It’s estimated that 93% of all online interactions begin with entering a query into a search engine. And if your website doesn’t come up in the results when you want them to — well, good luck with that. Search engine optimization, or SEO, is all about helping websites improve their Google (and Bing) rankings, but it’s not a magic formula. No one knows precisely how Google’s algorithms think or work, but SEO services spend a lot of time trying to figure that out. Over the years, and through a lot of trial and error, some myths and legends about SEO have popped up along the way — some of them true, some of them less so. Read on for a reality breakdown of some of the most commonly heard SEO “truisms” circulating the web today.
- “Keywords don’t matter anymore.” False. Keywords aren’t the only thing that matters anymore, but they do still matter in matching your site to a specific query.
- “All links are good links.” False. In fact, spammy backlinks can actually hurt your rankings. But the more quality links you can build, the better.
- “Content is king.” True. The more sophisticated Google’s crawlers become, the more important it is to produce meaningful, informative, shareable content on a regular basis.
- “Social media doesn’t impact SEO.” Half-true. While it’s true that Google does not take into account your number of followers, likes, or retweets, your social presence can have a large effect on your audience outreach and link-sharing, which will impact your rankings.
- “Google will find out.” False. There seems to be a persistent fear among website admins that they’ll somehow get “caught” using SEO tactics and that Google will shut them out of its system forever because of it. In fact, Google actually suggests that SEO can be effective and that it should be implemented as early as possible for the best results. Just don’t do anything spammy to try to get to the top!
There are more reasons than ever to have a dedicated SEO team on your side. The more time we spend with Google, the better it becomes at giving us the results we need. Make sure your site makes it to the list with an effective SEO strategy to meet your audience where they’re looking.
