Don’t Get it Twisted – Spamming is Not SEO

I still come across amateur articles on the web explaining ways in which to increase optimisation that are so very dated and have no relevance in modern day SEO strategies. I thought I would write a post to warn of a few things not to do in the hope I might save someone’s website from becoming a disaster.

SEO is not like sending an important email; if you make a spelling mistake then the recipient will forgive you and probably still do business with you anyway. SEO strategies can make or break your business on the web. SEO is a serious deal and something you need to get right first time round – thus the reason people employ professional SEO services.

Let’s just get a few things straight so that you don’t get yourself into trouble and completely ruin your marketing campaign from the outset. Spamming is not cool, neither is it SEO, so avoid doing the following three things.

• Firstly, don’t stuff keywords in your meta-data and image alt tags. This is considered spamming and might have worked 10 years ago but things have somewhat moved on.
• Secondly, don’t stuff keywords in your page footer with lightly graded or even hidden text, this is also spamming and won’t get you anywhere.
• Thirdly, and this is a big one. Don’t plaster links to your site all over blog comments, guest-books, article replies etc. This again is spamming and not acceptable in the eyes of Google and alike.

The above will not provide you with better rankings, and contrary to what some misleading information might tell you, these activities are useless. If SEO strategies were that simple (if only), then I would probably be out of a job. If you ar setting up a web business then factor SEO services into the budget, don’t ignore SEO and believe that you can handle it yourself at a later stage. The thing about bad SEO is it can be damaging, the thing about good SEO is how effective it is, and it’s not as expensive as you might think.