No matter which business you are in, you want to be successful. Since almost everything is digitized now, it’s crucial to have a strong online presence to reach your potential customers.
But, not everything happens as planned.
Although the website looks pretty good, you may still get kicked out of your desired position by some terrible websites.
This may take you by surprise, but unfortunately, it’s true.
It turns out, everything is possible in the world of spamming. While you were busy optimizing your site following the search engine algorithm, some SEO spammers out there just exploited all its vulnerabilities.
Admit it or not, you want to do the same. However, what makes you different from a spammy website is that you have great content and you don’t want to upset Google. So, how can you rank higher on Google and win against both good and spammy websites?
This article looks into some of the tricks you can learn from SEO spammers that will help you to rank on Google without breaking the rule.
Things to Learn from SEO Spammers
You might be thinking why should you follow some strategies that were invented by the spammers? The fact is, the problem isn’t in their strategies, the problem is how they do it.
The reasons some websites are called spammy are that they do everything at an extreme level and create mistrusts. You can still follow the same tactics moderately and make your site less spammy.
Here are some of the tricks SEO spammers can teach you.
Optimizing The Brand Name
Like most businesses, you named your website with something you found creative or interesting. Also, as a marketer, you might choose a name with two syllables since it’s easy to type and remember.
But, did you think about SEO? I bet you didn’t.
This is where spammers win. They notoriously use a technique that increases their chances to get on the first page of Google for a target keyword.
So, what do they actually do? If you closely look at their site names, you will see most of them are using phrases like best restaurants, top SEO practice, etc.
If you search with the keyword “best restaurants,” you will see such websites on the top since Google thought you might be looking for a business with that brand name.
It happens due to the weight Google put on the brand name. So, while this strategy was developed by the spammers to fool Google, you can use the same technique without being spammy.
Be strategic and take some time to do research with the keywords that are relevant to your niche. Find out what business name would be beneficial for your SEO and change it accordingly.
Guest Blogging for Quality Backlinks
Backlinks are your website’s lifeline. A good backlink can significantly improve the reliability of your site to Google.
For example, if a site with a good domain authority links to your website in their post, you receive some link juice since Google trusts sites that other websites trust, particularly a good one.
The more backlinks you have, the better position you will have on Google search. Spammers know this fact and wrongfully use this technique in their favor.
But, how do they do that? Here comes what it’s called a PBN.
PBN or Private Blog Network is a service that provides backlinks from different websites that are also spams. However, those websites have enough SEO juice to help the spammers gain higher ranking.
While you’re highly recommended not to get backlinks from PBNs, you can still get quality backlinks without being suspicious.
How is that even possible?
Well, there’s a thing called guest blogging that can help you get backlinks. All you need to do is pitch that website you want the backlink from. After getting the approval, write a quality article and add a backlink to your website.
You can also write testimonials for other companies and get backlinks from them.
The Importance of Keyword Research
When it comes to improving your visibility, you just don’t want to impress Google, you want to reach your target audiences as well.
You can only achieve that by targeting and optimizing your content for the right keywords your potential readers are using.
It’s because those keywords help Google to determine if your web pages are relevant to your searchers’ query.
Spammers know the importance of keywords and they use this technique in the wrong way too. It’s called keyword stuffing.
So, what’s keyword stuffing? It’s a process where you put a huge amount of keywords in your article. Although it’s strictly forbidden and punishable, Google can’t catch everyone, and this is where spammers get their chance to rank well.
Keep that in mind, if Google can catch you for misusing the keywords, you will be punished. While keywords can improve your SEO, they can also ruin it if you don’t use them right. That’s why it’s crucial to do proper keyword research.
It’s important to know that Google tends to look into the intent behind the keywords. If your content fails to meet the searchers’ intent, you won’t be able to rank.
Using Customer Review for SEO
A customer review is something that can build or break your business.
Most of us rely on customer reviews before purchasing a product. We look into the star rating, analyze what people think about it, and then decide whether to buy it or not.
The same thing happens for your business. While good reviews can improve your image, bad reviews can do the opposite.
Interestingly, reviews don’t only impact customer opinions, they also affect SEO.
But how can they do that?
Google puts a lot of weight on customer reviews while ranking your site. If your customers like your business, Google will like you too and put you in a higher position. Similarly, it will demote your position if you have bad reviews.
Spammers use this technique to manipulate the ranking process. They leave some positive (fake) reviews on their website and extremely bad reviews for their competitors.
Since the online world is quite huge, it’s not possible for Google to catch all those spammers. As a result, sometimes spammers can ruin the reputation of so many authentic businesses.
Since you already know how powerful customer reviews can be, you can use them in your favor without being dishonest.
For example, you can offer a free gift or a discount on the customer’s next purchase if he/she leaves a review for you.
Everyone loves to have gifts, even your customers. So, when they get something like that from you, they happily leave a positive review on your site.
The Power of Internal Linking
If you’re into blogging for years, you must know about internal linking. It involves linking one page from your site to your other content.
Internal linking is important because it organizes the content for Google, allowing it to recognize the pages that discuss similar topics. Google then delivers those content to the right audiences.
Remember, regardless of its smartness, Google is a robot and can only understand your content properly when you organize them for it.
This is where spammers try to fool Google by overdoing interlinking and end up making their page look boring and stuffy.
Instead of going for too much internal linking, you can use pillar content to organize your webpages.
Write Long But Quality Content
If you observe carefully, you will see that longer articles have a better ranking on Google.
It means if you write an article that has around 2000 to 2500 words, chances that it will rank higher than those on a similar topic with less word count.
Some bloggers misuse this technique to improve their ranking. They simply write long articles, putting unnecessary information in it. While the word count of that content increases, the value decreases.
A long article might appear top on Google, but when readers go through it, they see irrelevant information stuffed in that content and leave that site. Since Google gives higher priority to the users, it eventually removes that content from search results.
Since your job is to help people with your content, you need to ensure each of the words in your article provides value to your readers.
When you produce a long but quality content, it makes the readers stay longer on your site, thus improving its ranking.
Final Thoughts
As long as there is the internet, there are spammers. As they are not going anywhere, it’s your responsibility to save yourself from their malicious practices.
While you’re not one of those spammers, you can still learn a lot from them that will help to increase your ranking.
Quality backlinks, keywords, comments, etc. are some of the best SEO practices that can help you get a higher position on SERP. So, do it honestly and stay safe from Google’s penalty.
Sujan Sarkar is the Co-founder of OnelittleWeb, a leading SEO agency specializing in helping businesses improve their online presence and search engine rankings.
