Beware Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tricks

It’s not uncommon for a trainer, consultant, or professional coach to ask for their site to be updated with SEO “tricks”. The problem is that “trick” usually means “shortcut”. SEO is not a one shot project. Good SEO requires ongoing content generation, appropriate on-site structure, and responsible off-site linking and promotion. In short, there’s no simple trick that will reliably improve search engine ranking. However, those tricks can hurt ranking if applied improperly.

Search engines are getting better all the time at understanding what users are looking for and what content they value. Furthermore search engines are getting better at identifying people trying to game the system.

Here’s an example of how the tricks can undo your SEO efforts.

A couple years ago we were engaged with a client that had an aggressive content generation schedule. This content was optimized for identified keywords and was being published out to a few reputable trade publications as well as their social media accounts. Yet after months of pushing for select keywords, rankings did not improve.

We knew the content was generating interest because leads and responses were generated from direct listings but we were stumped as to why there was no movement on the search engine rankings. The client was understandably frustrated because a better ranking was sure to leverage the content to exponentially grow leads.

In an update meeting, the client told me that he was going to push harder on a contractor he had been using for SEO “syndication” for years to really drive SEO results. I was not aware of what the contractor had done to this point and no efforts were synchronized so a joint meeting was set.

In the joint meeting, the consultant kept stating that he would increase “syndication” but I was unclear as to what he was referring to. He went on to explain that he was listing all the content we created in automated batches to a list of hundreds of directories. We reviewed these directories and found that few of them had anything to do with the client’s industry or expertise.

Directory links are an old SEO trick that search engines have been wise to for at least several years. While effort was being put into appropriately promoting the content, the directory listings were throwing red flags to search engines that the content was SPAM.

Have a process for SEO rather than intermittent attempts at tricking search engines. It’s a tough game to short cut the search engines and even if its accomplished it will typically not last long doing more damage in the long run.