Given the importance of SEO, there are endless tips and tricks you find online for how to improve your performance and ranking potential. While some of these can be extremely helpful, not all are. Some of the tips and tricks you come across can be misleading. To help you, we take a look at debunking some of the most popular SEO myths.
SEO myths
SEO is a vital tactic in any digital marketing strategy for growing your online presence and attracting site visitors. To determine search result rankings, search engines such as Google use algorithms with many different ranking factors to determine each website’s position.
The factors that influence these algorithms have never been fully revealed. While some have been confirmed over the years, such as high-quality backlinks and meaningful content, the exact workings behind these algorithms remain a mystery.
Combined with the frequent updates made to the algorithms, there’s plenty of room for confusion. This has led to many professionals speculating on certain aspects or ranking factors. Many myths and false rumours have also cropped up along the way.
For those new to the world of SEO, this can lead to some fundamental errors that can impact your entire SEO performance. As such, we’ve debunked some of the most popular SEO myths to help you make the right decisions for boosting your business online.
SEO is a one-time task
One popular SEO myth you may come across is that SEO is a one-time task that you work on and then you’re done. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Every successful SEO strategy will need to be worked on continually to ensure success.
With the frequent updates made to search engine algorithms, you’ll need to stay on top of ensuring a fast website speed, a positive user experience, and high-quality content. As such, this requires an ongoing investment for as long as you want to achieve higher rankings.
More keyword usage means higher rankings
Another common SEO myth you are likely to come across is that the more you use a specific keyword on a page, the higher it will rank. This myth stems from needing to incorporate a keyword on a page so search engines understand what the page is about.
However, excessive usage of a keyword on a page is considered keyword stuffing. This is seen as a manipulative tactic to try and influence ranking potential. Not only does it come across as spammy, but it breaches Google’s guidelines. This can lead to an adverse effect on rankings.
Keyword density is another aspect of this myth. Some SEO professionals believe that each page should aim for a certain keyword density percentage, such as 2% or 3%. This is the amount of times you use your keyword based on the total number of words.
However, this was long debunked by Google. Instead of focusing on how many times you include a keyword, focus on prioritising writing naturally. This ensures the content you create is helpful and relevant to your customers.
Building your backlink profile will help boost your rankings
One of the most important Google algorithm factors that have been confirmed over the years is backlinks. This has led to a lot of false rumours stating that the more backlinks you have, the better it will be for your ranking potential.
However, this is not accurate. While backlinks do play a crucial role, it’s the quality and relevance of those backlinks that are important. As such, the focus of your link building should be to obtain fewer backlinks of higher quality and relevance over lots of irrelevant spammy backlinks.
You should only target keywords with a high search volume
During keyword research, one factor you may come across is search volume. This is an estimate for how many monthly searches that keyword receives. Therefore, it might seem natural for you to only pick those with a higher search volume as it will bring more web traffic.
You wouldn’t be the first to assume this. The reality is that you should be choosing the most relevant keywords, irrespective of search volume. The keyword difficulty is another factor to consider, which gives an estimate of how difficult it is to rank highly for that keyword.
Generally, keywords with a higher search volume will have a much higher keyword difficulty score. Therefore, it may be ineffective to pursue ranking for those keywords. Picking the keywords that align with your customer intent is a more effective solution.
Effective SEO strategies will also include long-tail keywords. While these keywords generally have a much lower search volume, they have a high conversation rate potential. That’s because they are more specific and typically used towards the end of the buyer’s journey.
SEO is not impacted by your web design
Another myth that you may come across is that your SEO performance is not impacted by your web design. This can lead to some people treating each as a separate entity as opposed to one. The truth is that your web design does impact SEO, and the two are closely interlinked. Several aspects of your web design can have an impact, including:
- Ensuring a responsive design that works across all devices, including mobile.
- Content should be readable and accessible for both users and search engines.
- Optimising speeds to ensure your website loads fast.
- Using a clear and uncluttered layout that makes it easier for users to navigate.
Duplicate content gets penalised
Duplicate content is an issue that often springs up in SEO. This refers to the same content appearing multiple times on the Internet, whether that’s on your site or a third-party site. One common myth that often gets thrown around is you can be penalised for it.
However, this is not entirely true. Only when duplicate content is an attempt to manipulate search rankings does it become a problem. This can lead to Google penalising your site. Otherwise, you are just likely to experience a drop in ranking performance.
That’s due to the confusion search engines experience when opting for which page to display in the search results. This competition between multiple pages with the same or similar content can lead to a slight drop. Page canonicalization can help mitigate this issue.
Domain Authority is a ranking factor
Domain Authority is a widely used metric by SEO professionals to determine how trustworthy a website is. However, many people often believe that Domain Authority is a ranking factor. This is not the case.
The truth is that the domain authority metric was developed by Moz as a way for people to predict how likely a website will rank in search results. The score has no relation to Google and uses a completely separate algorithm to determine scores, mostly backlinks.
While it can be a useful metric to monitor for improving your SEO, it is not a direct ranking factor. Therefore, a higher domain authority does not automatically correlate to top-ranking positions. Use it as a method for judging how well your website compares to others.
Meta tags are not important
Another popular SEO myth you may come across is that meta tags are not important. However, there is no truth to this myth. Meta tags are extremely important for a website that defines the structure and content of a page.
Meta tags typically include:
- Meta title – the title of the page (this should be slightly different to the top heading).
- Meta description – a brief description of what the page is about (no more than 160 characters).
- Meta Keyword – the main keyword for a given page.
- Alt text – additional text data for an image that briefly describes the image contents.
Incorporating as many meta tags ensures search engine crawlers fully understand the contents of a page. This ensures your pages are properly indexed and displayed in search results for relevant search terms. That said, it has been confirmed by Google that the Keyword meta tag is no longer used as a ranking factor. This is due to it being easy to manipulate.
Longer content equals higher rankings
One more myth you may come across in SEO is that longer content will rank higher than a similar page with shorter content. This comes from the belief that because you have more words on a page compared to a competitor, you will have a greater ranking potential.
This belief could come from the fact various studies have outlined the average word length of the top 10 search results. As such, there is an assumption you need to be equal to or better than that word count if you also want to achieve top rankings.
However, this is not entirely true. While longer content can rank highly in search results, it’s all dependent on the content quality. In a similar situation to backlinks, search engines will value pages with higher quality content as opposed to the content length.
For example, unnecessarily bloating a piece of content to reach a 2,000+ word average of the top 10 search rankings could result in you detracting from the value. Instead, writing to a more natural length ensures you are still providing valuable and helpful content.
The only instance where word length should be a concern is if a page is too short. Pages with very little content are considered ‘thin content’ as they provide little to no value to users. As such, search engines will rank such pages lower in results.
Remember, it’s all about ensuring your content aligns with your customer needs and wants to ensure they gain value and not how many words your competitors have written.
Older domains rank higher
One last SEO myth that we will cover here is that older domains rank higher. If you believe this, you would sadly be wrong. Google has frequently debunked this myth, clearly stating that domain age does not impact ranking potential.
Are you familiar with any of these SEO myths? Whether you are new to the world of SEO or an experienced professional, you are bound to come across a myth at one stage or another. By debunking some of the most popular myths, we hope you’ll be in a better position to make informed decisions for strengthening your SEO performance.