Myth #1: The Goal of SEO Is
To Rank #1 for “your keyword”
This is the #1 myth about SEO. In fact, most
people I talk to believe the goal of SEO is to rank for “your keyword.”
Simply replace “your keyword” with the most relevant search phrase for
your business. For example, “dentist,” “chiropractor,” and “attorney”
might come to mind if you run one of those businesses.
Wait a minute, how could ranking #1 for your
keyword not be the goal of SEO?
Well, first of all, rankings alone don’t help your
business. The goal of SEO is to drive qualified
traffic to your website and then convert the traffic into
leads and sales.
With that in mind, consider the difference between
someone searching for “attorney” versus someone searching for “workers
compensation attorney in nyc.” Clearly, the person searching the longer
phrase has more intent to hire a worker’s comp attorney located
in New York City.
So what have we learned about this myth?
First, the goal of SEO is to drive traffic and
conversions. Second, the keywords you think are most important may not
be as valuable to your business as other longer-phrase keywords (aka
long-tail keywords). The key is to consider the search intent, not just the relevance,
of the keyword.
Myth #2: SEO Is All About
Editing HTML Meta Tags
Again, there are a couple of problems with this
myth.
First, this grossly over-simplifies SEO. If you
believe this to be true, then you likely also believe your SEO is
“done” because your web developer “took care of it” using some keywords
in the webpage meta tags.
Unfortunately, SEO is not quite that simple and
the days of stuffing keywords on your webpages in order to rank high
have been over for a long time now. Search engines are more
sophisticated now and they look at more than just the meta tags on your
webpages. They look at many webpage factors like your title, headers, usability,
internal linking structure, site speed, and the length and quality of
the content.
Second, this myth ignores all of the SEO factors
that are outside of your own website (aka off-page SEO). For example,
one of the most important SEO factors is the quantity and quality of
links from other websites. Sure, you need to focus on your own website,
but you can’t ignore all the off-page SEO factors if you want to
succeed with SEO.
Myth #3: You Can Set It and
Forget It
Sorry Ron Popeil, with SEO you cannot “set
it and forget it!” But SEO sure would be a whole lot easier
if you could!
This myth is similar to myth #2 above. If you
believe SEO is just a matter of editing your own website, then you
would logically also think that SEO is something that only needs to be
done once. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works.
Editing your webpages so they are relevant for
your target keywords is only half the battle. The other half is
building up what’s called your website’s domain authority.
Think of domain authority like your own personal
reputation. If you have a strong reputation, then people tend to listen
to you and trust you. If you have a bad reputation, then people steer
clear of you.
That same behavior plays out on the Internet.
Websites with strong reputations for publishing
high-quality, accurate information that people want to read are given
preference in Google versus other websites. One indicator of a strong
reputation is the quantity and quality of the websites linking to your
website. When lots of other websites with high domain authority link to
your website, it is a signal to Google that your website should also be
trusted.
Now that you’re familiar with domain authority and
the role links play in SEO, it should be obvious that you can’t just
“set it and forget it.” You need a long-term strategy for attracting
links from other reputable websites.
Myth #4: SEO Is All About
Tricking Google
In my experience, many businesses think that they
need to trick Google in order to rank their website high in the search
results.
While it’s true that some businesses do in fact
trick Google using spammy SEO tactics, that’s not a
sustainable long term strategy. Eventually, Google figures out how to
weed out the businesses using spammy tactics, so it’s not worth the
risk.
To understand why this is a myth, you must put
yourself in Google’s shoes.
Google’s goal is to rank the best webpages for any
given search. What is the best webpage? That depends on the keyword
searched! If the searcher is looking for a nearby dentist, then
Google’s goal is to rank the best local dentist websites. If the
searcher is looking for advice to overcome a running injury, then Google’s
goal is to rank the best, up-to-date, accurate information about that
topic.
With that in mind, then SEO is not about tricking
Google; SEO is about partnering with Google to provide and help
the search engine find the information it needs. That’s how you need to
approach SEO if you want to have long term success.
Myth #5: Google Ads Give An
SEO Boost
The 5th myth I hear frequently is that advertising
in Google gives your website an SEO boost.
I’m sorry to say that’s simply not true. It
doesn’t matter how much you spend with Google Ads, it will not directly
help your website rankings in the organic, non-paid, results.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t advertise in
Google. In fact, I recommend most businesses test Google Ads because
it’s one of the best marketing tactics available to small businesses.
However, advertising is separate from search
engine optimization and you should not expect to suddenly start ranking
high in Google just because you’re using Google Ads.
While we’re on the topic of other marketing
channels impacting SEO, I’ll give one more bonus myth…
Bonus Myth: Social Media Has
No Impact on SEO
Over the years, there’s been a debate in the
digital marketing community about whether or not Google uses social
media signals in their algorithm.
My stance is simple – it doesn’t matter! It
doesn’t matter if search engines factor in social media signals when
ranking websites.
What matters is whether or not social media
marketing has a positive impact on your SEO. The answer to that
question is yes. By using social media marketing, you will naturally
improve your search engine rankings. To learn more, read my article
about the 3 ways social media can boost your SEO.
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