The art of SEO has changed considerably over the last few years as Google algorithms have shifted and search engines have changed what they are looking for.
If you have had your website search engine optimized several years ago, it is likely that the techniques that your SEO consultant used then are no longer relevant to the current online world. In fact, having old and outdated SEO could actually be dragging your website down and causing you to lose traffic.
In fact, if you had some shoddy SEO work done a few years ago it might even cause your site to be banned from the Google index altogether. Perhaps the types of techniques that they used were completely legitimate then, but nowadays they have been no longer allowed. Using old techniques such as keyword stuffing your meta description field or link farming is against the rules under the new standard of Google Panda.
Getting banned would be very bad for your company, because it is difficult to get your site removed from the banned list and re-indexed. You would have to start all over again from scratch, which is not what you want to do.
These days Google looks much more closely at each site to discover your keywords, links, click through rates, bounce rates, coding and about 500 other details which determine which sites pass the test and are ranked on their search results and which ones are banned. In order to make sure that your company’s website is up to date you will need to have an SEO update from a company which is highly knowledgeable on the most recent Google updates.
How to Tell When Your SEO is Outdated
Here are some tips which will help you determine whether your website SEO is out of date and needs an overhaul:
Your SEO strategy fails to integrate between platforms.
You should be using Facebook, Twitter, paid search advertising and many more different methods all at the same time, because they each have their own advantages and limitations. Using each of these tools on their own is a mistake, because they are so much more powerful when combined together.
If you haven’t integrated your social media sites into your website, what are you waiting for? Facebook launched in 2006 and now has over 800 million active users and YouTube is now the 3rd most visited site in the world, so it’s time to update your website to include them!
Your strategy for social media does not have a pre-determined ROI.
Back in the day, SEO companies used to put up some Facebook posts and Tweets and add some keywords and believe their jobs were done. However, these days your social media strategy should have a specific return on investment goal. This will help you to make a more concrete plan for accomplishing your goal, keep better tabs on your SEO consultant and let you know when you have been successful.
Your content is contained within images.
A few years ago, it was the trend to design websites with stylish flash animations and image-heavy navigation. However, when you have all of the text on your website inside the images it will be unreadable to the search engines. This means that you will not be ranking for your keywords. It’s fine to use pictures as decoration or illustration, but if your website does not have a text-link navigation system then you are due for a redesign. The same goes for flash animations, because they are also detrimental to your SEO and cannot be viewed on most mobile devices.
If you have determined that your website’s outdated SEO is dragging you down, don’t fear. All you need to do is enlist the help of a professional SEO consultant to help you bring your site up to speed.
Are your old website and its outdated SEO strategy holding you back? You might need to hire an SEO company to bring your website into the present day so that you can be more competitive.
