There are people who will give you tips to increase traffic to your website who don’t care if you ruin your entire business. All they care about is that they sold you an information product that “works”. Sure, these traffic-getting tips work, but only until you get caught. Then your business will be ruined because Google will block you out, and people will feel lied to.

Keyword Mistakes – Avoid targeting keywords that aren’t relevant to your audience, the products or services that you offer. You also don’t want to overuse keywords, even if they are good, relevant keywords. This is called keyword stuffing. Keywords need to be included in all aspects of your website, but you don’t want the keywords to sounds silly, or look forced. Shoot for less than two percent keyword saturation for any one page on your website.

Link Farming – In the old days, setting up mini sites that had links linking back to your main site was standard SEO practice. However, today, this will get you dinged by the Google Gods. Google’s algorithm weeds out link farms. Today, your blog should be on your website. Putting relevant content right on your website is going to be the most useful place for original content.

Paid Followers and Likes – Do not compensate people for liking you or following you via social media. You want followers and likes who are truly interested in what you are selling. If you have a bunch of followers and likes that are irrelevant, it doesn’t really help you anyway. While you may think it looks good to others that you have so many friends, it does nothing whatsoever for your ranking without engagement.

Paid Reviews – With so many review sites popping up, it’s tempting to pay your customers or give them some sort of incentive to give you a good review. However, this practice has not been appreciated in the past. It’s perfectly okay to ask for reviews of your customers; just don’t make promises for beanies for good reviews. You want honest, accurate reviews of your products, otherwise there is no point in a review site.

Bought Links – There are services which enable you to pay for a certain number of inbound links for a monthly fee. This is a terrible idea because search engines aren’t stupid. They are run by computer programs which can track this activity and know when they’re being scammed. It’s not going to get you a higher page rank so just don’t do it. You might get away with it for a very short time but it won’t last. And besides, the links aren’t even going to be relevant.

Instead of doing any of this, focus on creating unique targeted content for your audience. Let go of tricks and focus on finding real customers who truly want to buy what you’re selling. Tricks will only get you so far.