13 Most Common SEO Myths You Must Ignore

We live in the 21st century where humans are trying to find life on other planets, exploring the deepest region of the oceans using manned vehicles, and building cars that can fly as well as swim on the water. Also, Building robots that can do things that human beings cannot, going digital wherever possible to explore and touch the Sun’s atmosphere is underway. In such time changing era of building sophisticated technologies, how one can lag with myths especially if they are going to take you backward and halt your progressive mind! So let’s demystify these SEO myths and discuss whether the SEO myths are real? If so then what do they do? How do you get affected? Why do you need to maintain distance from them? And so on.

What is a Myth?

Myths are common beliefs that every human being practice every day in one way or the other, while some myths become part of our life and we consider following them for the rest of our life. Our ancient history in different parts of the world is so rich that has developed so many myths for the people to believe. Of this, some are factual while some are fictitious. It’s just that we need to understand which are true and which aren’t.

Does it Affect You?

The practices carried out following myths or beliefs do not affect us personally but if any false myths are followed then it would be harmful to our health or your business sometimes.

What are SEO Myths?

SEO is a process that improves your site’s organic traffic and its ranking on search engines like Google by creating high-quality content. So many myths that going to affect this process will be called SEO myths. SEO myths are misleading and have a crucial impact on your business, time, and ranking factor, and will degrade your SEO process.

SEO in this digital world is full of misconceptions and misunderstandings owing to the nature of which how this digital world works where things aren’t permanent and constantly get updated at regular intervals. That’s why we want to make sure you’re up to date with the SEO information.

This field is like that of topics that are trending and cool down as time passes by. So this is how SEO myths emerge as the trend gets older but people continue to practice as it is still trending. So, let’s see the 13 most common SEO myths you must ignore and learn how they affect your SEO strategies.

13 Most Common SEO Myths

#1  Penalty For Duplicating The Content

Duplicacy is in itself a foul play, a kind of inferiority, a second-class experience of owning a thing. Copying a thing is like robbing someone’s idea and expertise and presenting the duplicate content in a new form. Copying someone’s content will be penalized by Google is a popular SEO myth.

However the reality says something else, Google does not penalize you, though your organic ranking can be affected. If you have duplicated any content on your site then the Google algorithm will automatically suppress your content and will be removed from Google’s index manually and the user will be notified.

Google finds it easier since you have copied the content from some other webpage, Google priorities and gives first relevance to the original site and downgrades your content, thus your ranking degrades. Moreover, search engines crawling budget gets wasted by searching for duplicate content, during which time it could have explored newer content.

Meanwhile, your backlinks also get affected, so you do not get penalized but you lose many things in the process of duplicating content. Copying someone’s content without their knowledge or wish, you are liable for legal rights issues and your website will be devalued.

#2  Google’s Paid Advertising Improves Rankings

Google’s paid advertisement campaign and organic search results are two different things altogether that function on two different principles. You are paying Google to advertise your website at the top of the SERP. It’s a paid advertisement which solely depends on how much you pay with your total budget.

The reality says that Google does not favor any websites that are involved with them on pay per click (PPC) advertisement basis. PPC advertising doesn’t help in ranking your content.

Only your search engine optimized content with thorough analysis ranks on the result pages. However, you can take advantage of running an Ad by refining your keywords to optimize your organic searches and improve conversion rates.

Here is a Guide to Google SEO

#3  Google Cares About Domain Authority

Domain authority is the trust that Google bestows on you for the overall quality work your website carries out and stays in the limelight. Previously Google used to measure the performance of a website using an algorithm by the name PageRank on the toolbar and which used to display a score between 0-10. A higher score means the higher authority of the web page.

But the reality is since 2013 Google has stopped using this and in 2016 they confirmed discontinuing it completely. But like a successor other players jumped into this race and developed their algorithm to provide value to a page, to name a few;

·         Ahrefs’ Domain Rating and URL Rating.

·         Moz’s Domain Authority and Page Authority scores.

·         Majestic’s Trust Flow and Citation Flow.

The truth is that this whole process can never really reflect the value of a page and Google themselves have many times dismissed this concept of domain authority, thus clearing this SEO myth for all.

#4  Longer Content Ranks Better

This is a common belief and one of the SEO myths that everyone has that, the longer the content, the better would be its ranking probability. This is just a correlation people do by analyzing the top-ranking articles which are normally ~1500 worded. So they generate an enigma that yes if you want to rank on the first page you need to write more content.

However, the reality says that Google does not go after quantity rather it seeks quality of the matter. You rather concentrate on providing a quality value to the content in comparison to other search results. The renowned digital marketer Neil Patel says that long-form content does rank but doesn’t stand in the #1 position upon analysis of some top search results.

Recommended Read: SEO Courses in India

#5  Optimize Copy Once & Then Forget it

The SEO myth says, you SEO optimize your content for once and then you need not worry for the future! However, the reality is something else only. In these constantly evolving times where everything changes in split seconds, how can you be relaxed with changes made only once! You constantly need to monitor those changes to get fruitful results.

The search engine queries keep on changing with different users seeking different answers. So the search engine alters its displaying results by the relevance of the query raised. Sometimes Google may change the layout of the SERP and start showcasing videos on top of the web page results. So such changes you constantly need to monitor just to avoid lagging behind

#6  Meta Tags Helps In Ranking

Meta tags are the HTML tags or the head tags and Meta descriptions are the preview snippets that represent a particular webpage in the SERP containing keywords or phrases.

Meta Tags are Composed of 3 Elements,

·         The title tags

·         The meta descriptions

·         Meta keywords or phrases

Google has long ago said that meta tags do not contribute to page ranking but the meta tags are worth spending time on. Using a compelling snippet with proper use of keywords fuels the CTC. Thus high CTC sends a positive signal to google which ultimately improves your ranking.

