Eight SEO myths every webmaster should know
Are you trying to get your website found by search engines? Discover eight SEO myths that might be holding you back.
SEO is something no webmaster or business owner today can afford to ignore. But it’s very easy to get wrong if you fall for some of the common myths too many people believe.
To help you boost your webpages up the search engine results pages (SERPs), here are eight SEO myths you need to know.
SEO myth #1: SEO is a single-action job
It is tempting to think that once you get your SEO strategy in place and release the corresponding content you can just sit back and watch the traffic come in. But sadly this isn’t the case.
SEO isn’t something you just fix once and never have to touch again. If you want to reach and remain at the top of the SERPs for your chosen search terms you need to keep track of how your strategy is working, analyze it, test it, and correct and modify it regularly. Good webmasters know that successfully SEO takes persistence and constant work!
SEO myth #2: There is a strict list of steps for SEO
Even advanced webmasters often have a surprisingly one-sided view of this issue. The reality is that there are a lot of different ways to achieve success using SEO strategies. So don’t think you can simply copy what someone else is doing and assume you’ll achieve the same successes.
Yes, there are some basics you need to cover off in SEO, but there are also plenty of variables that you can add to your strategy to make it completely unique to your industry, website and KPIs.
SEO myth #3: The more keywords the better
This was an early SEO myth that too many businesses fell for, leading to the unforgivable sin of keywords stuffing! Because, when it comes to SEO yes, you do need to use keywords in your copy, and ensure you achieve the rugrh frequency of use.
But you can have too much of a good a good thing. And if you start over-using keywords, sprinkling them liberally around your text in the hope that search engines will be fooled into believing that YOUR page must surely be the best and most authoritative on this topic, then not only will you end up with unreadable text that puts off people, but search engines will actually hit your page with penalties.
So when you use keywords, make sure they sound organic. And don’t shy away from cooperating with services to get quality posts from relevant sites and improve content for quality.
SEO myth #4: All links are equal
The links you share can tell a lot about you and your platform. They are like a litmus test, revealing how reliable and authoritative you are. So, don’t just include any old links on your website. Instead, research credible links which will add value to your platform, and connect you to well-respected and established sources.
SEO myth #5: Any old content will do
Creating content for your website can be time consuming, hard work and even expensive if you outsource it. So it can be tempting to cut corners and post sub-standard content. But this is a mistake.
Search engines use many different measures to decide where to place your pages in their results pages. And one of the signals they look at is how people interact with your content. Do they generally stay on your pages, read them and engage further with your website? or do they bounce straight off after landing on them?
The former tells them that your content is high quality and relevant for the search term, so they’ll up weight your pages. The latter tells them the opposite, so they’ll downgrade it.
Poor quality content is also incredibly damaging to your brand and your relationship and trust-building efforts with your customers. So don’t skimp on your content. It’s far better to post less often, but with brilliant content everyone will love, than share frequent posts that don’t help anyone.
SEO myth #6: Backlinks aren’t for everyone
Backlinks are valuable as they help to establish your credibility on the web. Search engines use backlinks as a measure of the authority of your website. When referring to a page on your website, another website signals to Google that this place is relevant and reliable.
So relevant links from high authority websites will help you climb the results pages. But hundreds of links in from dodgy sites with nothing in common with your website is a red flag and could lead to penalties. If you haven’t already research the importance of backlinks, check out effective backlinks management principles.
SEO myth #7: You can’t have content targeting multiple languages
There is a common misconception that you can’t have equally popular content for different countries and languages. This is, perhaps, driven by the issue of content duplication. However, while true content duplication is spam, targeting audiences from many locations as a part of your international SEO strategy is quite acceptable.
SEO myth #8: Automatic translation of content is a great option
Technology is our friend in many senses, and there is no doubt that automatic translation programs have become much better in recent years. But still, none of them can rival human translation and editing. So if you don’t want your content to sound out of place, use the services of professional translators to ensure your content is well written in the target language.
This way, just as with poor quality content, you’ll avoid penalties when people click off your page soon after landing on it because the copy doesn’t make sense.
