20+ SEO Words You Should Delete From Your Vocabulary Immediately

Are you still using any of these outdated PR SEO terms? More than 16 thousand reads and over 2000 shares – this is Lisa Buyer’s most popular article on Search Engine Journal.

Are you still using any of these outdated PR SEO terms? More than 16 thousand reads and over 2000 shares – this is Lisa Buyer’s most popular article on Search Engine Journal.

SEO: The Most Overused SEO Word Ever?

Here’s why you can’t be all things to all people.

SEO is not magic and it’s not a catchall.

“The word SEO on its own isn’t bad,” said digital marketing consultant and SEO expert Kelsey Jones. “People are starting to use it as a way to not explain to clients what they are doing. Shady agencies are using vague terms to not be transparent with clients.

“I have small business owners coming to me, asking for ‘SEO’ and assuming it will magically make them number one in search results simply because other SEO practitioners have said it’s possible within months. As professionals, it’s just not right to be taking advantage of people who have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jones added.

Considering SEO’s birth dates back to 1997 making it just over 20 years old, there’s still a ton of growing up to do.

We’ve gone from birth to infancy to middle school to teen years and graduated from college.

SEO was quite simple in the early years.

Gaming the system was easy.

Manipulating search results was the game.

Now that SEO is in its 20’s, things are starting to mature and get serious.

As SEO grows up, so does the vocabulary, terminology, and best practices.

In today’s complicated and fast-moving digital marketing world change is a way of life. It’s true, If search marketers had to pick a specialty it would be “expert in change.”

And so the SEO goes.

What worked last year is old news and what was amazing five years ago is ancient history in Google years.

Optimizing to win results on Google’s Page 1 search results needs an attitude of “adapt or die.”

To keep up with the changes, here are 20-something SEO words industry experts would like to delete, die, and say bye-bye.

SEO Words That Just Need to Go Bye Bye

Matt Cutts
SEO
SEO is Dead
Linkbait
Link Juice
Link building
Content is King
Content Marketing
Outbound Marketing
Integrated campaigns
Storytelling
PageRank
Ranking Factor
RankBrain
Meta Description
Cloaking
The “Hats” Black Hat, White Hat
Do ‘this’ and you will succeed
Hacking anything
Best
Top

Words That Need to Be Added

Danny Sullivan
Featured Snippets
Conversations
Transparency
Artificial Intelligence
Authentic
Customer anything
Holistic SEO
Mobile
Facebook Organic Optimization
Chief Digital Officer
Driverless Vehicle Optimization Expert

Who Thinks What & Why



The SEO words you should delete and the SEO words to add in 2018.

Jenny Halasz, SEO/SEM Consultant



Most Overused SEO Words

Integrated Campaigns

Seriously, if your campaigns aren’t coordinating with each other, you are doing it wrong. This is not a selling point, it’s a requirement.

Hacking Anything

You’re not a hack. Why would you ever use a word that literally means to cobble together last minute to describe anything that you do?!

SEO Words Trending In

Authentic

Be real, honest, cool. Be like Fonzie baby. Be cool.

Customer

This is who it’s all about. Each customer is unique and has different needs.

Personas and target markets are helpful to define, but your customer is not a persona. They’re a real person with real needs.

Mobile

It shocks me to still get plans for pages that are designed for desktop. Designing for desktop now is like shoving an 8-track into your iPhone’s headphone jack (too soon?). Both are obsolete just like desktop.

Design for mobile, optimize for mobile. It’s not the future; it’s now.

Danny Goodwin, Executive Editor, Search Engine Journal







Most Overused SEO Word

Link Juice

I can’t believe people still use this word today. There is no such thing. People who use it sound amateurish and, frankly, dumb.

[image error]