Anyone who has a website understands the importance of search engine visibility. And the more competitive your business or industry the more important the search engine optimization (SEO) you need to implement on your website. SEO has come a long way in recent years and, because of a lot of mis-use, we have seen the focus taken away from search engines and placed on the user experience.
So, while you do need a certain amount of keywords, headings and meta information to appear on your site, you also need to ensure that when a real person does click on the link, he is presented with something that is relevant, targeted and persuasive. If the person can see the content has been produced purely for the purposes of performing well in search it probably will not bode well for your chances of making a sale.
Let’s have a look at five common SEO myths that have been debunked, and why you should banish them from your online marketing artillery.
You’ve Had SEO “Done” To Your Site; You Are Finished
SEO is not a once-off activity that you “do” and then stop. It is an ongoing process that you will need to run tests and experiments to do more of what is working and less of what is not working. Today the focus is on optimizing pages for the user experience and users are evolving all the time. To be able to keep pace and keep up with the changing needs of your audience, you have to be monitoring and testing all the time. With SEO, the work is never done.
Your Page Rank Is Connected To Your Rank On Google
If this were the case it would actually be really easy to rank with search engines. Search Engine Land debunks this SEO myth like this:
It doesn’t take many searches with SEO for Firefox running to see that low Page Rank URLs outrank high-PR ones all the time. It would be naive to assume that the PageRank reported by the Toolbar Server is the same as what Google uses internally for their ranking algorithm.
Paid Search Will Boost Your Organic Search Results
This is a major misconception that has been making the rounds in internet marketing for many years. Investing in paid search will not enhance your website’s organic ranking. Moz.com explains it like this:
At Google in particular, advertisers spending tens of millions of dollars each month have noted that even they cannot get special access or consideration from the search quality or web spam teams. So long as the existing barriers are in place and the search engines cultures maintain their separation, we believe that this will remain a myth.
Backlinking Will Get You Everywhere
Once upon a time when the Internet was new, back links were considered crucial to a website’s online success. Now after many years of development and abuse the importance of back links seems to be getting smaller. Also, the algorithms that have been released in 2013 and 2014 have been focused more on quality in the user experience. While lots of links to your site will get your better rankings, they need to be high quality links to be of benefit to you.
“<H>” Headings Are Not Important
Following a format and breaking your text up into sizable portions makes it easier for search engines to crawl. That being said however you should not write your headings primarily for search engines, but rather for your readers. Use keywords sparingly in your subheadings and only if they make sense. Don’t throw them in purely for the purposes of search ability.
