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Each year Google updates their ranking guidelines also known as “Google Webmaster Guidelines,” to ensure that the universe has great search engine experiences without being tricked by sneaky content marketing schemes. Staying up to date on the “Google Webmaster Guidelines,” is absolutely essential to your content optimization. 2016 will see some stricter enforcement of these guidelines with drastic down ranking being the consequence for violators. Here are a few SEO traps to avoid in 2016.
Over Optimization
Good content marketers know that keyword stuffing discourages repeat traffic and
Sarah R is a 4-Star writer at WriterAccess
ultimately affects sales and reach. However, in 2016, over optimization will now encompass not only keyword stuffing but also anchor text abuse. Exact match anchor text will be a 2016 no, no for content marketers. Using 5-10 links to a large variety of anchor texts is more advisable along with just using a few major keywords.
Desk Top Only Sites
In 2016 you must be mobile in order to rank well. Mobile friendliness will be among Google’s top 2016 ranking criteria. In addition to complying with Google guidelines, increasing your mobile friendliness will also increase your user engagement which is also a huge ranking factor in the New Year.
Low User Engagement
A lonely site will lose ranking in 2016. This is where marketing your marketing content comes into play. If you want people engaging on the site then you will need to set a priority on content distribution in order to drive traffic to the site, increase user engagement which will then increase ranking which will also drive more traffic to the site. If you do not have time to create social media content or press releases yourself in order to drive traffic to the site, hiring professional press release writers or social media managers is a great inexpensive way to stay on top of this task without spending all of your time on this one chore.
Bad User Experience
User experience gets pretty technical in 2016 with aspects such as “dwell time” affecting your ranking. Dwell time is defined by how long visitors remain on your page before clicking back to a results page. Google’s algorithms have gotten pretty sophisticated in evaluating a visitor’s behavior on your site. The trick to avoiding this particular trap is to be sure there is just a great, easily navigated site awaiting your visitors with truly relevant content.
No Real Content Creation
Relevant content also means frequent content. If creating content on a regular basis is a challenge for you then prepare to drop in your rankings. In 2016 “regular” content does not mean a post once or twice a month, but rather once or twice a week your visitors should be seeing fresh, original content on your site that is relevant to that niche. For webmasters who are strapped for time, hiring out content creation is a great way to save time, while also staying in compliance with Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
Sarah is a full time freelance writer, a full time single mother of four and a full time homeschooler.
4-Star writer Sarah R is a freelance author specializing in content writing of all types.
