Establishing authority, engaging the viewers, and better rankings are the desires that cause hundreds of marketers to fall for SEO myths.
Often, these SEO myths come across as red herrings. Hence, people get distracted from the fact that they have faulty logic.
An abundance of websites and different social media self-proclaimed SEO gurus keep adding layers of falsehood to package the SEO myths and facts attractively.
In this guide, we will squash the most famous SEO myths that are negatively affecting your ranking and wasting your time and effort.
Let’s squash them together once and for all!
Popular Myths About SEO Busted
Below, you have the common SEO myths that we will debunk today.
1. Lengthy Content Means Higher Ranking
The idea that longer material performs better is probably not new to you.
A topic gains authority over its competitors if it has been written about in more words.
It is one of the SEO myths that compel many writers to add run-on sentences, points that just add to the length of the content and have nothing to do with knowledge and needlessly long paragraphs.
Over the years, numerous studies have been conducted that provide insight into Google’s top-ranking pages.
According to a study, the top ten search engine pages have an average word count of 1447 words.
This can give many individuals the impression that you need to create long-form content to get your position plastered in the top three positions.
In reality, it is one of the SEO myths.
Word count has never been a ranking factor. Just because the first page has long-form content, it is confused as SEO myths and facts.
The factors that make content climb are the information provided and the actionable suggestions for the users.
2. Bounce Rate Indicates Quality
The number of visitors to your website that end with no further action after they land on the page is known as the bounce rate.
It is quantifiable with Google Analytics.
Because bounce rate is a gauge of quality, some SEOs think it should be taken into account when ranking.
Several reasons can define why users feel like exiting the website after a few minutes.
It’s possible that after reading the entire page, they decided to get in touch with the company.
Visitors may leave your page quickly as a result of the subpar content on your website.
Sometimes, they may not find what they are looking for.
In short, you can’t use it to judge the quality of a website. Even Google doesn’t count on it for SEO, according to experts.
Instead, a more trustworthy measure of the landing page’s quality would be Pogo-sticking or a visitor clicking on a search result and instantly returning to the SERPs.
It implies that the person returned to the search results to look at other pages or do another search because the page’s content did not meet their needs.
Hence, relying on bounce rate is one of the popular SEO myths.
If you want to improve content for SEO, here is a detailed blog.
3. Website Design Does Nothing for SEO
You may have heard a lot of SEO myths about websites, one of which is that your website’s design has no influence on search engine optimization. Users’ interactions with your website are influenced by the way its features are coded and how it looks.
So, for SEO, the design has undeniable importance.
Here are some guidelines to follow for design:
Your design must be adaptable and function properly on a variety of devices.
Search engine bots must be able to readily access and index the content on your pages.
The webpage should load quickly.
Using good techniques in both color and typography, you can make your entire layout eye-pleasing.
All of these factors have a big impact on your organic performance.
Thus, you should phase in significant changes while monitoring every step of the process.
To contemplate what makes a great website, you can take design inspiration from our blog on Top 10 Website Designs.
4. Google Automatically Indexes Newly Crafted Content
Bots used by search engines consume new content. You give the bots that they need when your new article goes live.
Does that mean the newly posted information will be indexed and crawled without your involvement?
It can happen, but it may take many weeks or hours because the bots already have much on their plate.
Even after a long period, there is no guarantee that the bots will index your content.
You’ll get your new content indexed more quickly if you update your social media profiles.
To facilitate indexing, you should avoid unuseful URLs for the site, make the site fast, and link to the right pages on the website.
For instance, you can tweet or post your link on social media platforms.
5. Building Links Doesn’t Help SEO
Believing that link building has no impact is one of those SEO myths that can hinder your ability to rank better and attract more visitors.
Search engines are aware that material contains hierarchies for link development.
An incorrect link structure may prevent the search engine from effectively crawling and indexing your website.
Subsequently, you won’t be able to accomplish your dream of appearing on the first page.
If you believe in such SEO myths, start dedicating time to crafting your link-building plan.
Come up with ideas about how to get top backlinks to your website so that people see you as a trustworthy source.
In today’s digital marketing scenario, understanding the importance of link building is a part of SEO basics.
6. Adding a Large Volume of Keywords
This is one of the SEO myths you need to dismiss today.
You may wish to rank for some keywords, but search engines won’t give you brownie points for including those terms in your content multiple times thoughtlessly.
Keyword stuffing is the practice of repeatedly cramming your homepage with the same terms, which can really result in search engine penalties.
Instead, a few carefully considered and strategically positioned keywords can rightfully help with ranking.
Because of that, conducting keyword research is an unskippable part of the digital marketing strategy and content marketing plan.
A keyword strategy helps you to know what terms or phrases people use most frequently and what queries they have during the buying cycle.
