5 SEO Myths You Should Ignore
Here are the top 5 SEO myths you should ignore if you want to boost your organic traffic. This blog gives an overview of the major myths about SEO that are harmful to small businesses.
So let’s put some common myths about SEO to bed once and for all!
5 SEO Myths That Need to Be Debunked
1. SEO Is Not Relevant Anymore
If you keep hearing whispers that SEO is dead, you need to put a stop to them right now because it couldn’t be farther away from the truth. According to a survey by Search Engine Optimization, 49% of the respondents believe that organic search or SEO is the digital marketing channel that brings in the highest ROI. The truth is that organic search and SEO continue to drive traffic to high-ranking websites despite other channels, such as social media marketing and search engine marketing.
However, it only works if you continue to optimize your SEO strategies and update your website regularly. Otherwise, the organic traffic on your website will start to dwindle because you will lose backlinks, your competitors will outrank you, and your content will get old and irrelevant.
2. Social Media Likes and Shares Help Organic Rankings
This popular SEO myth is rooted in the understanding that social media popularity leads to more exposure, which ultimately helps you generate backlinks. Hence, it boosts your organic traffic and ranking. It works on the assumption that since the link to a webpage is generating tons of shares on social media, it must contain a higher value.
However, the truth is that social signals, such as likes and shares, are exceptionally easy to manipulate. It’s perhaps why Google’s John Mueller claimed that social media signals don’t have any direct impact on rankings.
3. PageRank Doesn’t Matter Anymore
PageRank is the basis of Google’s SEO algorithm. It looks at the quality and quantity of backlinks to judge the value of a webpage. Just because Google discontinued public PageRank scores in 2016, many people assumed that companies shouldn’t put focus on backlinks to optimize their SEO efforts.
However, just because it isn’t public, it doesn’t mean that PageRank is not a ranking factor. Google continues to use it to evaluate the quality of your webpage, so you must focus on adding backlinks to your content to optimize it for SEO.
4. SEO Is All About Rankings
Even though many people believe that SEO is all about ranking higher on SERPs, that isn’t entirely true because the top-ranking page only generates the most search traffic 49% of the time.
Why is that?
Well, most credible and valuable pages generate their organic traffic from not one but multiple optimized keywords. So, even if your page ranks second for a keyword, you can generate more traffic than the highest-ranking page by ensuring that you rank for more keywords with a higher search demand than your competitor. The key to generating more traffic is to focus on the users’ search intent, cover your topic in-depth, and build more backlinks to boost your authority.
5. Keyword Research Is Pointless
Given the fact that many pages rank for thousands and hundreds of keywords, people tend to believe that keyword research is dead or pointless. This myth about SEO stems from the logic that there’s no point in optimizing for one or two keywords when you can probably generate more traffic from hundreds of them.
That logic is deeply flawed since a keyword’s popularity aligns directly with a topic’s overall search traffic potential. You optimize your content with keywords that search engine users are most likely to look up for your chosen topic. This way, you effectively boost your chances of generating more organic traffic.
Final Thoughts
These were some of the most common SEO myths that continue to harm small businesses that fall prey to them and become too reluctant to invest in premium-quality SEO. The truth is, if you want to boost your organic traffic, you will need to rely on strengthening your SEO efforts.
If you want comprehensive SEO services to beat your competition and establish your authority and credibility in the digital landscape, get in touch with Marketing Tiki today!
