If your business operates in such an industry, we understand your challenges in 2023. Dealing with penalties, whether from algorithms or manual reviews, can quickly dampen the spirits of a business and its associates. Furthermore, it can negatively affect your enterprise – a situation that no business desires, regardless of its niche. It’s important to acknowledge that everyone has their preferences, and we refrain from making judgments.
We specialize in assisting industries historically facing a higher likelihood of penalties than those that appear surprisingly unaffected. Our primary objective is to support you in proactively steering clear of penalties and avoiding the subsequent substantial losses in website traffic, search engine rankings, and revenue. To that end, we’ve curated updated tips for 2023 to help you navigate the challenges associated with penalty-prone industries. Please continue reading to discover these invaluable insights.

1. Choose Your Domain Wisely

While it might seem tempting to opt for a domain that includes your target keyword, either in the middle or as a part of it, exercising caution is paramount. Choosing the right domain name for your brand requires careful consideration, and it’s crucial to avoid incorporating any risky terms that could potentially lead to penalties down the road. The days when this approach yielded positive results are long gone. In today’s digital landscape, Google evaluates the entirety of your brand and various other factors beyond mere keywords.
Therefore, shifting your focus towards building a robust, well-rounded website is essential rather than fixating excessively on your brand name and URL. Google now considers a broader spectrum of elements, and your website’s overall quality, content, user experience, and authority play pivotal roles in determining your online success.

2. An Extensive Competitor Analysis Will Go a Long Way

Starting by examining your competitors can be an excellent initial step. They’ve navigated this territory ahead of you and have successfully carved out a more prominent presence on both Google and in the minds of their customers. This underscores the importance of thoroughly analyzing what they’ve excelled at and identifying areas where they could have performed better.
The aspects where they could have improved present valuable opportunities for you to enhance your strategies, assuming that your business operates within the same industry and niche. This process becomes even more critical and almost obligatory if operating within an intensely specialized and competitive sector, such as online gambling or betting.

3. Don’t Build Anchor Text Links without Thought

Think of anchor texts as signposts along a highway. When you guide visitors to their intended destination, it benefits both you and them. However, diverting them solely for your gain without their consent can leave them feeling deceived, and you will ultimately face repercussions. Google takes these practices very seriously, and you should, too.
Instead of repeatedly matching your anchor text precisely to your target keyword, opt for a more diverse approach. Overusing exact match anchor texts can eventually lead to penalties. As a rule of thumb, maintain a balanced mix of anchor texts, including exact match, partial match, branded, naked, generic, and image-based. This strategy helps you maintain a healthy ratio and minimizes the risk of future penalties.

4. Build Links Very Cautiously

Operating within a heavily penalized industry, such as betting, gambling, loans, or cryptocurrencies, demands extra vigilance when constructing backlinks for your website. In this context, competitor analysis takes on an even more critical role. It provides essential insights into how your competitors have distributed their backlinks across homepages, money pages, guides, and other areas of their websites. This analysis allows you to strategize effectively before embarking on your backlink-building efforts.
Furthermore, avoiding engaging in link farming practices is imperative, as they are a guaranteed path to penalties, regardless of your industry. Instead, focus on cultivating natural backlinks by establishing relationships with websites that can benefit from linking to your content rather than seeking one-sided link exchanges. This approach helps you stay in Google’s good graces and fosters valuable connections within your industry. And this is where high-quality, original, and niche-relevant guest posts come into the picture.

While black-hat SEO techniques may seem attractive, they will end up doing you harm: algorithmic, financial, and reputational. On the other hand, legitimate white-hat tactics as above might take some time to sink in but in the long run, you are likely to benefit in a more sustained fashion.