Choose keywords that resonate with your target audience and bring in more relevant traffic to your website.
Another great practice of using keywords methodically is using keyword mapping.
7. Keep Guest posting For Later
Guest posting makes it to the SEO myths and facts debates, as many people consider it counterproductive to provide content for someone else.
However, it is a constant element of a profitable digital marketing strategy. You can earn valuable backlinks by posting your promotional content on other websites.
Similarly, you can allow others to upload their work on your website.
In any case, you may increase brand authority, expand your fan base, and raise brand recognition.
If your website has backlinks from very credible websites, or if search engines like Google discovered other approved links on it, even they would be impressed with your site.
That suggests that if you are ignoring guest posting, you may be damaging your organic traffic.
8. Regular Content Equals Higher Ranking
You may have an opportunity to be found by search engine bots as you add new pages, blogs, newsletters, articles, and other content to your website on a regular basis.
Therefore, it doesn’t translate that you will rank higher in SERPs if you consistently publish new material with a variety of keywords, inbound links, and outbound links.
In this delusion, you can be penalized for engaging in what is considered to be black hat SEO practices.
Therefore, try not to overoptimize your content and writing on similar topics.
For SEO, both consistency and quality go hand in hand. If these SEO myths tell you otherwise, you should not believe in them.
9. Backlinks From Dubious and Irrelevant Sources Are Equally Important
Links pointing back to your pages from other websites are known as backlinks.
If you want to raise the ranking of your website, these links are essential.
However, one of the most widespread SEO myths about backlinks is the idea that all links pointing to your website are beneficial, regardless of the source.
Your site will appear less credible if it contains a link, or links, to these unreliable websites.
It may lower your site’s rating and give the impression that it is unreliable. Having a lot of spammy links might also give Google the impression that you are purchasing links, which is, again, a black hat SEO tactic.
10. SEO Is a One-Off Task
Many people fall prey to SEO myths; after implementing SEO, all they need to do is sit back and start counting the rewards.
Setting the record straight is an ever-changing task that needs to be evaluated, examined, adjusted, and monitored along the way.
Once you evaluate the tactics, you will determine the actions that are and aren’t working in your digital marketing plan.
Adjusting your SEO approach to meet your goals and attract new clients requires constant work.
It takes work to determine what will make you stand out because the activity search engines are a secret.
Spend time and money updating your content to stay ahead of the competition.
11. Making Changes to Google Listings Boosts Search Traffic
Google My Business is an official business listing with your company’s address and phone number.
In essence, you’re instructing Google to list your company where it has the greatest clientele or customers.
With your Google Business Profile, you need to complete the verification process, which entails receiving an instant phone call to confirm your PIN number after submitting the form.
You can use the same information you use for guest blogging on your social media profiles and on any website that features you.
This helps in maintaining consistency in content marketing.
Nevertheless, if you keep changing the information, it may annoy Google. For example, changing your name repeatedly in a few weeks, etc.
Encourage others to talk about your listing on the map by conducting local outreach.
Request a link from them to your local listing page.
To rank higher in search results, you can always utilize Link Explorer to see who has linked to your website and let them know about your company listing.
12. PPC Marketing Promotes Rankings
The concept is that websites that pay for pay-per-click advertising would receive preferential treatment from Google.
This is just one of the SEO myths.
Google uses a different algorithm to rank organic search results than it does to select PPC ad placements.
While concurrently implementing SEO and a PPC campaign through Google may help your site for other reasons, it won’t directly help with ranking.
Read More: SEO for Landing Pages
13. LSI Terms Will Not Boost Your Ranking
The term latent semantic indexing is LSI.
It is an information retrieval technology that makes it possible to evaluate textual concepts and determine the connections between them.
Words can have subtleties depending on what they mean. When you write “right” with “left,” it has a different meaning than writing it with “wrong.”
People can grasp textual concepts with ease. But you can’t expect the same from a bot.
Fundamental to machines’ conceptual comprehension is their capacity to comprehend the relationship and context between entities.
Some people also confuse LSI keywords with long tail keywords due to their similarity, but they are different.
Relevant LSI keywords can drive better ranking and traffic by supporting the content.
Additionally, with the development of BERT, Google’s understanding of text has advanced well beyond LSI.
With that, our list of SEO myths come to an end.
Summary
To navigate the digital marketing landscape, dismissing these SEO myths will be useful.
When you separate facts from fiction, you can lay a strong foundation for SEO.
Also, in this ongoing practice, you need to learn from the SEO mistakes you make.
If you don’t have time to find effective strategies and keep up with the latest trends, hire experts with a proven track record. They know the realities of all the SEO myths floating on the internet, so the chances of errors are negligible.