THESE 6 SEO MYTHS NEED TO BE DEBUNKED RIGHT NOW!

SEO. If you are a brand, chances are you might have heard a lot about these three letters. Several digital marketing and SEO agencies will tell you that your brand needs it. They will also tell you that they are one of the top SEO agencies around and hence suitable to execute the task for you. And just in case you have gone ahead with them and they are not able to deliver on the standards they promised, they will tell you that SEO is like that weird friend in your friends’ list that you can never figure out. It is super moody, and its algorithm changes every few hours, so concrete, long term results are hard and few and far to get.

Well, ask them to stop. Talking and working. Because there’s a very good probability that they don’t know what they are talking about. And considering the fact that search engine traffic has a 9% higher chance of converting than social media traffic, you need to be cautious about who handles the SEO for your brand. This is a job for a professional who knows how to separate facts from the myths about SEO. But how do you identify such a person? Allow us to help you! Coming up- 6 SEO Myths Busted!

1.SEO IS NOT LIKE YOUR UNPREDICTABLE FRIEND

Because come to think of it, even your unpredictable friend might not be as unpredictable. His/her mind is governed by a certain logic, a certain algorithm. And so is SEO. Agreed that that algorithm changes more frequently than your friend’s, but it isn’t all that cryptic. Basically, SEO is the process of making a website more adherable and more crawlable (read findable) for search engines, and a good SEO agency/professional will know certain factors that will do just that. No algorithm can beat these factors. As for the rapidly changing algorithm, it is a SEO professional’s job to monitor these changes as and when they occur and adapt accordingly. So, make sure that the person or agency exhibits this awareness and a credible degree of knowledge about the factors that account for a strong SEO strategy.

2.CONTENT CAN DO IT ALL FOR YOUR WEBSITE, LINKS ARE NOT AS IMPORTANT

Sure, content is a vital part of your SEO presence and your overall ranking on search engines. But it alone cannot do everything. Along with content, you also need to generate links. Good content and links are kind of like symbiotic twins; they need each other to give the best results. It is the combined force of links, content, design, and usability that makes for a good website and consequently a strong SEO presence. Also, when we say generating links, we don’t mean buying them from a link farm! We mean organically generating them through your content. Links can be generated by building internal links, including guest articles on your website, through infographics, relevant and useful data or by collaborating with other bloggers. Search engines like Google see links as a vote of confidence and credibility for your website. Make sure that your links are relevant to your subject, they are authoritative (they come from a credible source, a webpage with a strong digital presence) and come from pages with high traffic. There’s a possibility that a link from this page could transfer referral traffic to your website. Also, it helps to place your link at prominent and noticeable places in your blog.

3.KEYWORDS NEED TO POPULATE YOUR BLOG DENSELY

Does increasing the density of keywords in your blog make a difference? A lot of people thought so and hence, it was a common practice to stuff blogs with keywords just to make them more visible. In some cases, you would also see rather ill-fitting sentences put in a blog just to accommodate a keyword in it. Like, are you are based in Mumbai or Thane? And are you searching for an SEO agency in Mumbai or an SEO Agency in Thane? (See, that wasn’t really needed here, but you know what we did) But we can assure you that it doesn’t really work now. You can still use a keyword umpteen times in a blog, but there is no guarantee that it will give better results. In fact, you can find results now where the keyword does not exist in the visible portion of the page. Bottom line, creating relevant content with internally generated links can do a better job for you than trying to optimize individual keywords.

4.SITEMAPS ARE NOT IMPORTANT

Just in case you are not familiar with the term, let us tell you. A Sitemap is a file in which you can add information about the pages, videos, images, and the subject matter of your website. When a search engine accesses a Sitemap, it can get access to every page and the individual content on your website that has been linked to it. With such an important role to play, do you think excluding a Sitemap is going to help your SEO presence? A Sitemap enables your website to become more crawlable. It does that by enabling the Search Engine to crawl on specific pages of your website if it can’t crawl on your website. Remember, search engines don’t just rank websites; they rank individual webpages as well. Additionally, with online searching becoming more mobile-friendly, it might result in a reduced number of navigational elements. Hence, the visibility of your website might get affected on mobile devices.  A sitemap in either HTML or XML format can help your website become more accessible and user friendly.

5.SEEKING INSPIRATION FOR WEBSITE DESIGN & FUNCTION FROM BIG BRANDS

We all have a reference point, an inspiration. Something/someone that we look up to, that we wish to match up to, that we aspire to become like. So, it shouldn’t be wrong to have a reference point when it comes to your website too, right? You love XYZ’s website because

• It is a big brand and
• It’s website seems to give it great traction.

But replicating their design and optimizing pattern because you think it will work for you too is hugely baseless. Remember, even if the domain of the big brand and your brand is the same, you both are at different stages in your journey. They might have a slightly different target audience than you and their tone of messaging would be different too. Choose what works best for your brand. Sometimes, big brands might not suffer as much due to an erroneous website design or function simply because they have other channels to make up for it. Or because they are too famous for people to frequent their website to know more about them. You are not in the same position. The bigger brands might choose to not pay attention the user discontent on their website, you can’t afford to do that. So, don’t copy bigger brands.

6.GOOGLE ADS CAN ALSO BOOST ORGANIC RANKING

Sorry, but this doesn’t happen. Traffic gained through PPC campaigns and organic traffic are two separate entities and they have no bearing on each other. No matter what the budget for your inorganic campaigns is, it will not affect your organic ranking. What can happen though is that inorganic campaigns can boost your brand credibility. If a user sees your website link via an inorganic campaign and then sees it in the organic results as well, he/she might be prompted to visit it. This can result in increased organic click-through rates.

Well, these are some of the myths that we have tried to demystify and debunk for you. We hope they will help you in gaining a better understanding of how SEO works and what has absolutely no influence on its functioning. As you must have seen, SEO is not this intricate rocket science that it has largely been made out to be. It is more logic and intuition based, which are factors that you should seek in your SEO moderator.

Found this post helpful? We’d love to get your feedback on it and address any queries that you might have had while reading it. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us on connect@gdcs.online to clear your doubts. Also, if you are looking for an SEO Agency in India, we can help you plan & execute an SEO Strategy to optimize your website’s presence! Let’s connect!