The basics of SEO are available on the internet, which can be learned by anyone. Although, mastering the advanced tactics of this field is a little difficult.
It is claimed by Google that the number of signals influencing its search results is in thousands. That’s a big number to hold on to for any SEO expert. Moreover, many users make up claims regarding SEO, which become difficult to distinguish genuine facts from fake ones.
Many common myths which you hear every day are mostly harmless. However, the same cannot be said for SEO. If a flawed SEO technique is implemented, it can lead to your valuable resources, time, and effort being wasted and not improving your SEO at all in return.
SEO is an evolving field that is increasingly impacting the relevance of any website in the online world. To better understand and implement it, it is vital to know which of its techniques are significant to be utilized and which are just good to ignore.
Hence, in this article, instead of the best SEO strategies, we will look into the top 7 SEO myths that you must not fall for.
Myth #1: Links are not important
This myth is, in fact, one of the dangerously flawed arguments that should be discarded immediately when you hear it from someone. Link building is alive and is very much significant to reap great benefits.
If you are aware of the SEO basics, then you probably know the relevance of PageRank. It lies at the core of Google search algorithms to model popularity.
PageRank is all about link building. So much so, that if links are not utilized, then even the best piece of content might be lying in a corner of the online space with little-to-no traffic drawn towards it.
Myth #2: Meta Tags don’t matter
Meta Tags are put to use in your HTML documents to convey structured Metadata about a site. They may not directly affect your website’s rankings, but they do play a key role in showing relevant results to your audience.
Moreover, they help to tell Google what your content is about and even make your search results more attractive, which draws more visitors to your website. Therefore, understanding the elements of the meta title and meta description is quite important.
In short, Meta Tags do matter for your SEO efforts to reap great outcomes.
Myth #3: Guest blogging is not valuable
Several SEO professionals have abused the technique of Guest blogging in the past, which has led to this myth becoming prevalent in the current scenario. However, there is not even one iota of truth in this claim.
Guest blogging is relevant as it helps to gather attention to your website by getting professionals to publish articles on your webpage. It helps in your website promotion, not only from you but even from guest authors, which in turn, helps your site gain credible authority and visibility in the online space. You can also the benefits of guest blogging in detail.
Myth #4: Keyword research is not that significant
Keywords alone are not going to help your website gain a favorable rank in search results. What matters is inserting the most relevant and quality keywords that can be beneficial in your SEO efforts.
But how does one pick the most important keywords?
Answer: Keyword research
With proper keyword research, you can optimize for the most prevalent way of searching for any subject. And that’s important if you wish to draw the best organic traffic to your website.
As most pages rank for hundreds of keywords, many have started to believe conducting keyword research is a waste of time. While the truth is that no Google algorithm can diminish the importance of keyword research to get more clicks and valuable content.
Myth #5: Duplicate content gets penalized
The issue of duplicate content arises when exact and similar content appears in more than one place. Google has made it clear that no penalty shall be imposed on duplicate content issues. Still, this myth gets peddled regularly.
However, no penalty on duplicate content does not indicate that you are good to go. Duplicate content can deliver some harmful issues, such as wasted crawl budget, your site getting outranked, etc.
It is especially worrisome for e-commerce websites, as they need to avoid duplicate product descriptions.
Myth #6: SEO is a one-time thing
It can be quite comfortable for digital marketers to boast about their SEO strategies. They could have named infographics after keywords, created optimized titles, and whatnot!
However, if they are okay with all of these developments, then their approach towards getting an SEO-optimized website is short-sighted.
Why? Because, SEO is not just a one-time activity, but a set of practices that need to be consistently executed to drive great results. It is a long-term investment, where a marketer needs to find or revisit important ranking factors several times.
One needs to constantly try multiple approaches and find what works out the best.
Myth #7: More pages, better ranking
Although it is often recommended to break up your content to make it more appealing and better optimized for SEO, inserting more web pages to boost rank won’t work.
With keyword research and creating value and quality content, you can easily improve your website’s ranking even with a minimum number of web pages. In the end, all of it depends on the uniqueness, credibility, and desirability of the information you publish on your web pages.
Final words
SEO myths are plenty, and knowing how to discern the flawed SEO factors from the real ones is what constitutes planning and implementing an effective SEO strategy.
Remember that not every component of your content will help you gain the top position in search results. However, if you follow the best SEO practices and leave the myths behind, then you are good to go towards establishing yourself as an authoritative player in the online world.
