Priyanka Shitole

With Google changing its algorithm quite often and lots of conflicting information on the Internet, it’s hard for managers and business owners to know how to manage their SEO effectively. They need to be very cautious of how various factors affect their SEO value.

  1. Myth 1 – SEO is all about position on search engine results page (SERP). While a website appearing at the top on SERP seems to be doing well, it is not necessarily generating business. Rank can be improved for a certain keyword and get lot of traffic. But if the site does not have relevant content, then search engines will degrade your website rank over the time.
  2. Myth 2 – The more links versus content on the page, the better the SEO value. If it were still 2009, this might be true. But since Google’s Hummingbird was introduced, websites are penalized for external link building and for having proportionately more links than content on the page. If you have a budget, pay someone to write quality content rather than link building.
  3. Myth 3 – Meta descriptions are most important for better search ranking. Every website should have meta descriptions, titles, and keywords. But with new search engine algorithms, they have very little impact on search ranking. The meta description used on the SERP snippets presents an opportunity to describe your webpage in few words and stand out.
  4. Myth 4 – Usability and site structure don’t affect SEO. SEO is not only about being found by search engines, but also about engaging users with the content. Your site content and ease of site navigation should appeal to both search engine crawlers and visitors. Make it easy for both to find information easily.
  5. Myth 5 – Social Media does not affect SEO. Social media has evolved as a “social search” platform. This means that the content on a search engine page result is prioritized based on your connections on social media. Very often, social media influencers get priority on SERP. Keep this in mind as when re-tooling your social media strategy.
  6. Myth 6 – The more the keywords per page, the better for SEO. While there is no exact rule for how many keywords there should be on a page, having too many is as harmful as too few. Focus on content and use keywords where essential. Include synonyms and similar phrases. Think what your visitors might be searching for.
  7. Myth 7 – Websites need to be submitted to search engines for crawlers. There was a time in history when you needed to submit your site manually to Google. Now Google finds you. This is one good reason why you should be careful with content that is live. Google will find it, even if you don’t want it to.
  8. Myth 8 – You can pay Google for better ranking on SERP. Google does not accept money or any other kind of compensation to show a site on top of SERP. Nor can your competitors pay Google to lower your website rank. Google charges for its other services like Adwords, but not for organic search results.
  9. Myth 9 – You need to pay for Adwords to get a better ranking on organic SERP. Adwords and organic search results are mutually exclusive. Paying for Google Adwords will not affect your organic search result, nor will not paying for Adwords lower your website rank in SERP.
  10. Myth 10 – You can trick search engines. See “SEO 101 for Managers and Business Owners Part 1” for various ways which will cause your website to be penalized if you try to trick Google.

Thanks for reading this list of myths about SEO. If you’d like some advice on upgrading your site’s SEO content, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Checkout part 1 and part 3 in this series.