If you work in any technology-based company or sector, you know things are always changing. What was standard practice and trendy and new one day or week becomes outdated and ineffective the next. As SEO trends constantly come and go, one simply can’t afford to not change. It is a company’s flexibility and ability to accept and support constant change that often succeeds.
If you’re interested in entering the technology field or you’re returning to the industry after a long break, here are some of the old online trends to avoid. You’ll notice these trends were once the accepted but have since grown stale and have fallen by the wayside:
Music Playing Website
As if hold music or elevator music wasn’t bearable, there was a time when companies welcomed visitors to their website with this awful, outdated music. This old online trend quickly became a no-no as website visitors quickly left a site.
“Click Here!” Linked Buttons
These forms of old online trends are still heavily used even though they aren’t as effective as other types of linked text. Web users now are in a hurry and want context to what kind of website a text link will take them to. The generic “click here” doesn’t tell the busy web user what the linked page is about and whether they would benefit by clicking through to it.
Long Sales Letters
There are multiple reasons the long sales letters disappeared. The largest two reasons being the fact that print is now largely out of date, being replaced with everything digitally, and the other being the short patience and attention spans of busy consumers who don’t want to read long text.
Buying Links
While a good link building campaign still has value today, the link building process has changed. The old online trend of buying links was common practice, but that technique of getting links is a serious no-no that violates SEO ethics and best practice today. Before buying links was a thing, anyone could link to whatever and however many of external pages as they liked. This caught the attention of Google, the largest search engine who put a stop to this form of link spamming with its Penguin algorithm. Since then it’s become important to consider where you’re linking to and the authority of that site.Linking to quality sites gains credibility for your site as well as the trust of Google and web users. Instead of buying links, it is acceptable to “trade” for links via guest posting and blogging outreach.
Yellow Page Advertising
Back in the day, the “Yellow Pages,” or phone book was delivered to each home. It contained a large, local business directory. If you needed a company’s phone number, hours, location or briefly see what they specialized in, you would look it up in the “Yellow Pages.” In addition to basic business information, some businesses would grab reader’s attention through sprinkling ads throughout the phone book. These old online trends was a good idea then. Now, however, with the widespread use and accessibility of the computer and Internet and smartphones, people now have immediate access to the same vital business information on the go.
Keyword Stuffing
In the past, SEO specialists and programmers were overzealous in their use of keywords. The use of keywords in a piece of content made it hard to read and understand. This caught the eye of Google who implemented the Panda algorithm to put a stop to the practice. The use of keywords in online content is still important today, but, now inserting an amount of keywords exceeding 3% of the content is looked down upon.
Artsy and Hard to Read Fonts
With all the websites out there, people use to use a variety of ridiculous fonts such as comic sans and papyrus to show the unique style and personality of the brand. However, these fonts were also distracting and
hard to read. Now, its more professional and credible to use an easy to read font such as a Times New Roman or Calibri and avoid the old online trend of overly artsy fonts.
Phony Stock Photos
While numerous organizations and companies still use stock photos on their websites and printed collateral, the stock photos of today are vastly better than their predecessors. The use of staged, grainy obviously noticeable stock photos are unpopular as these old online trends lower a brand’s credible perception.
Distracting Websites
Back in the day an overly busy website was seen as a way to impress the website visitor, make one’s website memorable in the sea of millions of other websites. Little did developers know how distracting and confusing these old online trends made their website. Today, developers are more focused on the user’s experience. This has resulted in an easy-to navigate, simplistic, yet creative looking websites.
Print Media
Print media has seen a similar to the demise of the “Yellow Pages” and phone book advertising. While print media is till widely used in advertising and in journalism, many consumers access information online via the internet on their smartphones. With the popularity of online media, many advertisers and news outlets have developed digital copies of their content.
Whether you’re an “old school” SEOer who has resisted changing with the times or you’re a new SEO specialist, avoid these common old online trends. They will keep you living in the “dark ages” and prevent you from seeing results in your company’s SEO strategies and campaigns.
If you’re a business owner and aren’t familiar with SEO and its current best practices, contact the specialists at SEO.com. We are a full-service internet marketing firm helping businesses both large and small with all aspects of their online presence. Our staff has been in the industry for numerous years and know the current SEO online trends. Contact us today to learn how we can help update your SEO strategy to be in alignment with current online trends.
As someone who works SEO, I see sites that do link purchases still thinking they have a positive impact, but they are wrong, and Google gradually punishes those sites.
Hi, yes, there are those that still buy links though the process is looked down upon and is punishable by Google. Hopefully those who practice link buying will learn that there are better ways to get links and achieve better rankings.
Thanks for your post. Hope it will help a lot of people like me. Please post on SEO strategies.
Hi Rehan, glad you liked the post and found it helpful. We have a few other posts on our blog about SEO strategies that you should check out. They can be found here: https://www.seo.com/?s=seo+strategy.
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Hello Sarah
Thanks for your awesome content. I agree with you that everything is changing then why not the SEO techniques? When Google changes its search algorithm then it is crucial to change the SEO techniques. Panda & Penguin are great examples of that.
Hi Sunny, SEO techniques have changed, in large part because of Google’s changing algorithm. Google is moving its algorithm to better reward websites that cater more to meeting the needs of web users. In the past, SEO was more geared toward pleasing search engines and “gaming” the system through black hat SEO techniques such as the buying of links. Now, SEO professionals must have user experience in mind as well as what the search engine algorithms want in order for their website to rank. This requires changes in the SEO techniques one uses.
Hello Sarah
Thanks for your awesome content. I agree with you that everything is changing then why not the SEO techniques?
Hi Sharafat, SEO techniques are changing, though not as drastically as other elements of digital marketing. The increasing importance of the user experience on a site is making it more urgent to give the web users what they are looking for, not search engines.
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Good read, Sarah. It’s funny how we forget some of these elements that used to be so rampant on websites. They are really annoying now! It is a good reminder, to use as a checklist of things to make sure you don’t have.
Hey Jen, glad you liked the post. Yes, having a list of what not to do or avoid can be just as useful as a list of things that one should have on their website.
Hi Jen. Glad you found the post interesting and useful. Yes, sometimes it is just as helpful, if not more so to have a list of things to avoid as say a list of things to do or implement.
Is there a list of safe fonts for the site?
Hi, there isn’t a hard and fast list of safe fonts for a website. Each computer operating system has its own set of fonts that it supports. If you purchase fonts that aren’t compatible with your operating system, the computer will default back to one of the ones it supports. There are, however some fonts that are basic and are supported on a range of operating systems. For more information on safe fonts to use on your website, this page is useful: https://websitesetup.org/web-safe-fonts-html-css/.
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Thanks Suraj. Glad you enjoyed the post and found it useful.
Hi, Sarah
Thanks for your awesome content.
When Google changes its search algorithm then it is crucial to change the SEO techniques. Panda & Penguin are great examples of that.
Hi Harfeakhar, glad you liked the post. Like anything else in digital marketing, SEO is constantly changing and no one can afford to keep doing things the “old” way and expect great results.
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Hi Gagan, yes, SEO is a great and essential component of every new business.
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Many of these are outdated, you are correct. I still see the occasional forum where a person tries buying (or selling) links. A tremendous waste of time. And thank the Lord that stock photos are better than they used to be. LOL
Hey Sarah, Nice post. SEO is an evergreen changing field. There will be more stuff outdated in future.