SEO Myths

SEO is constantly changing and evolving, and it can be difficult to keep up with it if you’re not fully involved in the world of digital marketing. Because of the rapid pace that the world of SEO is changing at, there are many myths and misconceptions that are going around, so it’s easy to get confused with what helps your SEO efforts and what is actually complete nonsense. We’ve put together a few of the key myths we’ve seen, to try and clear up some of your SEO queries.

One Time SEO Is Enough

If you’ve run an SEO campaign in the past, and you saw positive results from this (therefore are satisfied with your current situation), or alternatively you saw a lack results and have lost interest in investing any more time and effort taking this further – you see this as having ‘done enough’.

This is definitely not the case! Whilst seeing quick results are great, without continuous improvement and maintenance you will see this begin to falter. This may come as a result of –

• Outdated content
• Broken/outdated links
• Missed opportunities in the SERPs
• Lack of awareness of competitor’s activities
• Rise of new algorithms

If you failed to see results the first time you ran the campaign, it’s important to remember that SEO takes time to work and start showing tangible results. The important thing to bear in mind is to stick at it! Make sure to continually monitor your site, check your Google Analytics, monitor competitors activities, therefore, you can use these insights to improve your site further.

Meta Descriptions Impact Rankings

A common misconception in the world of SEO is the impact of meta descriptions on rankings in the search engines. Whilst this previously was the case before 2009, Google announced they would not use meta descriptions as a ranking factor. This tells us something important – write meta descriptions for people, not for Google. Whilst meta descriptions do not matter in terms of Google’s algorithms, they have an impact on click-through rate. You should be focussing on writing high quality and engaging meta descriptions that encourage people to click through to your site over others ranking in the SERPs.

Guest Blogging Is Obsolete

When it comes to the world of SEO, a common myth is that guest blogging is a bad way to generate links and build upon your backlink profile. When in fact, there is no difference between content produced as a result of guest blogging, compared to any other type of content.

Of course, when you are looking to guest blog there are certain factors to look out for:

• Avoiding ‘spammy’ looking blogs, that contain a lack of unique and valuable content
• Write blogs for site that are related to your industry/niche – avoid chasing links for unrelated sites
• Include links to your site within the content itself – as these hold more weight and ‘link juice’ if you like
• Most importantly focus on putting together high-quality content, that the end user will find value in and will be able to relate to

Gaining Links Is More Important Than Generating Content

Link building is a highly important aspect of SEO, it’s a great method for generating referral traffic and can help to show to Google you have a trustworthy domain with highly quality content. And whilst it’s important to focus on building on your backlinking profile, you shouldn’t class this as a higher priority over content creation. There is no use trying to produce backlinks if you have a lack of high quality content.

Producing high quality, unique and valuable content continues to be a key factor when it comes to improving and maintaining on your SEO efforts – and it is this content that underpins much of your other SEO efforts. Without this content, your other SEO efforts will fail to work successfully.

Producing content is a highly important inbound marketing tool – and attracts users to your site to see content that will be of value and interest to them. This could be as webpage content, a blog post or perhaps as discussed earlier guest post on other sites. It is a great tool for relationship building and creating that trust element with your potential future customers.

I Need To Submit My Site To Google

The idea that you need to submit your website to Google in order to appear in search results is one of the biggest myths in terms of SEO. Search engines now find your site whether you submit it or not – it is not necessary to ‘tell’ Google about it. Crawlers will find your site and index it in due time, just play the waiting game. However, it is important to submit sitemaps to search engines as you change and update these.

High Paid Rankings = High Organic Rankings

Organic and paid rankings are different, they function at different levels and do not have an effect on one another. You have control over your paid ad rankings, as these come directly as a result of your bid and investment. Organic rankings, on the other hand, come from the index database, and as a direct result of your SEO efforts.Therefore there is no way to ‘fast track’ putting in the hard work to get to page 1 on Google.

We hope we’ve cleared up some of the SEO myths out there for you – but if you do have any more specific questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch!