If there’s one thing that’s for sure, it’s that SEO is always changing. What worked a few years ago may not work today, and what works today may not work tomorrow. With so many conflicting opinions out there, it can be hard to know what advice to follow and what to avoid. In this blog post, we’ll share the top six pieces of bad SEO advice to avoid if you want your website to rank well. Stay tuned!

1. It Doesn’t Matter Where Backlinks Come From

One of the worst pieces of advice that anyone can give you is that it doesn’t matter where backlinks come from, the important factor taken away is that you are gaining backlinks. The reason this advice is so bad is that not only is it untrue, but it is also potentially harmful to your rankings.

As of 2022, search engines have changed their algorithms quite a bit, and as such, it now matters quite heavily where you are gaining links from, as digital marketing agency Cozab explains. Why? Because Google and other search engines are wary of sites abusing the algorithm to gain rankings, low-quality links and a short burst of links come across as suspicious. More than this, the higher the ranking of the site you are gaining the link from, the more authority is passed onto you, which helps your site in the long run.

2. Use as Many Keywords as Possible

Another bad piece of advice that many people still believe to be true is that you should try to use as many keywords as possible per page on your website or repeat the same keyword as many times as possible. The thought process behind this is that if you have as many keywords as possible, the chances that a search engine will recommend your content to a user increase.

Unfortunately, this is just not true, and in 2022, this will be known as keyword stuffing. Why is this bad? Because search engines, specifically Google, have started using something called semantic search, which means search engines are getting better at understanding what you are searching for and will recommend content similar to the keywords you used to search. More than this, search engines are aiming to deliver relevant, high-quality content that answers the search queries of users. If you are spamming keywords, this is unnatural, and the quality of your content will decrease as a result; not something that Google would show to users.

3. The Design of Your Site Matters Most

It is quite common in 2022 to see websites that have the most amazing designs, but have some of the worst content known to man, or have no content at all. This is because there is this idea that the design of your site matters even more than the content you are providing or the on-site SEO.

This is evident from the many one-page site designs that have become quite popular. Why are one-page site designs bad? Well, for one, they don’t allow for many opportunities in the way of growth; if everything is supposed to fit on one page, and the website continues to grow, the user will need to scroll indefinitely. More than this, one-page site designs don’t allow for any SEO, because, as mentioned above, you can’t place a lot of content on one page. Always remember that the design of your site is secondary to content and SEO.

4. Thinking Short Content Gets Links

Finally, the last bad piece of advice that has been surfacing over the last few years is that short content gets links or that short content is better for your audience. This idea is usually paired with having clickbait titles since these supposedly get page views.

Firstly, short content is also known as thin content, and thin content does not answer the search queries of users because it has no depth or substance. Subsequently, websites won’t want to link to your content. More importantly, when paired with clickbait titles, you won’t be getting the results you are hoping for. Clickbait titles will cause visitors to leave as soon as the site loads when they see they have been clickbait, which will raise your bounce rate and tank your time spent on site. When used in conjunction with short content, you are left with many people visiting your site, but no one staying, at least not for long.

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