You just take into account the keywords, write what Google wants, have a lot of content and so on. But it’s more than that. Some rules have changed, new things have been added every year, some of them are too old for today’s market.

1. 5 Habits to Ban from Your SEO Portfolio
virginiaseo.org /blog/5-habits-ban-seo-portf olio/
Chris Dill
People Think SEO Is Easy
You just take into account the keywords, write what Google wants, have a lot of content and so
on. But it’s more than that. Some rules have changed, new things have been added every year,
some of them are too old f or today’s market.
On the other hand, habits are not bad on their own: usually we develop habits because it’s easier
to do an everyday job like this. But if we start to abuse them or if we don’t adjust them to the
trends or to what we actually need to do or get, they can be bad. And that is the moment when we
need to stop using them.
It’s almost the same thing in the SEO industry. Af ter a while, you develop habits , as a necessity.
Some of them are a result of a positive experience, other are used f or convenience. Whatever is
their cause, habits are not helping as much as you thing they do and you should stop using them.
Here are f ive most used habits that should be ban f rom any SEO specialist portf olio:
You write for search engines, not for people
This is one of the biggest bad habits that SEO specialists have. You should stop
it immediately since the new algorithms are now optimized to f ind personalized
content, unique. The keywords density doesn’t matter anymore; what is really
important is that your content is relevant f or people, that users interact with your
website and share the inf ormation.
Creating thin content
It is a bad old SEO method that just doesn’t want to die. It is hard to get rid of old
habits, but it’s time to stop creating thin content. It is important to have good
quality and unique content, that is written by specialists f or a target group. You
need to know who are you writing f or and you need to like writing!
Duplicate content and plagiarism
Even if this is a taboo f or SEO specialists, it still happens. But search engines are
smart enough to discover duplicate content and any kind of plagiarism, so it is
better to avoid it. If you content will be detected as duplicate, search engines will
ignore it and your ranking will decrease. That is why is important to have unique
f resh content. Plus it will make your readers stay longer on your articles and share
them.
Ignoring social media signals

2. Social media became a part of our lif e so search engines started to check if your
website is sending social media signals. The websites positions in the new
rankings depend a lot of the social media signal that the website sends. Pay
attention to social media platf orms and you will see your ranking increasing.
Actions without a strategy
This will never work. It is useless to implement dif f erent tactics, to pay attention
to keywords or to f ocus on rankings, if you don’t have any strategy. That is why
many people f ail in marketing. You need a strong SEO plan and with clear actions
and goal. Test it and you will see the result!
These are some really common mistakes that many SEO specialists made at least once in their
lif e, but they are not the only ones. Keep in mind that content is the most important SEO tool and
try to be unique in everything you do. Do you have any bad habits? Have you worked with anyone
in the marketing or SEO industry who has a bad habit or two? Feel f ree to post them below and I
will add them to the list!
Interested in some of these topics? Need some help with thin content or social media
management on your website? Let us know!
Chris Dill
SEO Expert at Virginia SEO
Christopher Dill is a Christian entrepreneur who loves web design, marketing,
and anything on a computer. He is the creator and author of The Dill Design, a
local Virginia web design company. He also runs Virginia SEO, which is a SEO and
inbound marketing company. Chris is currently f inishing up his Master of Inf ormation Systems at
University of Phoenix, and works by day as a Senior Network Engineer.
Latest posts by Chris Dill (see all)
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