Like any field with a technical aspect, search engine optimization plays host to a wide range of different misconceptions, half-truths, and falsehoods. With digital marketing in particular, this problem is exacerbated by the fluid and rapidly-changing nature of both search and the Internet itself. What held true last year might not necessarily be valid next year; this year’s tactics could end up obsolete with a single update to Google’s algorithms.
These tall tales – and there are many of them – range in veracity from “somewhat true” to “less grounded than the flat-Earth theory.” Perpetuated by well-meaning, misinformed journalists; underhanded snake soil salesmen, and unknowing laymen; the myths collected here all share one thing in common: they can be universally damaging to one’s efforts online. Don’t buy into them.
SEO Is Dead
We’ll start with one that seems to be the mating call of self-professed industry “experts” the world over, to be sounded every time Google tweaks its algorithms: “SEO is dead.”To be frank, nothing could be further from the truth. Are certain techniques that worked in the past now irrelevant? Certainly. Does this mean the field is on its last legs?
Hardly.
As long as there are search engines, there’ll always be certain variables that make sites likelier to rank. As long as those variables exist, there’ll always be men and women who figure out how to utilize them in order to increase their visitor count. SEO will change from time to time, sure; I doubt it’s ever going to outright disappear.
Crap Hat Techniques Are The Only Techniques
A common misconception held by those outside the SEO industry is that certain sleazy techniques: purchasing links, spinning articles, and creating misleading content – are the core of search engine optimization, making SEO experts little better than 401 scammers. On the contrary, the folks who indulge in such poor practices are generally considered to be the black sheep of SEO. They’re the people who make every legitimate online marketer look bad; most simply wish they could be swept under a rug and forgotten.
Although spam is inevitably going to be a part of digital marketing (there’ll always be incompetents), it’s not fair to judge every professional by their existence.
Ranking First Is All That Matters
Another all-too-common belief is that ranking first on Google is all that matters. This one’s particularly dangerous, because there’s actually a small grain of truth in it: ranking high on Google is important. That said; if you rank first for a keyword that has nothing to do with your page, people aren’t going to click through.
Even if your keywords are tied to your site, ranking first isn’t a guarantee of success. Google’s introduction of author profiles (through Google +) and rich snippets means that keeping your content relevant and user-friendly is just as important as ranking high – if not more so.
Social Media Is Irrelevant To Optimization
I’m actually a little confused as to how this myth even got started, because it’s one of the biggest lies I’ve ever heard. At its core, SEO is about modifying and manipulating your content in order to increase the likelihood that people will discover it. If you’re doing that without considering social media – which is quickly becoming integrated with search (see the above note on Google Authorship) – then you’re only doing half your job.
Meta Tags Are Super Important
Depending on who you ask, a page’s meta tags are either one of the most important optimization elements on a page, or they’re completely irrelevant to your site’s rankings. The truth is actually somewhere in between. While search engines no longer use meta descriptions to determine the content and topic of a site, the people who use them still do. This means that a poorly-written meta description will likely drive users away from your site and into the waiting arms of competitors.
SEO Is Too Expensive/Too Difficult/Takes Too Much Time
Admittedly, this is one misconception I myself held about SEO before learning more about what SEO actually involves. While it’s certainly true that there’s a bit of a time commitment required to actually understand what SEO involves (and that all of the jargon’s a bit intimidating at first), it’s actually shockingly easy to apply that knowledge once you have it, especially with the abundance of SEO plugins that you can download. It’s not something you need to stress too much about, nor is it something you need to hire an “expert” for.
SEO Has Nothing To Do With Your Site’s Usability
A lot of people seem to love perpetuating the idea that optimizing a site has nothing to do with making it more usable or user-friendly. The reason why this is patently untrue brings us back around to SEO’s ever-changing nature. See, search engine optimization isn’t just about manipulating the components of a site so it’s more likely to rank – just as Google’s considering its audience, you need to do so as well.
A site that is difficult or aggravating to use isn’t going to interest users. Even if you offer them a great deal of value, they aren’t going to bother. You won’t get shares, you won’t get visits, and you most certainly won’t be seeing any conversions.
Keywords Must Be An Exact Match- And The More Times They’re Used, The Better
I’ve said before that you should try to keep your keyword density below a particular percentage. While it’s certainly still true that you don’t want to stuff your page with keywords, the truth is there really isn’t a ‘magic number’ when it comes to keywords. It’s far more important to write natural-sounding, flowing content than it is to stress over how many times you repeat the word “optimize.”
PageRank Is The Only Metric You Need To Know
Having a high PageRank is good. Having the highest is even better. But it’s also far from the only thing that needs to be taken into account. Google considers hundreds of different factors when it determines how to value a site, so it’s foolish to think that SEO only involves worrying about a single metric. There are many other metrics one needs to take into account beyond PageRank in order to paint a complete picture of how one’s efforts are stacking up.
If You Create Awesome Content, You’re Guaranteed A Readership
Last, but certainly not least, there’s the notion that content is now the only thing that matters insofar as ranking is concerned. While it’s very true that creating compelling media for the user is the most important factor in gaining more visitors, it’s far from the only thing that needs to be taken into account. I guarantee that there are many websites out there with better content than virtually all of the industry leading pages, but because their owners don’t understand how to market themselves, they’re discovered rarely (if at all).
In Closing
Like any industry, search engine optimization has created many misconceptions and mistruths over its lifetime. It’s not terribly surprising, particularly given the mercurial nature of search. While some of the myths listed above hold more truth than others, they are all universally damaging to one’s online marketing efforts – if you ascribe to any of them, you’re probably better off giving up on SEO.
