SEO Myths You Need To Debunk

Maintaining an ‘effective’ SEO strategy is indeed a huge task that demands a commitment to quality. More so, implementing an effective SEO strategy requires a special skill to detect continuous updates in Google’s ever-changing algorithms. As a result, business enterprises and digital marketers are saddled with the responsibility of making sure their SEO strategies adapt to each new google update accordingly.

The uncertainty in google ranking factors breeds all form of newly manufactured SEO myths in the SEO community. Meanwhile, while we aren’t privy to information on Google’s algorithm changes, this article will guide you to discern mere SEO myths and what works.

Myth 1 – SEO Is Just Another Buzzword For Scam

People who enlist the help of unethical third-party in formulating the fastest SEO strategies to quickly rank their website in Google’s first page often end up frustrated when they realized they’d spent an unruly amount of money in SEO without seeing any reasonable result.

These set of people tend to manufacture this myth once they’ve had several failed attempts in ranking their website on Google’s first page.

SEO is not a scam! The road to achieving an effective SEO has no clear shortcut; it’s a marathon and a long time effort that requires perseverance and consistency. It’s also imperative to mention that the damage caused after a quick SEO campaign will take you more time to recover from than applying a well-thought SEO procedure.

Myth 2 – Google AdWord and Social Media Ads Helps In Ranking

So because you were told there’s no one-way express trick to rank your website in the front page of Google search, you’re now considering switching to paid ads as the next best alternative.

No, switching from the long term SEO procedure to Google AdWord and social media ads won’t do you any good ‘SEO-wise.’

While it’s good to use Google AdWord and social media ads to reach a broader range of your target market, it’s by no means adding to your search engine ranking. Investing or having a massive budget for Pay-Per-Click ads campaign won’t bolster your organic search ranking in search engines either; instead, it only helps you to improve your brand awareness.

Myth 3 – Social Signals Adds No Significant Value In SEO

Now, this right here sits pretty fine as the top-ranked most controversial SEO myth of all time. Explaining this myth to people in the SEO community alone will degenerate to intense debate.

But then, what exactly would be your answer if I had asked you what you think about the ability of social signals to influence organic ranking?

About what Google has to say about this particular question, “Facebook likes, Instagram likes or tweets on Twitter is irrelevant when it comes to ranking a website; thence social signal activity has no impact on SEO.” This statement, however, isn’t entirely accurate as it’s only safe to say that it’s a half-truth.

The truth is that search engines don’t count Facebook shares, tweets, and followers as a ranking metric. However, active social media activity can influence SEO efforts indirectly.

Furthermore, successful social activities can have a positive effect on SEO. Social activity helps address search engine discovery and indexation & Content distribution, which leads to links and shares.

According to AJ Kohn’s Social Signals and SEO article, he demonstrated the correlation between Social Signals and SEO effectively with the chart below

Myth 4 – I Only Need To Optimize My Website For SEO Just Once

This myth can be likened to an obese person trying a plethora of weird ketogenic food to shed some body fat only to start indiscriminate consumption of junk and fatty food once he’s lost an ounce. Yes, he might lose some weight. But for how long will it last? Will he be happy in the process? You tell me.

Same is applicable in one-time SEO effort. SEO is not a one-time hit and quit scheme or something that can be done once and then your website is magically all-good for ranking a particular keyword in search engine for the rest of its existence. Recall I pointed out that it takes time before you start seeing a reasonable result when you’re using the right SEO strategy.

Myth 5 – Keyword Research Is A Waste of Time

The importance of prior proper keyword research and planning in content creation cannot be overemphasized. Adequate keyword research and planning is far more rewarding when building a well-optimized SEO digital marketing plan.

Adequate keyword research still plays an essential role in a building successful SEO strategy; so long you don’t engage in overloading the content with excessive use of keywords or as they would call it ‘Keyword Stuffing.’

Weighting the Clusters of Ranking Factors in Google’s Algorithm as published by Rand Fishkin

Myth 6 – SEO Is A Trick

Some still believe that google bot is the grand master of tricks when it comes to SEO. To some, it’s a biased umpire that only calls the shot in favor of authority sites. People tend to believe anything because they don’t understand google bots and how it works!

SEO is not a trick or by chance a shenanigan in any form! You should try this when next you hear someone say “I’m an expert in SEO” you should ask them to briefly explain what they mean without using the word ‘SEO.’ If he or she talks about using various tricks to get your website to number one in Google, then know that the person knows nothing about SEO. However, if his or her response is somewhat similar to these three answers, then know you’re talking to someone that knows SEO:

• Enabling search engines to crawl and index a website with ease as well as rank in search results for desired, relevant search queries.
• Increasing the website’s contribution to the company’s business and marketing goals.
• Growing the business brand (both the website) online as well as gaining and converting traffic through various methods.

One thing is sure, SEO myths will never cease to exist if people continue to look for quick results. Many of these SEO myths are born out of false comprehension, fears, and gaps in knowledge. It happens not by fault of search engines’ moves but in the SEO community itself.