As most business owners know, SEO is both an art and a science that involves plenty of trial and error. More than that, it is ever-changing, with Google constantly implementing alterations when it comes to its search algorithms.
Up until now, the sole focus for many companies has been to maximize user experience when it comes to their websites. This, in turn, has promised to positively impact the website’s rankings. But how much of what we know about SEO is actually true?
Below are a few myths, busted.
SEO is a once-off project
Are you under the impression that SEO is something that takes place when your website is being created and something that, once implemented, never needs to be looked at again? On the contrary, SEO needs to be an ongoing effort. As mentioned above, with algorithms constantly changing, so too do the SEO aspects of a company’s website, both in terms of on-page and off-page factors. Contact MackMedia to get your started on the path to better, effective SEO.
All backlinks are good backlinks
This is definitely false. In fact, while some backlinks can help to sky-rocket your rankings, others can harm them tremendously. The key is to find high quality, respected, and reputable websites on which to publish your content and link back to your website. If the site does not tick all of these boxes, move on to another possible publisher. A great digital marketing and SEO company can usually lend a hand when it comes to building quality backlinks, so if in doubt, it is often best to outsource your SEO efforts for better, more consistent results.
Google AdWords can benefit your SEO efforts
Not true. Countless business owners believe that they can improve their organic rankings by upping their paid search advertising budget with Google. The reality is that your Google AdWords activity has absolutely zero effect on your organic SEO no matter how much money you are spending on it each month.
Google AdWords can, however, benefit your business in many other ways, including generating more website traffic, enhancing brand awareness, and increasing conversions.
It’s all about the keywords
In its infancy, SEO totally revolved around keywords and stuffing as many of them as possible into any and every piece of website content or blog that you published. However, keywords are practically irrelevant these days. According to experts, Google now completely ignores meta keywords and actually penalizes websites for keyword stuffing. Going forward, companies can improve their website rankings by transforming the keyword-focused mentality into one that seeks to provide visitors with relevant, useful content which optimizes their overall user experience.
Social media is an SEO signal
While social media marketing is complementary to SEO from an overall digital marketing standpoint, it does not have any effect on your organic SEO rankings. The number of comments you garner or followers you generate will not cause your rankings to either increase or decrease in any way. This does not mean that social media is not a valuable digital marketing tool. It is still an imperative resource to use for online success, despite being irrelevant to SEO.
Now that you know a little bit more about search engine optimization and how to tackle it from now on, you can make the appropriate changes and start reaping the rewards.
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