You may have done all it takes to optimize your website; however, one fine day, you wake up to find Google has penalized it. The first thing that hits your mind is, what have you done, and where did you go wrong? You know Black Hat SEO techniques are responsible for site penalties, and you are sure you have not even used them – so, what went wrong?
What do SEO experts say?
SEO experts skilled in the field say no one receives site penalties without any genuine reasons. Honest SEO mistakes on your part can cost you dearly when it comes to the optimization of your site. Even if you follow the best search engine optimization practices in the industry, a wrong honest mistake will cost you a penalty.
What is worse is that the recovery process from the penalty is not simple.
You cannot apologize to Google with a genuine sob story. You need to take the penance involved and go through all the stages of the recovery process with patience.
Now, the question that arises in your mind is- what are these honest SEO mistakes, and how can you avoid them?
3 Honest SEO mistakes that penalize your website
1. Your business relationships with other sites
Many businesses online enter into relationships with others for better growth and prospects in the competitive online market. Most of the time, these businesses create links for each other as a means to establish a relationship and enhance the clickthrough traffic. However, if you are not careful, these trading links with good intentions can actually harm your website or the website of the other business.
For example, a business might add a footer link to the site of the other business to increase traffic. Google will investigate into such links, and in case they find it suspicious, the site will be imposed with a heavy manual link. Indeed, reciprocal linking like footer links are notorious and is viewed as shady, and the business has to be extremely cautious about them.
Although there’s no guarantee that you’ll be immune to any Google penalties, making the business links shared by both needs to be as natural looking as possible is the way to go. The purpose of doing this is so that Google does not penalize one or both of the websites in any way.
Perhaps the best way for you is to hire an experienced SEO specialist that’s highly experienced in your niche. For example, if you’re running a dental practice, hiring an experienced Dental SEO service provider for help is resource-effective.
2. Affiliate Programs
Affiliate program links can either aid or hurt the SEO of your site. It actually depends on how it is implemented. In fact, the affiliate link is a gray area that has baffled site owners and webmasters for many years. In fact, skilled SEO experts often find it challenging to deal with these links correctly. Veteran experts in the field explain the problem by saying that affiliate program links are big businesses and mostly they are free from spam.
Businesses can indulge in affiliate relationships without being penalized. However, the business should know what it is getting into. If not cautious, Google will instantly penalize the site. For instance, if a business implements an affiliate marketing program quickly but does not explain to its partners on how to effectively implement links and merely direct customers to generic home page links, Google will identify and penalize the site.
If you are not careful with affiliate links that are meant to expand your business, its wrong use will crush it completely. Given below are some expert SEO tips for using affiliate links for your business-
- Make a dedicated landing page for big affiliate providers. This should be done for other large companies as well if you have an affiliate marketing relationship with them too. The landing page you create helps both your business as well as theirs.
- Make sure you test all the affiliate links regularly. These links should function correctly, and in case you find any broken link, ensure you create a permanent redirect link.
- In case you or your business development team do not have the SEO skills or the experience to roll out an affiliate program successfully, always take help from trusted service providers in the field with proven track records in the market.
These are 3 factors that help you safely conduct affiliate marketing programs without harming or hurting your business website.
3. Guest blogging
Guest blogging is widely popular in the SEO world provided it is done correctly. Yes, guest blogging has many dangers, and it often involves the niche where one is a guest blogger in. Just because you are a guest blogger in one niche does not mean that you can guest blog in every niche.
Google believes that guest blogging is widely embraced for link building. This has resulted in the rise of spam in recent years. SEO experts in the field again do not condemn the practice altogether as it does benefit the site if done correctly.
One should check the guest blogging niches and limit themselves to high-authority websites that bring some benefit to the business in the form of brand exposure and traffic. In short, the niche needs to be legitimate and chosen with care. The sites one chooses for guest blogging should have the quality that can be termed as “impeccable” and should have high authority in the online market.
Beware of casino and gambling sites as things can actually spiral out of hands. The lesson here is to choose the site and the niche for high SEO quality and standards!
Takeaway
Therefore, from the above, it is evident that honest SEO mistakes can be committed without caution. You must understand what these mistakes are and avoid them for maintaining high SEO standards and quality that will benefit your business.
If you do not have the experience, skills, and expertise to carry out effective SEO practices for your business, consider to hire experts that have proven track records and credibility in the field to do the job for you!