Thus the meta tags have an indirect impact on your rankings. So, ignore this SEO myth; optimize your meta titles and descriptions to attract more users to visit your site and benefit from in indirect ranking method. This process will help improve your search ranking.

#7  Top-level Domains Improve Rankings

The TLD are those extensions like .com that are used after your domain name. There are many such like .co, .net, .gov, .edu, etc. Among these, the prominent and the most used one is .com because whenever you open anything on the Google search engine, almost 98% of the searches have .com domain names.

So when you encounter a website whose extension ends with .biz or .guru you tend to raise eyebrows and tend to ask yourself what is this .biz or .guru all about and try to ignore such sites. But the reality is that such extensions have no impact on your rankings nor they are malicious.

Your main focus should be to impart quality content so that a user will not hesitate on looking at your site name extension. So don’t stress upon this SEO myth and go ahead and choose whichever domain you like to have for yourself. But still confused over how to go about choosing a domain name.

Read How To Choose a Domain

#8  Google Finds Your Fresh Content And Index It

Everyone in this world likes fresh be it food, a song, a fresh environment, or just fresh content in our regard. Google too likes fresh content and when you publish something new, it will crawl and index it. This may take time maybe 1-2 days depending on your website.

However you can optimize this using Google’s XML sitemap generator plugin, so once you publish new content, a new sitemap is generated and sent to the search engines for crawling and indexing.

So you either wait and let spiders crawl for your new content or you can invite them using the plugin. Also, you can enhance the reach of your content by sharing it on your social profiles to get indexed faster.

#9  Keyword Research is Not Important

Any kind of research before proceeding on to something new is quintessential these days because you are bound to get the prior idea, and knowledge of how exactly things work. Keyword research before writing new content is very important, as you get an idea of what people are searching for or which keywords your competitors are targeting.

So working with keywords upright you get to strategize your research and then apply this knowledge to help you rank higher on the search engines. Google’s Keyword Planner is the most sought-after keyword research tool to analyze and research the keywords for your content.

Keyword research is thus something that cannot be ignored and one needs to give high impetus to research the keywords to understand the psychology of the user who is searching for newer content using different keywords.

Learn How to use Content Writing keywords 

#10  More Backlinks Improve Ranking

If you are publishing quality and well-researched content, you are bound to get appreciated. People will acknowledge your work and will be willing to give credit to you in the form of backlinks. These backlinks are signs of credibility and trustability for the quality of information or services you provide on your site.

Such services Google recognizes and will help you in your organic rankings. However, Google keeps a tab on the number of backlinks and the authority of websites from where you are getting links. Backlinks from low authority or spam sites will degrade your value. So you need to keep a check on the quality of backlinks from the trusted website rather than the quantity.

 #11  Page Speed Is Irrelevant

In this fast-paced world where nobody has time to wait will not tolerate if they are made to wait for even 30 secs online.  In such a situation speed is of the utmost importance. Page speed is measured by how fast the content on your page gets loaded. Google has announced that the speed of the page will be used as a ranking factor for desktop as well as for mobile searches.

One can evaluate their page speed using Google’s Page Speed insights which furnishes your score of the page loading. You are at an unimaginable loss if your loading speed is slow which can cost you users, and business, and the high-quality content which you may have published will go unnoticed by the searchers.

So stress on a fast loading speed to retain and rope in new users. Optimize some of the below-mentioned points if you are having a problem with page speed issues:

·         Clean and compress HTML CSS and JavaScript codes

·         Compress Images

·         Upgrade Hosting

·         Remove render-blocking JavaScript

·         Enable browser caching

·         Check your server

Recommended Read: Digital Marketing Courses in India

#12  Social Media Improves Ranking

Today the only way to stay connected with your friends or dear ones is through social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Social media plays a key role of a reach to masses in a matter of seconds around the world. Also, one can create awareness about their brand through social media networks and engage a lot of people by providing qualitative content.

However, this method will not help you rank on Google. But what it can do is if your content is liked by many people then obviously they will share it among their circles and thus quality is being distributed and you will get a lot of traffic on your site from the social media platforms.

Moreover, you can get free referrals from your social media channels if you have an amazing reputation among your followers. So, consider using social media to increase traffic and brand exposure, but don’t expect any organic rankings.

#13  SEO is Dead

The search engine optimization works majorly on the content fed on the site, so as long as quality content is developed and search engines exist, this SEO myth has no relevance. Search engines always launch their algorithm update which is mostly based on SEO strategy. So according to their update, you need to upgrade and optimize your SEO to continue getting the desired results. So as long as Google uses the search engine to search any results based on the keywords, SEO is not and will never be dead.

FAQs

1. Does SEO helps in getting a higher rank?

Yes, it does. Analyzing the proper keywords and relevant phrases and optimizing the content and site can help you with the ranking factor.

2. Does SEO helps in getting results faster?

No! SEO takes its time to do so. From creating quality content, and getting backlinks, to optimizing a site takes time. However, if you are seeking quick traffic then better opt for paid advertising than going for SEO.

3. What impact do SEO myths have on keyword research?

People say that keyword research is ineffective, but in reality, it is a false belief.  Keyword research is very important to draw traffic and aid in conversions. If you are targeting the wrong keywords, then you will not be ranked, or even if in case you rank, then you will not get the conversions. So, researching keywords is of prime importance.

Conclusion

SEO myths like all other myths are born out of belief and are here to stay in the subconscious mind of every user. But we need to debunk these SEO myths to not affect the optimization processes and to be able to concentrate on producing quality SEO content. Any SEO myths affecting your process, growth, business, and credibility should be refrained from to achieve your goals.