SEO is important for your content strategy no matter what type of business you are or website you’re trying to optimize, and using appropriate SEO can be a powerful tool to get viewers to your website. Unfortunately, some businesses overdo SEO at the beginning thinking that the more SEO strategies they can put in place the better. While making sure you’re covering all of your bases in SEO is important (which you can learn more about here if you’re still a beginner), it’s actually very easy to take things too far. In the end, this will actually hurt your website more than it will help, and it takes a long time to recover.

The moral of the story is that it’s important to be able to recognize when you’re going just a little bit “too far” with your SEO. Check out the information below that explains a few black hat tactics and other practices that should signal to you that your SEO needs to “chill out:”

  1. Over-optimization: It’s a thing

Yes, you read that right. Over-optimization, or too much SEO, can happen and it can be a bad thing. Not only will adding keywords that do not support your content get eyeballs you don’t want, search engines will notice and will penalize you for it. Stuffing each page with the same keywords will get noticed as bad SEO-usage and can rank your content lower because of this practice. Search engines have been programed to pick up strategically placed content that is high quality, while also locating that poorly written, over-optimized content.

  1. Stop using keyword anchor text

Sites and content owners have been penalized since 2012 for using linked keywords, or keyword anchor text, that is intended only to improve the SEO. See an example here from QuickSprout:

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The practice of anchoring your links this way will signal to Google that you’re not writing for readers, and they will penalize your site and make sure that you aren’t showing up on relevant SERPs. Again, this person did not write for the reader, they wrote for the keywords. That’s a big NO. And search engines can, and will, find anchors and drop your content’s ranking.

Your best bet is to use the URL, a branded URL hyperlink or a long phrase. See the following good example, again from QuickSprout:

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  1. Don’t overuse keywords in general, even if you’re not linking them

Keyword stuffing, the art of packing as many uses of whatever keyword you’re trying to get ranked for without producing good content, will get you penalized. It’ll work for a little bit, but you’ll see your ranking drop the more keywords you throw on your webpage. Keyword density can range from 3 to 7 percent, but once your keyword density reaches 10 percent, it is likely you’ll be flagged. Keep your titles, headings and first paragraphs in mind the most when it comes to using your keywords. Over-usage in these areas gets flagged most often.

Instead of obsessing over your ranking for jargon words and phrases, try writing great content that naturally uses those keywords. Not only will you get ranked well with search engines, your website viewers will receive quality content! Quality over quantity, always.

  1. Use all your avenues

Don’t rely on only one component of your content strategy to get hits (such as backlinks). Yes, it’s great to broadcast your content by sharing links, but you also need the content itself; an informative and interesting website and social media channels to interact with your audience. All of these factors will help with your SEO, and you’ll be reaching more audiences in several ways.

  1. Review, edit, repeat

It is important to review your content on a regular basis. Not only will this keep your content fresh, it will avoid accidental over-optimization, which could occur if you use many of the same keywords throughout multiple pieces of content and pages on your website. Once you’ve edited your site and made changes, take note and plan regular reviews in the future.

The moral of the story is that when it comes down to it, add content to your website that adds value. Write for your audience, not in the hopes that Google will rank your website well. Of course, use your keywords and related words to get your SEO, but it’s not worth it to sacrifice your content to move up with search engines and then possibly being penalized for that. You just have to keep your SEO practices to a minimum. Take the advice out there and don’t overdo it. Audiences these days won’t put up with poorly created and poorly written content, so even though you’re hitting your numbers, you’re losing fans.

Have you had experience with overdoing your SEO? What did you do to make changes to your strategy? Let us know your story in the comment section below.