Popular search engines are known for constantly changing their search algorithm, none more so than Google. In January of 2012 alone, Google announced more than 30 updates to their algorithm and scheduled hundreds of additional updates by the close of the year. Failing to adjust your search engine optimization strategy in accordance with these updates can severely affect your SEO efforts. What was once beneficial in a search engine’s algorithm can become harmful several updates later; therefore, company owners and webmasters must constantly be updating their SEO strategies and techniques.

The following search engine optimization techniques, while once successful, are now out of date and can cause a negative impact on your SEO campaign:

• Article Submission: Websites promising increased visibility for high-quality, original articles were once helpful in building backlinks, but abuse by spammers and bots has made links from these sources useless when compared to the benefits of guest blogging.

• Irrelevant Press Releases: Although a press release seem like easy link building, releases must contain newsworthy content in order to be hosted by PR sites and shared by media affiliates.

• Link Exchanges: Search engines assign a level of quality to each link, so exchanging low-level, meaningless links will not be beneficial to increasing rankings.

• Content: As search engines continue to develop and get ‘smarter’ to the searchers needs, high-quality, unique content is required on your website to gain favorable SEO results.

• Voiceless Automation: After repeatedly being told to “be social”, many companies will set up an automated posting service which makes awkwardly worded or formatted posts. Taking the time to thoroughly develop your content will give your company and brand a consistent and clear voice.

• Social Sharing and Signals: Your level of involvement on social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ creates a social signal score, which assists in favorable ranking. You cannot benefit from social signals if you’re ignoring social media, which contributes up to 10% of search results in Google and Bing.

• Focusing on a Single Search Engine: Many businesses are concerned solely with how they are ranking on Google. While Google is the most popular search engine, a significant amount of traffic is still generated from other search engines.

Updating your SEO methods will strengthen your ability to rank well with search engines. Search engine optimization is a very beneficial, but time consuming and complicated process. Business owners can rely on the expertise of Fasturtle to increase targeted traffic and search engine rankings. Contact Fasturtle online or call (888) 468-8785 with any questions, comments, or concerns about search engine optimization strategy for your business.