11 SEO Myths You Should Ignore
We all come across many myths in our day-to-day life. Some of these myths are harmless while some can cause serious aftermath if ignored. Myths like matter have only 3 states, i.e., solid, liquid, and gas, which can be termed as harmless. We forget Plasma, it’s neither of the 3 states and behaves differently in different circumstances. But as they don’t directly affect us, hence they are harmless. But myths like lightning never strikes the same place twice can be very dangerous if we find ourselves standing outdoor during such strikes.
Hence, we have to be the judge whether to believe certain myths or not. It’s the same for myths related to Search Engine Optimization process. The myths related to the SEO process and tools can be slightly misleading, but worst could be the wastage of precious time and efforts of the SEO expert.
So let’s bust a few common SEO myths once and for all.
- SEO is obsolete
- SEO is a one-off thing
- Google Ranking is all about freshness
- Long-tail keywords rank better
- Duplicate content causes penalization
- Social Media sharing improves rankings
- PPC has no SEO benefits
- SEO is only relevant to rankings
- Keyword research is purposeless
- Meta Title and Description Are A Ranking Factor
- Google Cares About Domain Authority
1. SEO is obsolete
Data proves that SEO drives 51% of traffic to the website. This is the most important evidence that SEO is very much alive and kicking. SEO is most relevant to promote good content and rank highly on Google.
2. SEO is a one-off thing
SEO is not like you optimize once and eat the fruit for life. It requires constant effort to keep updating the content regularly. There are changes introduced by Google at regular intervals, hence the implementation of newer SEO upgradation is essential for optimum benefits.
3. Google Ranking is all about freshness
Yes, content freshness is one of the key factors for higher ranking in Google. To maintain the freshness, you don’t have to constantly create newer content. You can always optimize your content with the latest SEO to make it relevant to the search intent. Also, freshness depends on the query itself, i.e., if your query is “How to Tie A Tie?”, then the content freshness doesn’t matter as the process remains the same over the years.
4. Long-tail keywords rank better
The truth behind this came out when it was searched in different Keyword Research tools. The data shows that the long-tail keywords rank better on searches and have very little competition. But Google focuses on famous and/or core keywords of the popular websites for ranking. Hence, you have to work on the overall authority of the page in order to gain momentum for the long-tail keywords. So, only targeting long-tail keywords won’t help you if the overall authority of the website is not good.
5. Duplicate content causes penalization
The duplicate content can harm the organic ranking of the webpage, however, there is no penalization for it. It can cause SEO issues such as dilution of the ranking, divided authority of the contents, or unfriendly URLs in search results.
When similar content is available on the web, it becomes difficult for Google to zero on one content and index it higher.
6. Social Media sharing improve rankings
Social media channels are a great way to improve your brand’s awareness and drive more traffic organically to your business. But they don’t affect the ranking. You can use social media to generate engagements but don’t expect improved rankings.
7. PPC has no SEO benefits
Data shows that SEO is better than Google Ads. But this doesn’t mean that Google Ads has no influence on rankings. If you implement both in tandem, then they may help indirectly by attracting more backlinks to the site.
Moreover, Google AdWords can bring instant traffic to your site, whereas SEO could take months to improve the rankings as it requires constant efforts.
8. SEO is only relevant to Rankings
Everyone wants to rank at the top. This is because of the fact that top-ranking brings more traffic to the business. But it is not necessarily correct all the time. The SEO can help you gain the top ranking, which is true but a lot can be done to drive more traffic to your webpage. There are many other aspects of getting more visitors. If you research different SEO tools, you will come to know that people search for many keywords related to one query, that brings traffic to the page. So, it’s necessary to create in-depth content, more backlinks to build authority and work on brand awareness. That will bring more organic traffic with clear search intent, generating a higher conversion.
If you have the quality and can nail search intent, then searchers will search with your brand keywords. So, don’t just target your SEO for top rankings, but promote your overall business for sustainable results and long-lasting profitability.
9. Keyword research is purposeless
As stated in the previous point that a page gets traffic from multiple keywords and ranks on the basis of many combinations. So, it’s far from the truth that most people think keyword research is purposeless. Keyword research ensures that you’re optimizing for the most popular way of searching for any topic. It helps in ranking higher and answers the most relevant queries of the searchers. So, it’s mandatory to insert the most useful keywords.
10. Meta Title and Description Are A Ranking Factor
As per Google, Title tags and meta descriptions are snippets of text that describe the content of the page in HTML. These are all essentially the descriptor of the content of webpages, providing information to the search engines about the page. Earlier, these HTML tags used to impact rankings, but later on, Google declared it doesn’t consider meta titles and descriptions as a ranking factor of the pages.
However, you should still consider meta titles and descriptions as important, as they indirectly affect your rankings. These search snippets encourage CTR, and high CTR, in turn, gives Google a positive signal to help improve your rankings. So, don’t pay heed to this SEO myth, and go ahead optimizing your meta titles and descriptions. This will give an indirect boost to your page’s rank.
11. Google Considers Domain Authority
Domain Authority (DA) was never a part of the Google ranking algorithm. It was introduced by third-party websites like Moz and Ahrefs to measure the backlink profile of any website.
Therefore, as Google didn’t introduce the DA, it doesn’t use this. However, they use a similar matrix to rank pages. But high DA can help get a number of backlinks, which can help gain ranking on Google.
Conclusion
This is not an exhaustive list, rather far from being an all-inclusive one. But these are a few of the most commonly used myths about SEO usage. This can help you to bust the myth bubble. So, go ahead and optimize that wonderful piece that you have created and gain humongous organic traffic for your business.
