I’m shocked! Publishers waste time with redundant SEO techniques!
Why? Most of them are useless for Google!
It gets worse though! Many hurt themselves using outdated SEO approaches. It does not get better with time.
Some use even modern AI technology to make the same mistakes as years ago! Here is how!
The worst SEO mistakes
So what are the worst SEO mistakes you can make? How to kill your site for sure?
There are countless #seohorrostories out there! Here are some less talked about examples.
Some people even commit Google suicide by accident!
When you publish you create content for people to find and read your publication!
So in most cases you do not want to bar them from arriving there.
Others are suicidal by simply staying the same as they were years ago while Google changes all the time!
It raises the bar constantly!
So what are some of the worst SEO mistakes? Here they are!
The slow agony of negligence
When you keep your old outdated content without ever updating, improving and optimizing it…
Guess what happens then? You will die a slow death.
Since 2023 it’s an ongoing agony when you don’t abide by the rules of helpful content.
Publishing suicide by negligence is an awful, slow death.
Yet many people choose it anyway. They simply ignore the need to make content helpful!
How to achieve helpful content status? It works site-wide. So do by adding
- actionable advice
- expert sources
- and additional resources
to as many articles as possible! Why? To get the needed E-E-A-T.
Thus upgrade your content on a large scale! Make it helpful now.
Kidding yourself to death
In the past humor, sarcasm or irony were what you needed to add to your writing to spice it up.
Yet Google – even during the AI era – does not get it. No joke!
You are just kidding yourself to death with humor!
Humor is not only too hard to automatically get. It’s also considered wrong!
When you use irony Google counts that at face value and considers it fake news!
So beware of satire. The Onion got demoted in the US despite being much more popular than “legit” news sites.
Google calls this the consensus algorithm. It’s mean to curb the spread of fringe sources and conspiracy theories.
So don’t kid around about serious topics like SEO!
Remove your buns ASAP! I mean puns of course!
Giving away all your great content for free
So over the years many publishers realized that giving away all of their great content for free to Google is not a viable business model.
After decades of fighting in court and parliaments they get some money.
Yet ideally you have technical solutions for that.
Give just part of your content away and require log in or payments for in-depth resources. WordPress has many paywall solutions.
Most publishers rather do it by counting how many articles you read. That backfires. Why? As a blogger I won’t link out to you!
This way you don’t get the SEO benefits of inbound links. Why charge power users who support you?
Why not charge deep readers who really need the insights?
Often it’s about businesses and their employees. They can pay for access!
In Germany the Stiftung Warentest (the most important product testing entity) does it right.
They give you a free summary and charge you a few Euros when you need in-depth results.
Sites that summarize the findings have to at least buy the article to read it themselves.
Make the best content only available to those who really care and ideally pay!
Being generic not a brand
Most remaining search traffic is branded by 2025.
As a no name you won’t get found by now. Brands dominate the search results.
AI Overviews take over informational search queries and Google displays third party content right on their site.
The incentive to click through to “read more” is often minuscule.
Also you won’t rank for [seo blog] just because you call yourself seo2.blog haha. It has to be a brand!
I have changed my brand from the too generic “SEO 2.0” moniker that has been used by many low level SEO practitioners by now.
It also sounded way too dated. So I resorted to something simpler.
My blog address still redirects to seo2.onreact.com on my main domain.
Yet in 2025 I will move fully to the seo2.blog domain and finally get a https address with an SSL certificate. Wish me luck!
Let’s hope seo2.blog is not too generic as my name is not suitable enough for branding.
Use a proper name ideally! Be a brand, brand your products as well! Come up with new terms.
Do yourself a favor! Omit these mistakes!
You might end up categorized as low level for various reasons.
This results in being demoted in Google’s organic search results.
This is really very basic stuff but nonetheless you need to address it ASAP.
You might be a wonderful publisher and fail nonetheless! Please do me and yourself a favor! Don’t do the above.
Do not commit suicide! Do not make one of these SEO mistakes that kill your publication.
Stay alive with SEO and celebrate proper online presence with me! On content, social and technical level.