The Top 5 SEO Myths You Should Know
“SEO is a scam” Alternatively, “SEO is dying”
What?! No. No. And No.
SEO is not dying and it is not a scam. It is part of a genius, expensive algorithm that makes Google what it is today. If you think SEO is a set of tricks to get number one in Google, herein lies your misunderstanding.
SEO is a way to maximize your website’s contribution to your overall business, grow your brand awareness online, and help search engines index your site appropriately.
If you think SEO is dead, you don’t understand what SEO is. That’s all I’ll say on that. Moving on…
“Social doesn’t affect SEO”
Google does not account for followers, likes, tweets, etc. But it isn’t the Social activity that matters. It’s what happens as a result of the sharing of that social activity that matters.
Social is a great way to promote and grow your brand. It’s also exceptionally helpful in sharing content. Users do the heavy lifting for you by tagging, mentioning and sharing your content. These shares lead to more impressions and therefore, more traffic. This alone is a reason for a social strategy. Shares and likes also create brand visibility, which will second-handedly help your brand grow both digitally and beyond.
Social also creates a giant web of backlinks. Backlinking helps with domain authority and aid in strong SEO.
The effects of a strong social strategy can significantly boost your SEO efforts.
Social alone won’t take your website from good to great SEO, but incorporating a social strategy with other SEO efforts is key.
“That SEO is a set it and leave it task”
We’ve heard it before. I tried SEO for “X” days/weeks/months and it didn’t work.
SEO takes time. SEO takes continuous effort.
Google doesn’t sleep with their algorithm updates so we shouldn’t either with our SEO efforts. Google is constantly updating their algorithm and the industry is constantly changing. When you set it and leave it, your content becomes outdated, your links go awry, and all the effort you initially put in will be wasted.
“There’s a very specific “magic” keyword I MUST rank #1 for”
False.
Your Keyword strategy should be all encompassing. Putting all your eggs in one basket is a sure-fire way to fail with SEO.
Long tail keywords are searched frequently and can be much better lead drivers than a single “magic” keyword. When you create relevant, useful content and don’t focus primarily on Keyword Stuffing, there tends to be much more value for the consumer. In turn, ranking for a few long tail keywords within your content can add up to more clicks than one single keyword.
Think about it like this….
Situation 1: You match a consumer’s keyword, they click on your content, the topic is somewhat relevant but they don’t enjoy ready it and they’re looking for something more specific. So, they bounce.
Situation 2: A consumer matches a long tail keyword within your content, clicks and it’s exactly what they’re looking for. They spend time on your page, click around since you have relevant secondary links and share with friends because it was exactly what they were looking for.
The value you received from the consumer in situation 2 is far greater than the consumer that quickly bounced.
Match the user’s intent, not their keyword.
“Content is King”
Fundamentally, this is correct. The myth lies in the application, or the misconception of the application.
I would mention that knowing your audience is king, because so many don’t.
What some companies believe to be good content, is mediocre at best. Additionally, it isn’t highly targeted content for the right audience. This is key.
Put yourself in your client’s shoes. Imagine their buying process, and create content that would be relevant to them as they move from consideration to purchase.
Don’t ruin a good idea or a good piece of content with ridiculous amounts of keyword stuffing. Users are savvy enough these days to pick up on this. So rather than choosing a bunch of keywords and stuffing them into your content pages, have supporting details surrounding your keyword. Usability should be your main focus.
Further expounding, not only does content need to be of quality as well as relevant to the reader, but it should also follow basic SEO guidelines that make Google and other search engine bots more likely to give your content that higher SEO ranking. Some of these best practices would include: using your keywords in H1 and H2 tags, creating keyword rich meta descriptions, making your content easy to read (5th grade reading level), blog posts should be over 1,000 words and preferably 1,500-2,500 words, and actively break up your post with paragraphs and headlines-having less than 250 words under each headline. Also be aware that keyword stuffing can and will be outsmarted by search engines and will end up giving your page a lower ranking.
Helpful Tips:
- Create good, quality content.
- Know your audience and provide relevant, useful content for them.
And lastly, when producing content, ensure it is part of a multi-pronged approach. Content alone doesn’t move the needle.
Don’t miss the must-know marketing performance report card metrics, all defined for easy implementation here.
Need help with your SEO efforts? Let’s chat.
By: Theresa Gallego
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