Debunking five popular SEO myths
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO as it is referred to by the tech world, is a new-age art that has to be mastered in the digital era. If you have a website, you have to make sure that you follow the right SEO practices to drive organic traffic.
Hence SEO has become a new success mantra. But the enormous potential of the techniques and the obscurity surrounding how it works have given rise to many myths. Even some experts propagate misinformation about optimization techniques to maintain their superiority in the business.
Some SEO techniques have become outdated because of changes in algorithms and the introduction of Artificial Intelligence by Search Engines. But these methods never become extinct as many websites fail to remain up to date on such information. Thus they stay as myths and are difficult to expunge from the tech world.
Whatever the reasons are, shady SEO practices will inevitably affect page rankings and subsequently the traffic. Hence it is essential to debunk these myths.
Here are some of the popular myths and the reality behind them.
Myth 1: Keyword density is everything
Keywords are one of the easiest ways to attract traffic to your website. Those who are searching with the keyword are more likely to land on your page if you are using it. But what is the frequency of the keyword usage? Many have this notion that the more the keyword density, the better. But this cannot be farther from the truth.
Google has stated that it is using a technology called Term Frequency- Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF). So it still detects the frequency of keyword usage. But it also compares it with the average usage density around the internet. If your write up uses more than the standard rate, Google considers it as a fake and irrelevant source. This can greatly affect your Google rankings.
Moreover, Google has dramatically improved on language recognition. Now it can detect synonyms and different word forms. So it is not necessary to repeat the keywords again and again.
Myth 2: Links are not important
It is irrefutable that PageRank (PR) is one of the top factors in Google. The best way to improve PageRank is to build links. It is one of the factors that Google uses to model popularity.
People shy away from link building because it is hard to quantify the results. But we can confidently say that it is one of the crucial factors that indirectly determines the traffic generated.
It is also one of the factors that will remain unchanged in the foreseeable future.
Myth 3 – Content is not significant.
It is a widespread belief that you just need the techniques to drive in the traffic. Also, it is difficult to create quality content. Thus the role of content is many a time pushed aside.
In fact, content marks the relevance of your website. It tells Google what searches to rank your site on. Hence you have to make sure that it is content to rank your site on. There is no way around this.
Search Engines like Google are becoming more and more user friendly. It tries to get the most useful results to the person searching. Using the newest algorithms and Artificial Intelligence, it is making pretty accurate decisions. So if you want to stay in business and keep your site busy with traffic, make sure you host useful content.
Myth 4 – Do Search Engine Optimization once and forget it
How many factors do you think to affect the search results in a browser? 5? 20? Google has made an announcement that has staggered the whole world. The company revealed that almost 10,000 signals influence their search results.
If there are so many variables at play, there is always room for improvement. It is quite impossible to say that you have done optimizing your site. Top sites do not enjoy that honor because of blind luck. They have persistently pursued the goal for a long time to achieve that.
You have to regularly research SEO techniques and adjust your strategies according to the changing scenarios. See SEO as a long term investment. If you are patient enough, you will get the dividends.
Myth 5: Mobile friendliness is insignificant
It is no secret that most people now rely on their mobile phones for accessing the internet. The proximity and ease of access are seen as the contributing factor for this.
Search engines are not impervious to this shifting trend. Google announced Mobile-First Indexing in 2018. Experts consider it to be one of the most significant updates of the year.
Most websites pay attention to enhancing their desktop version. But when Google finds that they do not have a mobile site, it crawls the desktop version. This can negatively impact its site rankings. Hence you have to make your site as mobile-friendly as possible to stay in business.
