The Optimization TRAP: When SEO Actually HURTS Your Traffic
– Did you know that
focusing too much on SEO, can actually hurt your traffic? Hey, everyone, I'm Neil Patel. And today, I'm going to go
over the optimization trap, when SEO actually hurts your traffic. (upbeat music) Before we get started, make sure you subscribe to this channel, and if you're on YouTube,
click the alert notification. Look, a lot of people think that you can keep optimizing
the same page over and over on your site on a daily
basis and I used to do this. When I first started off in SEO, I would make a tweak. This was like 10 plus years ago, actually probably close
to 15, 16 years ago. I would make a tweak
and within a few days, I would make another tweak. And then on the next day I
would make another tweak. And back then the
algorithms were different. These days they've changed a lot. Yes, Google is making over
eight algorithm changes per day on average, but if
you're making changes daily, you may not know what's hurting you. Because not all changes, will actually help boost your rankings. It doesn't matter how good your SEO, I guarantee if you're a good SEO, you're pushing the boundaries,
not doing anything unethical, like buying links, I'm not
talking about that kind of stuff, but you're constantly testing new stuff.
Maybe when it's like
load speed optimization, or for example, we started
hosting non-static content on CDNs, that's what I
mean by pushing boundaries, not doing anything shady or unethical, but more so you're testing new strategies. And when you do them,
sometimes they work out, sometimes they don't. But that's how you become a better SEO. And here's what people don't tell you. You need to wait until
you can see the impact, of your optimization and
what it's going to have. It roughly takes a month
before you see optimizations, to start having an impact. So you don't want to just start
making changes constantly, slow and steady wins the race with SEO. And that's why a lot of
times it takes six months, 12 months to really get
the optimal results. The next way that people
really hurt their rankings, is over optimization.
I'm talking about
keyword-rich anchor texts, whether it's for internal
links or external links. And when you're doing these
keyword-rich internal links, and you have, you know, let's say if I'm trying to
rank for the word dog food, and all my links, point
up page say dog food, both internally and externally. What do you think Google's going to say? This page looks a little funny, they have way too much
optimization going on, for that word, dog food. Normally other people rank for dog food, have some of their links
saying, click here, learn more. The name of the brand name, the name of the site name, right? And when you think about
that, that's more natural, because everyone's not
going to link to you, with the word that you want
to rank for, being number one. So you got to rotate up your anchor text and be more natural.
Sometimes I've been linked to
my article on online marketing and I don't use the word or
the phrase online marketing, not because I'm trying
to manipulate Google, but on my internal link, it
just doesn't seem natural. So I do what's best for the
user and that's a strategy you should take when it
comes to anchor texts. Another over optimization technique, that people do over and
over again, that's bad, is they only build internal
links to the same page over and over again. Naturally the majority of
the pages on your site, should have internal links,
ideally, all of them, but that's really tough to do, when you have a really big site, but eventually majority of the pages, should have internal links and you need to do what's natural.
And also that's very useful, because as people link to
some of your other pages, that you know, you may not
think that we're going to hit, those pages will also pass
juice to your other pages, because you have those
internal links going. Another strategy to avoid
when it comes to SEO, is repeating the same
keyword over and over again. I hear this all the time, oh, what's a cure density
that I need to use. If I want to rank for the
term online marketing, do I need to mention it five
times in my first paragraph, three times in my second paragraph, six times throughout
the rest of the article, and one time in my conclusion? Google's not looking at
cure density like that.
It's all about what's
creating the best experience for the user. They have something called LSI, think of like at the source. They know when an article
is on Apple, the computer or apple, the food or they
know when your article is on online marketing
or on SEO or on dog food, they can figure it out. So don't stress too much
about keyword density. And if you optimize too much, what you're going to find is,
you may be undoing good work. So think of SEO optimizations as tests, you optimize, wait a few weeks to a month and see what the outcome is. If the optimization
works, don't mess with it, double down on what's working. And the last strategy, that I want you to avoid, is building links too fast. Even if your competitors have 1,000 links and they're ranking at
the top, you may be like, hey, I need 1,000 links
too, if I want to beat them. I'm going to get 1,100 and
I'm going to go buy links, which you should never do. And I'm going to go and, or even manually build the
links really, really fast and have 20 people focusing
on my link building efforts and just doing manual outreach.
Well, here's the thing, if you build links way too
fast, it's not as natural, and what you'll find, is even if you're doing them organically and you're just doing outreach, what you'll find is you don't rank as high versus if you just took your time, slow and steady really does win the race. Now, if you need help with your SEO and you want to make sure
you avoid over optimization, check out my ad agency, NP Digital, we will do it all for you. If you have any questions,
leave a comment below, I'm here to help. If you enjoy the video,
like it and share it, tell the people about it. Thank you for watching..
