Just the other day you were getting a nice trickle of traffic for your posts. The clicks on your web presence were growing with every new post published by you. Just when you were planning to grade Google as the main source of traffic for your business –it all stops. Your existence and online identity is all wiped out from Google –as if you never existed. Every singular post put by you vanishes into thin air. No alarm, no warning bells…… Nothing!

All this and more, obviously leaves you bleeding, whimpering and wondering what went wrong. If this has happened to you, then you are not alone. With new SEO rules coming into play and Google becoming all the more stringent with whatever’s being posted on its face –the going according to SEO experts is obviously getting tougher for those who have been or are on the verge of being blacklisted. Read on for some mistakes that are a complete no-no as per SEO professionals (even though you may be nurturing a feeling that they are legitimate).

Mistake #1: Purchasing Links
If you are an avid user of SEO based marketing strategies, then you must have noticed the ads posted by diverse firms in this field. These ads guarantee you thousands of links as well as first page rankings for just a paltry fee. Just ignore them. All these links are from disreputable, spammy sites and fake social networking accounts. They often point to intermediary pages and supposedly create “link pyramids/ link wheels” to protect you. Though they may work for a while for your business, you will soon get caught by the ever-evolving Google. They have always managed to map people like you. The best policy? Refrain from buying (or selling links). Period.

Mistake #2: Joining Wrong Link Directories
Before signing up with an online directory, do ask yourself these questions.

Is the directory known for rejecting URLs? If there are no rejections in the offing, then the directory chosen by you may simply be a free-for-all and useless link website.

Are the URLs present in the directory of high quality or are they spammy and don’t talk too highly of the kind of submissions on the same?

Are the services provided for free? As per experts, a genuine directory will always charge a small fee for the evaluation of the URL submitted.

Link directories are no longer the most reliable part of SEO marketing campaigns. It’s well advised to research upon trustworthy industry-specific directories only—they help in boosting your search rankings.

Mistake #3: Keyword Stuffing and Article Marketing
Though a rage in 2008, the idea of spinning multiple articles from an original one (after making minor adjustments) and linking them back to your site is just not accepted by today’s Google. Though a few SEO companies are still encouraging article marketing, it’s now a dying technique that fails to get the correct response from search engines. And yes, filling up pages with an unnecessary numbers or keywords leads to negative user experiences —steer clear of such tactics!

To err is human. We can only try to err a little less.

Follow Wytti on LinkedIn and Facebook to get everything about content marketing delivered to you in your feed.