Five SEO strategies financial marketers must ditch ASAP

Search engine optimization is not a static science. It's never been easy, because Google constantly moves the target. Yesterday's good idea or best practice might be useless — or even harmful — to the search rankings. Check this list to be sure you're not sabotaging your web traffic.

Some search engine optimization tactics, like matching content to user intent and building quality backlinks, have stood the test of time. But many SEO tasks that used to be critically important no longer deliver meaningful impact.

In fact, your ranking may even be harmed by SEO practices that were common as little as four years ago. We’ve unpacked some key developments in search algorithms to help you understand which tactics you should move away from in your enterprise SEO strategy (if you haven’t done so already).

1. Deploying Meta Keywords Is So Yesterday — And No Help

Keywords, which search algorithms use to interpret searcher intent, remain the backbone of SEO. But meta keywords, once an integral component of great SEO, have grown all but irrelevant.

Meta keywords are an HTML tag that aims to communicate what a page is about. Once upon a time, they were absolutely necessary. And it was even possible to game the system, so to speak, and stuff your pages full of meta keywords to boost your rank.

 

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