Everyone who tries to establish his/her career in blogging or is already into this field, must know the importance of SEO. It’s not just a term but performance of your blog highly depends on it. Being in the industry from quite some time now, with lots of different experiments and case studies I got to know about many facts which are proven. It is very important if you are working on SEO of your blog or website.
However the title says a bit different but I will tell you few key points for a successful SEO campaign before coming to my main point.
Points to Consider While Carrying Out Your SEO Plan
- #1. Google doesn’t consider Meta Keywords anymore, they said it before itself. So don’t waste your time in adding meta keywords. It will only tell your competitors about your targeted keywords.
- #2. On Page SEO is important but hyper linking 1 keyword so many times in content body won’t do any good, using it once in entire page is enough.
- #3. Keyword Density is important but it should be natural. Stuffing keywords just for sake of keyword density will harm your site so don’t go for it blindly. 1% keyword density is enough to tell Google about the keyword you are targeting.
There are some more points for On Page SEO, but you might have already been aware of that so I didn’t repeat here.
Off Page SEO Techniques Which Works like Charm
I have handled at least 500+ SEO Projects and successfully completed them. With my experience I found a few things that I would like to share with you all.
- #1. First of all everything which you do manually and at the right time, will never harm your site in any way. So the first and most important point, don’t ever go for automation it may not harm your site at once but eventually your site may suffer in the long run, so why taking unnecessary risk.
- #2. Article Submission was the one of the most effective SEO Techniques before Google Panda hit the content farms last year, I achieved handsome ranking with it. If you pay a close look at its price tag it is still very useful but not as effective as it was before.
- #3. You will see some attractive terms like Link Wheel, Article Prism, Link Tunnel etc, these names are given by SEO Firms to attract customers, they are nothing more than SEO Services. It doesn’t mean that these services won’t work but see what they are offering exactly. A Link Wheel is made of Unique Web 2.0 properties, interlinking your articles, with a similar URL of your targeted keyword, there is no point why it will not work and harm your site. It will work for sure until you post copied content, spun content, or make it with software etc. For me Links Wheel are very effective, I use it often for my sites time to time.
- #4. Now a day’s everyone is focusing on Guest posting, let me tell you one thing, its gem in field of SEO, you are getting backlink from a Authority Blog which is not made for just link building (unlike Article Directories). Links from such sites are worth more than 100 or may be 1000’s of links. However few bloggers turned their blogs into content farms only as they don’t know how to write posts and they want to earn money from blogging so they open their blogs for all guest posts, no matter what’s the quality of post and provide backlinks, so choose blogs wisely for doing guest posts as well.
Things You Should Avoid During Link Building Service
I was informing from the very beginning that do not go for any automation and here is an example what happened with automation and preferring quantity over quality. This is my hands on experience that I would like to share.
Few days ago, I was just checking Warrior Forum (Warrior for Hire Section), found a good looking thread which was promising 1000’s of do-follow, wiki links, .edu backlinks, do follow blog posts and many more mouth watering offers for almost nothing. Package was starting from $20 and maximum of $50-60.
Seller was also providing review copies at discounted price, when I requested one, he was willing to provide me, he asked for 3 keywords and URLs for the review copy work.
As I never trust such services I decided to give him one of my dead site so even if it will harm I won’t be in much pain.
Due to my misfortune, I got busy somewhere and when I checked the PM, I sent URL and Keywords of one of my well performing site which was doing quite well and giving me decent revenue which was growing month by month.
As it was a review copy, sales person did not bother providing me updates and after 1 week when I asked
“Hey man!! I ordered a review copy, where it is?”
He replied,
I am sorry we were busy and we will do the work now.
I said ok.
After 2 days, I received a report and when I opened it, it had more than expected links. It had about 400 Wiki Posts, 200 mixed wiki posts, about 250 do follow blog posts, 10 .edu posts and about 250 social bookmarking site posts. All sites had all 3 of my keywords hyperlinked properly. I was quite astonished as for that many links we would have charged $1000 and I got that all for free.
Story Changed after 2 days
My site was ranking #2 for a main keyword on Google but suddenly I found a HUGE drop in ranking of all my keywords (not only the three I ordered but all the keywords). My main keyword was now ranking #23 which was ranking #2 before. I am attaching 2 screenshots of my site ranking before the work done and after the work done.
The Result of Buying Automated Cheap Links
I am sure you can see the results, my site was penalized by Google for the crap links and it has proved once again, it is Quality what Google is looking for. If you go for Quantity over Quality you will be in trouble sooner or later.
My Reaction After This Incident
I was so frustrated but I controlled my frustration, I emailed the seller to see the result of his Crap Links and requested him to remove these links for me. I also said, I have more than enough SEO Staffs, if you can even provide me the login details for the accounts I will ask them to remove the links.
I found Wiki Links can be edited by anyone so I asked my staff to leave all important works and delete all the so called crap do-follow wiki pages. It was around 800 pages and took 2 of my employees to remove those pages in 6 hours. As Pages on social sites and blog networks need login we could not remove them from our end.
I again emailed the seller and informed that we have removed all those pages you only need to remove the blog posts or you can provide login for that, we will do that as well. He told me some story and said he will get it done in couple of days, but did not remove a single link. I again asked for update and he said it will be done by Tuesday and again after 2 days not even a single link was removed. I am helpless as I don’t have login for those accounts and they don’t bother to do anything.
