Modern SEO myths

SEO changes all the time, making it easy to fall for the latest time wasting strategies. What you have read about on several SEO blogs can be just another untested strategy that won’t help your SEO progress at all.

SEO is one of these industries that unfortunately are known for the masses of rumours, myths and mistruths. This is simply due to the search engines not discussing their algorithm factors, which is perfectly understandable but with uncertainty myths can get out of control.

So here are some of the more well known myths of SEO:

1) You need to submit your website to Google

This is one of those myths that will never disappear, as there are thousands of SEO companies, web designers, hosting companies offering to ‘Submit’ your website to all the Search Engines at a “small fee”.

In reality, you don’t have to submit your website to any Search Engine. Search Engines are a lot smarter than most people give credit and they can find you pretty quickly. Google will most likely find and index your website as a result of visiting a link from another website.

2) SEO is a one-time thing

Search Engine Optimisation is rarely a one-time thing, unless we are talking about black hat SEO (which will most likely get you banned from Google). We understand that you want it to be a one off, quick job but with any website to perform well it needs regular attention.

This is due to the fact that Google will always tweak their algorithms, making strategies obsolete. You also have to remember that your competitors are likely to be investing in improving their SEO as well.

These will have an ongoing impact on your website’s SEO and if you don’t keep up with it you will find yourself falling behind.�

3) Your Rankings Don’t Matter

This myth is understandable; with the arrival of personalised search results it has reduced the importance of rankings but hasn’t made them obsolete. You may not get completely accurate results but they are a fair indication of where your website ranks for the majority of the users.  

SEO isn’t just about rankings these days, overall search visibility, conversion rates and search engine traffic have taken the lead in importance but don’t forget it is still crucial to be on page 1 of Google as the majority of searchers won’t go past that page.

4) Exact match and keyword domains rule

A keyword domain is a domain that includes a keyword that you wish to target, for example www.EstateAgentsLondon.co.uk. Keyword domains don’t carry the same weight as they once did. The strategy has been dying out for a while now.

At one time a lot of SEO’s used this practice, but since Matt Cutts announced in 2010 that Google would be finding out why these domains rank so well compared to others, Search Engines have been giving keyword domains less authority, make this strategy less effective.

The strategy in some industries still work but this won’t be the case for that much longer, Google will wipe out all the keyword domains that don’t really deserve the rankings they were given.
On a side note, if you have a keyword domain don’t panic just yet, having one won’t count against you. You will just need to work on an SEO strategy like everyone else. 

5) Copying content is a strategy

Copying content from a website and republishing it on another was actually, at one time, considered as a content strategy.

Surprisingly, considering the recent Panda update (which is Google’s algorithm change to eliminate this practice) there are still some webmasters out there that are copying content.

Copying all your content from someone else’s website doesn’t count as a strategy. Doing this will now get your website flagged for spam.

Google for a long time now have been encouraging webmasters to create high-quality content and as great content attracts large numbers of people, this strategy will most likely always be a major factor.

6) Produce as much content as possible

Content for a website is completely about quality, but there was a time when producing endless amounts of content was quite effective.

Google stepped in again with their Google Panda update. Google indicated that sites that have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations are considered poor content.  

This is Google saying you only need to publish content that adds value for the users instead of just adding content to try and influence the Search Engines.

7) Content is King

Sadly Google still isn’t quite smart enough to recognise great content alone and don’t get us wrong, content is still a huge part of SEO but this one strategy just isn’t enough.

Whatever strategy you do you will have to back it up with great content but for a successful SEO campaign you still need to get involved in the other areas of SEO.

8) Keyword Density

Once upon a time there was a keyword percentage that you could fulfil in order to rank well, and if your website wasn’t performing as well as you’d hoped you would just add more keywords.

This very simple strategy died out a long time ago as it’s very easy for spammers to abuse.

9) PageRank is the best metric

Back in the day everyone obsessed over PageRank but for a long time now Google has been telling us not to.

Sure it is a very interesting metric but with Google using hundreds of ranking factors to determine where your website should rank and with PageRank only being one of these factors it doesn’t really hold much weight with your websites performance.

10) Links, links and more links

Building links is very important but it’s not a numbers game. The power of links comes from the relevance and quality of where they come from.

It is understandable why people think more is better, as link building is referred to a lot as a popularity contest but not all links hold the same value. One link from a reputable website can hold more weight than one hundred links from poor websites.

 

SEO is forever changing and what is a great strategy today may not be so great tomorrow. Don’t believe everything you hear on the net, to avoid falling into a pointless strategy make sure you only follow reputable blogs and keep up with Google updates.

By Luke Stanley
SEO Consultant