SEO is a crucial part of any website for one simple reason: it allows people to find you. It gives life to your online presence, driving traffic, increasing customers, and helping you turn a profit.
But not all SEO is equally beneficial to your business. Automated SEO, which relies on software to optimize your website, comes with plenty of drawbacks. Relying on it too much can leave a URL DOA.
The biggest cons include the following:
Bad Backlinks
Automated SEO is all about quantity while sacrificing quality. This means that it tends to favor low-quality backlinks that can muddy the user experience and waste time (both your company’s and the customer’s). Bad backlinks can even get your site penalized by Google, making it harder for people to find you.
A Slower Website
Automated SEO tends to leave your website functioning at a slower rate than normal, something that’s problematic for people who want more instant gratification (i.e., everyone). In a world of lightning-fast internet, nothing irks a customer more than a website that seems to practically channel dial-up as it loads. Remember, if people have to wait too long for your site to function, they won’t.
Getting on Google’s Nerves
Automated SEO doesn’t just get Google’s attention because of less-than-stellar backlinks; the search engine has banned automated tools for optimization purposes. Google views automated SEO tools as unethical and thus punishes any website they discover using them. This can cause your company to fall in the rankings or disappear from the search results altogether.
Low-Quality Content
Automated tools tend to produce low-quality content, which can hurt your online reputation. This matters since users aren’t impressed by the presence of your website; nearly every other company has one, too. Rather, it’s the content on your website and the quality it possesses that draws users in, encourages them to browse, and helps things literally click. If you remove that quality, you remove the customer in the process.
Automated SEO might seem attractive because it sounds like a hands-off option for effective website management. But it comes with its cons, as well, particularly in terms of the all-important Google rankings. Manual SEO, on the other hand, can give you more control….and more traffic along the way. Need some guidance? Give us a shout and we’ll be happy to help.
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