed keywords, and it’s an illusion because it’s not helpful nor informative content. As soon as Google sees that your site has peeked in site views well outside your typical range, and they check out your site only to see you stuffing the living daylights out of your content–it will block you.
Black Hat SEO: In tech-y speak, black hat SEO refers to highly aggressive SEO strategies that DO NOT cater to a human audience. For instance, spandexing, stuffing, paying your way into site views, misrepresenting your site, and neglecting content.
Unfortunately, black hat SEO tactics get more site views, BUT, it also guarantees you a banned site sooner or later.
What you have to do to get back on Google: Maybe if I scare you into White Hat SEO practices, it will make my point more clear.
- Google doesn’t tell you that it’s banned you. 99% of the time, they have a legitimate reason for blocking your account, and they don’t make a show of it. One day, you might log into Google Adsense, and your site views have plunged.
- You have to completely revamp your site, change SEOs, change your site title, change all article titles, change all content, change all tags and keywords, redo all the content, redo the links etc.
- Once you’re done cleaning (keep in mind you don’t know why Google banned you), you have to request reconsideration from Google.
- Then, sign up for Google Webmaster Tools and submit an XML Sitemap to Google.
- Then, build new quality links to your website that will “parent you” until Google fully readmits you.
- Never do it again or they will ban you for good.
***This will take you a long time to fix. In that time, you will have zero customers.
Hopefully, everyone that reads this post will not stray to the dark side of SEO. I want all of our friends and followers to run successful businesses that never have to go through banning. My last word of advice: do your research on specialists, experts or SEO professionals, and their guarantees.
If you have feedback, or would like additional help, leave a comment!
Stay tuned for another follow up piece on Hashtags.
