I’d like to begin with what I hold to be a simple truth: many sites go horrendously overboard with SEO.
Search has changed, and traditional tactics are no longer going to cut it. Google’s Hummingbird – released towards the end of last year – has a marked preference for semantic search and content that reads naturally. For this reason, over-optimizing your site is even worse, and has the potential to hit your ranking even harder.
So how can you tell you’ve taken search-engine optimization too far? More importantly, - outside of platitudes like “just build great content” – how can you rescue a site that’s over-optimized and start ranking again?
You’ve Noticed Your Traffic Suffering Considerably
Pay close attention to your analytics software. Although it’s not necessarily an indication of over-optimization, the first indication that you might be doing something wrong is almost always a sharp and unusual decline in traffic. If fewer people are visiting your site, that probably means that fewer people are finding it through Google – it’s your job to find out why.
Again, a decline in traffic doesn’t always mean you aren’t optimizing properly – but there’s a good chance that it’s a warning sign.
Your Keyword Density Is Overly High
The old rule that you should never have more than four or five percent keyword density still holds true here. If you’re stuffing your posts with keywords (or worse, including a keyword list anywhere on your site), then you’re making a terrible mistake – not in the least because your copy is probably going to sound mechanical and unnatural as a result of said stuffing. Pay close attention to how often you’re using a keyword, and tone it down a bit if you notice it’s excessive.
Beyond that, use keyword synonyms and phrases that you think might draw users to your site.
You’re Using Even A Single “Crap Hat” SEO Technique
First, allow me to take a moment to explain the meaning of the term “Crap Hat.” It has its origins in the world of computer security, where White Hat hackers operate within the law and Black Hat hackers work for personal gain. In this sense, Crap Hat hackers would be script kiddies – non-experts who know little of the systems they work with and turn to exploits that will net them a reward with minimal effort.
A Crap Hat SEO specialist is anyone who demonstrates a preference for lazy, spamming methods of traffic and website building. They’ve a fairly wide repertoire of favored techniques, none of which should be used by anyone who actually wants to rank:
- Buying Links: Remember how I said Google prefers natural, organic content? Bought links are the opposite of this.
- Content Scraping: Never copy someone else’s content. It’s lazy, it’s potentially illegal, and it will do absolutely nothing to get your site ranked.
- Duplicating Your Own Content: This one needs little explanation. Duplicating your own content isn’t likely to get your any hits, and it’s incredibly lazy besides. Write something new, or don’t write at all.
- Spinning Content: Spun articles are almost never as good as the original, and they more often than not end up sounding absolutely unnatural.
- Baiting Your Audience: Read this, and then consider that this writer’s audience is comprised of the ‘nerds’ she’s mocking. See the problem here? This sort of underhanded link-baiting might get you a few hits, but it also demonstrates a complete lack of integrity and will probably end up driving most of your audience away.
- Comment Spamming: There exists a fine line between building a reputation and being just another spam-bot in a sea of white noise. If you’ve a comment system with spam protection, try reading some of the posts it blocks – that’ll give you an idea of what not to do.
You’re Using Too Many Keywords
Although this is somewhat related to keyword stuffing, it’s distinct enough to merit its own entry. Don’t overdo it on your keywords. As a general rule, you want to stick to only one or two per page. Anything more, and you’re probably not targeting your page properly.
Not only that, your content itself will likely start to grow unfocused. A keyword should form the core idea of an article. If a piece has twenty different core ideas, it’s going to end up being too eclectic to offer anything of value.
You’re Over-Linking
Last, but certainly not least, look at the links on your site. Are you interlinking every single page on your site to every other page? Are you optimizing your anchor text to the point that it no longer sounds natural, or duplicating anchor text? Are you repeatedly linking to a single page or domain?
These are all tactics you need to avoid if you’re going to rank. If you’re going to use links, use them sparingly. I’ll leave the exact details to your better judgement.