Search engine optimization, or SEO, includes on-page and off-page efforts to help a website rank more highly on a search engine’s result lists. Since the top links on Google and Bing tend to get the most traffic, moving up the search engine rankings is a great way to boost your website’s visibility and impact, especially if you use your website to promote a business or product.
Though effective, SEO still tends to confuse individuals who aren’t familiar with the digital marketing industry. After all, SEO isn’t necessarily cut-and-dry– a successful SEO audit takes a combination of different strategic methods that change almost daily alongside the internet. As such, many misconceptions and rumors surround SEO.
If you’re unfamiliar with SEO benefits and practices, be sure that you start the learning process armed with the facts. Here are three misleading rumors you may hear about SEO that simply aren’t true:
3 Common SEO Myths
Myth #1: “We Did SEO in The Past, So We’re All Set”
Many busy companies spend a few weeks or even months learning about SEO and building a strategy. Some even conduct a full SEO audit, transforming their landing pages, adding meta descriptions, and creating a blog. Unfortunately, a few months of effort is not enough. Though your rankings may rise for a while, it’s a myth that SEO can be effective over a short period of time. For the best results, SEO needs to be a daily process. Establish long-term optimization plans or hire SEO services to add fresh content continuously.
Myth #2: SEO Is A Scam
Unfortunately, a few bad eggs tend to give the whole basket of SEO companies and experts and bad smell. In reality, SEO practices can be extremely effective for boosting a website’s rankings and helping generate leads. As long as you perform careful research about SEO strategy and only give reputable SEO companies your business, your own company won’t have to worry about being swindled.
Myth #3: Only Content Matters
Often, internet travelers throw around phrases like “content is king,” meaning that the single most important tool for boosting your search engine rankings is creating useful, keyword-optimized written text. While content is indeed incredibly important, suggesting that content is the only important SEO tool is misleading.
For the most effective strategy, ensure that you and your SEO team embraces a variety of tactics like link building, website restructuring, and performing regular SEO audits. Since you only have 10 seconds to “hook” customers by informing them what they’ll get out of your website and company before they leave, these strategies are especially important. After all, your high results ranking will be useless if your visitors don’t stick around.
Search engine optimization is still a fairly new practice, and thanks to new technology, the industry is constantly changing. Before you alter your strategy or reject SEO entirely, make sure you know fact from fiction. With this myth-busting guide, you’ll be able to embrace SEO practices that help your business and your website thrive.
