Best Practices for Avoiding a Google Penalty

1. Best Practices for Avoiding a Google Penalty No matter how well your search engine optimization campaign is going, all it takes is one Google penalty to erase your standings in the search results. The biggest penalties can drop you dozens of positions in the rankings. Fortunately, Google penalties are relatively easy to prevent, as long as you avoid certain black hat techniques and embrace a few proactive steps. Avoid black hat SEO techniques The most obvious step you can take to avoid Google penalties is to avoid black hat SEO techniques. These are practices that artificially build your performance in the search rankings. Because they lead to highly-ranked content that is not useful to search engine users, they will earn you the swiftest and most severe penalties from Google. They include techniques such as keyword stuffing, content scraping, link buying, and more.

2. Thankfully, preventing Google penalties based on black hat techniques is as simple as not using them. Not only does using these techniques risk the success of your entire SEO campaign, they are not necessary for SEO success. If you hire the right expert SEO service, they should be aware of the latest banned techniques and be skilled enough in SEO to get you results without using illegitimate practices. Maintain your link profile Links can be both good and bad for your SEO campaign. Inbound links (links from an outside website to one of your web pages) play an important role in improving the reliability of your site in the eyes of Google's search engine crawlers. When you earn many of these links from reliable websites, your site appears authoritative in the eyes of Google's search engine crawlers. As a result, you are more likely to earn favorable rankings from them. On the other hand, if you possess many inbound links from unreliable sources, they can actually lead to poorer rankings. In addition, shady links or purchased links can lead to Google penalties, because they indicate that you have obtained those links by illegitimate means. As a result, one way to avoid Google penalties is to regularly review your link profile and eliminate undesirable links. By doing so, you maintain a reputable link profile that will maximize your performance in the search rankings.

3. Guest post wisely Similar to link building, guest posting can be a double edged sword for your business. For instance, smart guest blogging can be an effective way to build brand awareness, establish yourself as a thought leader in your field, and build organic inbound links. At the same time, however, links from guest blogs have less authority than do other inbound links. In addition, if the content in your blog post is not directly relevant to the site on which you are posting, your links may not appear reliable to Google's search engine crawlers. As a result, guest post wisely. In particular, create content for your guest blogs that is directly relevant to the blog for which you are writing. Make sure that the site on which you are posting is reputable so that the links coming from that site to your site are also reputable. And, make sure that the links you include are as natural and organic as possible. By doing so, you can enjoy the benefits of guest posting without risking penalties from Google. Use relevant keywords When search engine optimization first became an important aspect of online marketing, it was common for websites to stuff their content with keywords that had little to do with the actual material on the web pages. Google has since cracked down on these techniques in an effort to make sure that the content they recommend to their users is actually relevant. Now, keyword stuffing is considered a black hat SEO technique that can earn you serious penalties from Google.

4. In addition to avoiding keyword stuffing, make sure that the keywords you do use are relevant to the material on the page. For instance, create each landing page around a couple of effective keywords. This means that all of the material on those pages should directly relate to the keywords that you use. The visitor who comes to your site through an organic search result should find material that relates to the query that sent them there in the first place. The result should be more relevancy in the eyes of Google, and less chance of you getting penalized by Google for irrelevant content. Create unique content Another best practice for avoiding Google penalties is to create unique content for all of your web pages. There are a couple of qualities that characterize unique content. The first is that it be completely original. For instance, if you take material from other sites, you are inviting a Google penalty. This technique, called “scraping,” is a black hat SEO technique that is almost certain to earn you penalties.

5. The second quality of unique content is that it be relevant. Instead of focusing on promoting as many keywords as possible, focus on providing content that your website visitors can use. When you do so, you improve your website's reliability and relevance, helping to promote the success of your search engine optimization campaign and avoiding the issues that can lead to penalties. Avoiding Google penalties is essential to enjoying a successful SEO campaign. While black hat or illegitimate SEO techniques may be tempting in the short term, the penalties that they produce will never be worth a temporary uptick in your search rankings. As a result, use the best SEO Company to avoid black hat SEO techniques, regularly manage your link profile, guest post wisely, use relevant keywords, and create unique content in order to enjoy the most SEO success possible.