Cameron Olthuis

Here’s my list of the top 5 things that won’t help with your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts, lots of them happen to be very popular techniques. Some are simply a waste of time, others are a waste of money, and some will just flat out get banned if you abuse them.

Please remember this is just one guy’s (me) opinion. Just about everything with SEO is a guess, sometimes an educated one. If you question any of this I suggest you do some research and form your opinion from there. Enjoy.

5) Link exchange programs - Links are one of the most important pieces of the puzzle we call seo, the only thing more important is your content. Hold on, let me re-phrase that. “Natural links” are one of the most important pieces of the puzzle. Reciprocal links are not the form of links that increase your rankings.

What’s a natural link? A natural link is a link that’s earned without any direct effort on your part. You didn’t have to ask for it, pay for it, or trade for it. Someone just automatically linked to your site because they liked something you said or they just thought you’re site was cool and worth a mention. These are the type of links you want.

Link exchange programs don’t help you earn natural links or links that will boost your rankings. All they do is allow you to trade links with other websites in attempt to trick the search engines into thinking people think your site is valuable. It’s just a form of glorified spam. Yes spam, and we all hate spam right? Joining link exchange programs will not help your rankings, they can actually end up hurting your rankings.

It’s ok to exchange a link here or there, but only if the link you’re adding on your site would be considered valuable for you users, and vice-versa. Trading links with every Tom, Dick, and Sally won’t help your rankings, so don’t bother joining any of these programs, it’s a waste of your time and it makes your site look like crap. Don’t do it!

4) Stuffing your footer full of keywords - Not only is this a waste of time but it will get you in trouble. Stuffing keywords is one of many things the search engines consider spam and will ban your site for.

I see this all the time, I visit a site and notice the footer has a paragraph or two that makes no sense and is stuffed full of keywords. I actually get quite a kick out of seeing this, it’s funny that people actually think this helps. If you really think adding that paragraph of text is going to help at least make sure it makes sense and is readable.

Make sure all your content makes sense and is optimized for your users. It’s always a bad idea to add something only for the search engines.

3) Live or die by your Google PageRank - A couple years ago the PageRank of your site was tied in pretty closely with your Google rankings. If you had a higher PR than your competitors chances were that you’d rank better for competiting keywords.

Now Google’s PR is outdated and doesn’t really mean much in regards to your rankings. Sure, you should still pay attention but don’t live or die by your PR. You can still shoot for a PR of 10 but if you’re still only at a 4 and have been there for 3 months don’t sweat it.

Bottom line is pay attention to your PR but don’t bust your balls trying to increase it.

2) Keyword Density - Don’t worry about your keyword density, it doesn’t matter. If it makes sense from a user standpoint to have a 100% keyword density then go for it, I can’t imagine it ever would but if it does then you should feel comfortable doing it. If it only makes sense to have a keyword density of 1% then that all you should use it.

Contrary to popular belief there’s no magic keyword density formula. I’ve said before and I’ll say it again, just do what makes sense to your users, the engines will follow.

1) Drum roll please… rata tat tat…. And the number #1 thing that won’t do a damn thing for your SEO is….. Paying $19.95 to submit your site to 10,000,000,000 search engines!!

Hate to break it to you folks, but paying someone to submit your site to every search engine in the world isn’t going to help you, nope not one bit. Submitting your site doesn’t do a damn thing, not to mention the fact that only a handful of search engines actually matter and will bring you traffic anyways. You don’t even need to submit to those sites either. All you need is a link or two from another site and they’ll find you.

The next time your tempted by that spam email that guarantees you top rankings by submitting to 6 trillion search engines please try to resist the temptation. I know it’s hard but take my word, it won’t help.

Honorable Mentions
Meta tags - they don’t help but it only takes a minute so go for it, just don’t stuff keywords.
Content placement (i.e. above the menus, images, etc)
Robots.txt - Only important to keep spiders out, not let them in.