With SEO being as huge of a topic as it is, there will inevitably be some myths circulating around. So today, let’s take a look at 10 of those myths and explain how to deal with them.
1. The chase to rank no.1
While having the top ranking page for a given keyword is surely a nice feeling, it doesn’t always prove to deliver the best results. When you’re first, you will have a lot of click-happy visitors, checking out your site only to bounce back in seconds.
Additionally, Google changes their ranking very frequently. Sometimes you can see fluctuations multiple times a day, so it’s difficult to be on the first spot at all times.
In many cases, getting the bump from the second or third position is just not worth the investment.
2. Believing the title tag is that important
Having a good H1 tag is one of the first pieces of advice anyone new to SEO tends to hear.
“Without a title tag, how do you think Google will know what your site is about?” – the say.
While the title tag indeed is kind of important, it’s not nearly as crucial as most people think.
This is something you can quickly check for yourself. Just google the term “click here”. The no.1 ranking page – Adobe.com – doesn’t have “click here” in the title, nor anywhere within the contents of the page.
3. Focusing only on social media
It’s been proven that Google looks into various social signals carefully and that they do consider them when deciding what pages should rank where. However, focusing on just social media is not the best strategy out there. SEO has always been about finding the best mix of activities and doing a lot of small optimizations, rather than putting all your eggs in one (social media) basket.
4. Focusing only on producing videos
Videos can be a great way to rank your content on Google, that’s a fact. For a while now, there’s been a trend where various site owners would create videos, put them on YouTube and then get them ranked for whatever keywords. Due to the size and reputation of YouTube, it’s easier to rank such videos than a landing page on your own site.
That being said, videos have a shorter lifespan and it’s genuinely difficult to get people to click through from a video description onto your landing page.
5. Google rewards people spending on AdWords
This myth has been with us for a long long time. Some people still believe that Google pays close attention to who spends on their ad platform and then rewards the people investing the most money. This simply isn’t true.
6. Content is king
While it is true that you can’t rank a page without content, relying too much on the content itself isn’t a good approach. No matter how good the content of your page is, Google won’t rank it if the visitors don’t think so too. And in order to get those visitors to come to your content in the first place, you do need to utilize other SEO tactics first.
Great content is a required element, but it won’t get found on its own. You need to help it a bit with other methods.
7. Link building to the max
Links have always been (and still are) the main method for Google to discover new content and ultimately include it in the index. However, too many links from low quality neighborhoods will only do you harm.
The success in link building is about diversification – finding different sources of links and utilizing each of them just a little.
8. Paying too much attention to headings and other markup
While well structured and accessible content is great for your SEO, just like with the main H1 tags, Google won’t reward you that much for proper markup either. The significance of good site structure is still rather small in comparison to other factors like links, domain health, social signals, etc.
9. Focusing on making content SEO-friendly
Focusing too much attention on trying to make your content SEO-friendly is mostly a lost cause. The fact is that search engines continue to do more and more to build their algorithms in a way that would resemble human behavior. This means that a much more effective approach is to focus on making your content reader-friendly rather than SEO-friendly.
10. Believing that SEO will make your business
SEO is just part of the game, and even if you manage to secure a good spot, you still have to find a way to convince your visitors to take some specific action.
In other words, SEO is just the beginning. The actual business is built afterwards.