Lesson I learnt : Don’t just go after things that may seem lesser in price because they may leave you broken in the end. If an iPhone is available for the price of $10, you are not lucky, you’re being fooled.
In the end, I would like to say only one thing, if you think someone is offering something which is not possible with the manual work, don’t go for it. Automation will never take you on top. It can only harm you in future.
Reading this article 2 years after it was posted and it is still spot on. Manually created backlinks are the only way to achieve long term success and the only ethical way.
Nowadays, competition on the internet is too much, just having a website is not enough. You need to hire SEO services. So when you hire SEO services, you must be careful about certain things related to it.
Cheap SEO services can drive traffic only for limited time and after passing the days the SEO gets spoiled and the site’s fame as well.
search engine optimization is not an easy task now in 2012. with google panda and penguine arrival google made impossible for fake seo service providers. Ankit you are right , we needs to be very much careful regarding the quality of our seo and our link building techniques. thanks for sharing your views with us.
Currently SEO is becoming a way of advertising your website or blog effectively.
so keywords doesn't work anymore?? HBB still uses keywords right?
We use 'keywords' whenever necessary bro. 🙂
You learned it the hard way but thanks for sharing this useful case study.
cheap work………….cheap results………..and quality/costly work ultimately give fruitful results.
Moreover Keyword Density and hyper linking 1 keyword on a page appeals to heart.
These people should be exposed. Why don't you reveal the name of the service provider. It will save so many people from falling prey to them.
From your article the most important thing which is reflected is: Quality Matters..Never go for cheap service for it is going to cost you heavily later..
My eyes are wide open after reading his Article !! Cheap SEO is really bad not only for your blog but for your own health also !!
Because once your will see big drop in your traffic your health will automatically start degrading !! 😉
So Avoid Cheap SEO and stay healthy !!
great tips… i did outsource my seo work for first website which turned out to be a great mistake.. as i learned more and more i understood that the importance of patience and consistent seo will give good result in the future
thanks for sharing this information
There is a saying in our country "The man hurriedly is deep if bony". It is not always a good idea to hurry any business to success. No success can achieve in just 24hours.
I agree with you Ankit. If you see an offer which is too good to be true, then most likely it's either a prank or you will get really cheap quality of work. Stay away from these offers… but don't stay away from my blog, haha!
most cheap services are purely automated and thus ends up with backlinks from junk sites.
You are 100% right quality will never comes for cheep. Many of my clients showed me few sites who offer services for very less price which is highly impossible if they are doing manually. I think this is the article which has to be read by every one who wants to out source their SEO jobs.
So i should stay away from people on fivver who promise backlinks
100%.. Fiver Gigs Sux big time.. ( almost )
For Individuals who manage blogs are surely advised to do your Link Building Yourself, but companies can't do it so they need Seo Firms to the job.
While Choosing 1 for you keep 1 thing in your mind.. Buy something after knowing the work process. backlinks with Fresh Content will always do good.. and can never harm your site..
Sounds like a tragic thing happened…not sure when you hired him to do this job and probably all the sites which he used to build links…Must be like a private blog network…
In last week Google hit the private blog networks and devalued all links and therefor search engine ranking of most of the sites dropped….You might be a victim of the same…!!
It's a good idea if you can get rid of those link and not only remove but also generate backlinks from genuine source…or you can constantly work on link building which might make it look genuine…!!
I would say you are not fortunate enough…. Also the way Google is going aggressive ..My suggestion start avoiding guest posting on the blogs which is treating themselves like an Article directory.. i.e: Giving outlink to any irrelevant niche …..
And you hit the right spot Ankit here ….As when you are hiring any SEO service…make sure what you are getting and is it beneficial or you will get more loss.. Like we day don't judge a book by its cover..similarly don't always judge a product by it's marketing words….. !! Thanks for the post..!!
Harsh, Thanks for sharing your experiences 🙂
your comment added some more value to this post 🙂
one noob question, should we have to change the keyword oftern or what !
Great post.Learn lots of new things about SEO services from this post.Currently I am having more than six blogs and I never outsourced SEO for any of my blogs.
Really Awesome And Very Useful article
Thanks a Lot
Interesting case study. I've never outsourced SEO for my blogs as I prefer to build links manually. In future if I need SEO services then I'll keep this these tips in mind.
Hi.
People always tend to search for easy and fast way to succeed. It is one of the biggest temptations of humans. It is pretty similar to gambling. The desire to get something from nothing. It is hard to control and requires discipline and practice to master it.
Thank you for your post. Now I know even better not to use these services. They can actually lead to positive effect if they are used in smaller numbers. But even in small numbers they add low quality links to your link profile and eventually can have negative effect.
Just recently I heard another case with 5000 forum links that caused a penalty. And the site was even few years old and still was penalized. The guy was wondering what to do and how to remove the links. He was begging google for help and was saying sorry.
Regards.
Nikolay
I agree people are always tempted to succeed fast but most of the time fast success can be bad, so we must learn to be patient, and SEO is now hard to learn, I mean Ive mastered it so anybody can
I agree with you kenny Every Newbie Blogger will do this mistake.
hey vishnu ,
glad to see you here ! BTW congrats ! you are one of the top commentator in HBB .