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10 Ridiculous Myths Related to SEO
Mar 11, 2019
For SEO experts talking to individuals that aren’t well-informed about SEO can be quite entertaining. They may have the best of intentions but more often than not have misconceptions about SEO which they don’t shy from spreading.
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Such misconceptions from myths related to SEO that has been around for years. The most common of which are as follows:
1. Don’t waste your time on SEO, it is a scam
It is 2018 and SEO has been a part of mainstream online marketing for well over a decade now. This is why it is still surprising that some still think of it as a scam. The best part of SEO is that it is quantifiable, there are numerous different analytic tools you can employ to determine exactly how SEO impacts your website ranking on search engines.
Just make sure not to fall for any advertisements that claim to have you on top of search engines within days of signing up and charge you an exuberant amount. That is sure going to be a scam. SEO takes time and does require a bit of effort and knowledge, so you get the strategy right. There is no such thing as a one or two-day solution. If you want organic traffic to your website SEO is the right way forward, just stay committed and have a proper strategy in place.
2. Focus only on content when it comes to SEO
There are numerous “experts” that state that the key to SEO is your content. While content plays a pivotal role in SEO, SEO is more than just content. You also need to consider links along with website usability and design. Links and content go hand in hand, you need to place both external and internal links in blogs and other content you have. Links drastically boost your content especially if you have external links to authoritative websites.
The design and usability of the website are also important as search engines take both into consideration when ranking a website. The simpler the design and easier it is to use in terms of load speed, navigation, and so on, the higher grade search engines give. All of which boosts SEO.
3. Employing an SEO strategy once is enough
SEO is an ongoing process. Many run a campaign for a period of time and then stop after getting some results. Whatever the outcome of a one-off campaign is, it won’t last long.
SEO takes time and requires constant effort to ensure you get to rank on top of searches and remain there. Your strategy should be ongoing and also changed from time to time based on the results you get. So it is also important that you constantly use tools to help analyze the progress of your SEO campaign.
4. Link building causes more harm than good
Google’s John Mueller in 2015 fuelled and led many to believe that link building is pointless when he said that it should be avoided. At the time, many believed that this meant that Google penalizes those that use the tactic.
Yet, Google does the opposite as it uses algorithms for ranking that rely heavily on anchor text signals and link authority, both of which are a major aspect of link building. As stated in the second myth, links and content go hand in hand. With the help of links in your content, you can boost its performance, in terms of SEO. Just make sure that the link and anchor text are related to the topic at hand and you use quality links to authoritative websites.
5. In order to appear on search engines, you need to submit your website to them
Search engines are advanced enough to pick up websites on their own. They have bots that are constantly crawling the internet. This means that once your website is live and your business is searched, it will appear. Where it ranks in terms of keywords related to your service is a different story, that depends on SEO.
So the next time you get an email stating, submit your website to a search engine, you can just disregard it. There is no need to do that.
6. Sitemaps aren’t important for SEO, so no need to have them on your website
A sitemap helps visitors find specific pages on your website with a little more ease. This helps increase the usability of your website. It doesn’t just do this for visitors but Google also. As bots crawl through your website, the sitemap allows them to reach all the pages you have on your website. This means that they can help rank you for pages which they were not able to crawl to with ease without the sitemap. This is because, with the sitemap, the bots will end up crawling to all the links on the map.
7. Social media can drastically boost your SEO ranking
There is no doubt that social media gets you additional exposure. From links to citations, social media is a great platform to assist with ranking. But that is only accomplished when social media is done right. This doesn’t mean that your posts on social media directly impact your rankings for as long as you remain active on social media. The main advantage of social media is that it gives you visibility. So this doesn’t mean you don’t use it because it can aid your ranking when done right. But don’t also expect it to drastically make an impact once you become active on social media.
8. Google ads will help with organic ranking
Pay-per-click (PPC) has no links to your organic ranking. These are two separate types of online marketing tactics which have no relation whatsoever. Think of the two as separate entities that operate in their own domain under marketing. You can have a bad organic ranking but still pay your way to the top of Google ads, generating traffic. At the same time, websites that rank high on organic algorithms generally don’t have a need for ads.
9. You should have separate pages for the keywords you want to target
This was once a practice that was used by marketers so they could create content based on the keyword. However, with Google’s Hummingbird update such tactics are not effective. In fact, pages that are structured in such a way receive low ranking which puts all your efforts to waste. Rather than creating a page for a specific keyword, make sure to utilize multiple keywords within your content.
10. There is no point in guest blogging
Matt Cutts, head of Google’s webspam team, in 2014 announced that businesses should stop using guest blogging as a way to get links. He later went on to retract the statement but it caused quite a lot of confusion.
Guest blogging is neither outdated nor a waste of time. It helps your business gain links from authoritative websites. Just as long as you can reach such a website. But keep in mind that your tactic to guest blogging is only as effective as the quality of the post and how the audience accepts it.
Edited By: Michael Ilyas