Which of the old SEO methods should I stop using?

You should avoid directory submission, social bookmarking, document submissions (pdf,ppt,etc) & article submissions on low quality (low DA or low PR) sites. Concentrate only on the most top and popular sites only, thereon guest postings should be done on a regular basis.

I'd like to say that duplicate content confuses search engines. Visitors to your site may be happy with articles – but Google is likely furrowing its digital brow at the masses of copy taken verbatim from elsewhere around the net.

You should avoid spammy web directories, backlinks creations tools, spammy social bookmarking.
you need to follow natural related backlinks to your website. A good example is guest posting and you need to create variation in anchor text as well to avoid google penalty. Last but not least use social media platform for promotions like google plus, this is also a big signal right now for search engine rankings

I will suggest avoid concentrating on global SEO. Concentrate on the local SEO techniques if your target is more conversions. Once you make satisfied clients encourage them to leave positive reviews about your work. This will create social proof and your rank will grow naturally. This is how I have gained encouraging rank in my region. Check this out

Blog commenting, Podcast creation, forum profiling, bulk Social bookmarking etc are some of the tasks that doesn't need to be worked on as they are not so useful as other tasks are to get good results from it.

Guest posting, Blog submission, Article submission on high quality sites, Image Backlink on top sites etc are some of the beneficial task that can help you to boost the rank of your website in Google search engine quickly. Other than that you must do social media marketing as well. This could be effective.

I would say a little like Kaarthik. I don't do articles submissions anymore for back links , directory submission or social bookmarking. I will more do something like writing Google Plus posts that will link to my latest articles.

It's a good news for me because I can focus more on writing content for my site instead of wasting my time writing for others hoping that the link would count.

If you choose really easy to rank keywords for your posts and they are all closely related to the main theme of your site, the better your site and individual posts will be doing in the search engines.

Every backlinks has value. You should focus on quality on tier-1 backlinks. You can use other method for tier-2 and tier-3.
Hope it help.

Hi,
I will suggest stop doing instant directories, low DA social bookmarking. Write long and unique content and post it on guest blogs with anchor text. Now a days most of the seo people prefer only guest blogs. And also you can creat backlinks on profile creations sites, business listings, infographc submissions and etc. And i would recommended also social media promotions

Spamming is the number 1 SEO method that must be stop but I noticed they still exist mostly on cheap SEO services.

There are some techniques that aren't anymore beneficial nor valuable like article submission, directory submission and social bookmarking.

Here are some old SEO methods should have been stopped using Nowadays:-
1.) Too Many Keywords in Page Titles
2.) Press Releases Without Having Newsworthy Content
3.) Focusing on Just Google
4.) Article Submissions
5.) Writing Thin Content
6.) Ignoring Social Signals
7.) Ignoring the Importance of Design
8.) Use of Heavy Keywords on Internal Anchor Text
9.) Spammy Guest Blogging
10.) Quantity of links over quality
11.) STOP buying or obtaining poor quality links
12.) STOP filling your website with duplicate content

I don't think you need to stop anything if you are maintaining quality of links. And creating related links or so. And yes, you should stop creating spammy links. I don't think this is a new thing in SEO world. From previously its highly recommended not to create spammy links. Happy working

SEO hasn't changed that much over the past decade, Google just gets better at dealing with ways in which webmasters game Google. You will note most of the answers above with lists are lists of ways to game Google.

10-15 years ago comment/guestbook/forum spamming for links was AWESOME (I bought a house from the proceeds of a few years of link spamming), but today it's practically worthless due to most places you can get links from are nofollow (Google ignores nofollow links).

10 years ago was easy to make money from thin affiliate content (simple Amazon affiliate stores for example), today it's MUCH harder, Google can filter out most of the thin content.

What you need to look out for are actual changes in the way Google ranks sites not new lists of ways to game Google which overtime loose their impact.

A few things over recent years are :

Nofollow used to be great for PageRank sculpting (gaming Google), today it's SEO damaging.

