THE TOP 5 SEO MYTHS
explained
SEO is always constantly changing but there are several myths about it that just don’t go away.
From actually harming your organic rankings to having no effect whatsover – these are the top 5 SEO myths we’ve come across – and how we can demonstrate they’re false!
Don’t waste a moment of you time, resources or money on any of these!
(Oh – and run a mile if any SEO company claims they can get your position 1 rankings in a month!)
google ranks websites
One of the biggest myths we hear time and time again is that Google (and all the other search engines) rank websites.
They don’t!! They rank web PAGES.
When you search for something what do you see in the search results?
Yes, you might see a few root domains (such as thedigitalmarketingfairy.co.uk or amazon.com) but this still actually links to a page (the home page) – most other search results link to a specific page on a site that is uniquely tailored to what you’re searching for.
This is an excellent article from Search Engine Journal that explains in more detail. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-ranks-webpages-not-websites/393425/
YOU DON’T NEED A MOBILE STRATEGY
A lot of people think that once their website is designed it looks the same everywhere.
Unfortunately this is not the case. Different screen sizes, colour settings, font sizes, unsupported media types and resolution settings will all have an impact on how your site will look on a desktop computer compared to a mobile.
If your website doesn’t display well on a mobile device this will impact your visitors (who wants to hang around waiting for a site to load or try and scroll around it!).
Take a look at this site viewed on a laptop and a mobile – would you know what to do with it?
Viewed on a laptop
Viewed on a mobile phone
Not only does it affect your visitors – it upsets Google too. Back in early 2015 they updated their algorithm to increase their use of mobile friendliness as a ranking factor.
Today they have putt it at the forefront and are actively penalising sites that don’t work well on mobile devices. To read their statement click here.
If you want to check the mobile status of your website you can use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Testing tool.
KEYWORD RESEARCH IS DEAD
🧐🧐 Let’s just think about this for a second.
What do you do when you want to find something online?
You put words into a search engine. The words you put in are KEYWORDS! So it makes sense to at least have a little look at the types of things people are searching for around your product/service right?
We had a client who sold designer clothes that had already been owned by someone else. These were REALLY expensive items – we’re talking Gucci, Prada and Armani.
They were adamant that they didn’t want to use the words “second hand” anywhere in their online marketing strategy as it gave the wrong image.
We spent 30 seconds doing keyword research……..
If we’d have used pre loved (which was their preferred term) in their SEO strategy it was very clear they never would have got the volume of organic traffic they were looking for.
THE MORE BACKLINKS I GET THE BETTER
A backlink is when other website links to yours. When they do a little it’s like they’ve given your page a sign of trust, which is a great signal to Google.
The more sites that link to your page, the more search engines interpret that your content is worthy of a place in their rankings.
Here’s the big but:
“Not all backlinks are equal”
Google has explicitly stated in their Webmaster Guidelines NOT to take part in link schemes.
They define link schemes as any link intended to manipulate a sites ranking. Buying and selling links, excessive link exchanges and low quality directory site links are all examples.
So it’s not the more the merrier.
When building your backlink strategy make sure the sites linking to you are relevant to your industry and have high authority.
GOOGLE INDEXES NEW CONTENT AS SOON AS IT’S PUBLISHED
A lot of people think as soon as they hit publish on a blog post or add a new page to their website Google will find it instantly and add it to their index.
❌ This isn’t true ❌
Google only visits a website a certain number of times (it’s called crawl rate or crawl budget). Think of how many websites there are in the world and they have to try and get to them all!
However there is a way to tell Google and other search engines that you’ve added something new or updated your site – and this is called submitting a sitemap.
You should submit one every time you’ve updated something on your site.
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