Stop using internal PageRank sculpting using nofollow: AKA don't add nofollow to internal links. Nofollow deletes link benefit and should be avoided.

Canonical URLs are useful in dealing with duplicate content.

Hreflang tags are useful for multi-language sites.

PageSpeed (how fast a webpage loads) used to be irrelevant, now it's a ranking factor.

Mobile responsiveness used to be irrelevant, now it's a ranking factor.

David Law

On-page optimization is key but making sure when you place keywords within your page content to avoid keyword stuffing. Utilize only 2 percent of the written content for particular keywords. If you go over 2 percent that could harm you, not always, but it could.

Use keywords everywhere you can but within reason:

Permalink structure (URL)
inner-outer linking - Authority sites (sites related to your business or blog topic) linked throughout your content, max 2-3 outer per page and 2-3 inner per page
Meta Titles and descriptions - for every page and post (title under 60 characters, description under 160)
Alt-tags for images - this helps google and search engines understand what your pictures need to rank for

Another great way to add traffic to your site is by starting a YouTube channel and making instructional videos, quality information videos, things that will draw attention to your blog, business, etc.

Targeting keywords for each video to take up as much "internet Real-Estate" as possible. As long as the videos are high quality and not just annoying advertisements for your business or blog they will rank well and start to attract followers.

Business sales videos are not enticing and helpful. My favorite example of this is Stihl the outdoor machinery company that sells leaf blowers and chainsaws. They have videos dedicated to the safe usage of their products, how to maintain them, winterize, etc. These helpful tips and tricks make purchasing that product all the better because they are actually promoting safety and long lasting products rather then staring at customers with greedy money signs in their eyes (only).

I`d say you should keep away from the obsolete link-building methods like link farms and directories and foucs on modern methods to create less links of much higher quality. Social bookmarking also seems rather useless now, but you can get some profit and traffic by gaining social signals.

You should also forget about overstuffing the content with keywords and treat the metrics like keyword densitiy wisely, to make sure the content looks natural. Duplicate content should not only be avoided, but you should also make sure to prevent any confusion and duplication issues by closely revising your redirects, canonical tags, duplicate titles/descriptions, etc.

As now Google is localizing all search results - you should consider local targetting and adjust your SEO activities according to that.

I'd say about SEO software which go out and build links for you. This is because they leave a footprint and use duplicate or spun content which search engines penalize.

A lot better when you build links manually.

You Have to stop immediately.
1) Directory submission
2) social bookmarking
3) STOP buying or obtaining poor quality links

You can go for Guest post, blogging, article and press release submission, and social media campaigens

You should stop following things :

1). Bulk directory submission.

2). Use of single Keyword in mass.

3). Small and boring content posts.

4). Posts with multiple URLs in small content.

5). Use of low PR sites.

I am agreed with smritiwangnoo and would like to say thanks for this precious comment. In simple words don't try to use black hats techniques or you can say spamming.

Everything in excess must not be done as it creates a spammy link for the website which results in downfall of the website ranking rapidly. Even you can stop doing directory submission, Press release submission, forum profiling, blog commenting etc. These tasks won't help you to get quality backlink as they are no more important for augmenting the traffic on a website.

The old SEO Methods you should stop to use them are

Links Exchange
Search Engine Submission
Heavy use of anchor text on internal links.
Spamming in directories
giving spammy links in forums

As these methods if done , considered as a black hat approach and google penalizes these black hat practices.

Bing measures bounce rate as well. For example, it can tell if somebody visits a site and immediately returns to Bing. If the end user sees crappy content without good images it will increase your bounce rate and Bing will know that you're a low quality site.

What does everyone think about buying banner ads for a straight monthly fee like we used to do in the old days? Do you need to put no-follow's on these to prevent it from looking like you're running satellite sites?

I think you should try to avoid some methods that relate to spamming action such as Directory submission in bulk, Keyword stuffing, low quality post spamming, lack content and low quality backlinks,...