8 SEO Myths That Could Be Hurting Your Business Ranking
Considering that 53% of all trackable site traffic can be credited to organic search, SEO is something that you should embrace if you want your business to succeed.
In fact, more statistics suggest that the majority of businesses are investing at least $5,000 on SEO.
But while it is crucial to follow SEO best practices and invest in them, you should also be very careful to steer away from SEO myths that could be hurting your business ranking.
We are talking about SEO myths such as SEO isn’t relevant for small businesses, syndicate content negatively impacts your SEO, Meta tags are insignificant, and so on.
Let’s bust 8 of the SEO myths in this article to save your business from sinking. You should debunk them right now!
1. SEO isn’t relevant for small business
Every online business, large or small, needs SEO to drive organic traffic to their website by ranking their site in search engines and offering a great user experience.
You can say that not every business has an equal chance of succeeding when it comes to SEO. For instance, when you have a small hardware store, you can’t possibly knock off Amazon of rank one for search terms such as hammer in the foreseeable future.
However, as small businesses, you can leverage local and/or low-volume keywords, get backlinks, and boost your domain authority.
As people begin to see your site as a valuable resource, Google will also take notice. And as a result, your search rankings will pick up.
You should also assist Google in understanding where your business is located so that it will place you in the right local search results. For that, you need to have updated contact info wherever necessary- for instance, on your contact page or in your site footer.
And don’t forget to set up a Google My Business account. It will aid you in ranking in your specific geographical area.
Also, see that the name, address, and phone number on your website and your Google My Business listing are the same.
2. Syndicate content negatively impacts your SEO
Don’t confuse syndicate content with copied content or article spinning. A third party publishes syndicate content after taking it from a source while citing the source and taking no credit for the article. It does not infringe Private Label Rights.
As long as you follow the correct procedure and cite the source, syndicated content will not get you penalized, nor will it harm your site’s SEO. In fact, it can help you if you implement it as an amplification technique. You will be able to reach a broader audience.
If you go online, you will find plenty of trustworthy sites that post syndicated content. They have numerous people subscribed to the newsletter and RSS feed via services such as Feedly.
Here’s an example:
3. Meta tags are insignificant
Meta tags are HTML tags that share info about a page. Though they are not visible on the page itself, you can see them in the source code of the page. Meta tags help search engines to understand what a website page is about.
Meta tags are added to the head part of an HTML page and can be seen only by search engines. They can make your search results eye-catching, thus attracting more clicks from users.
There are three elements of a Meta tag- title tag, Meta Description, and Meta keyword or phrases.
The title tag that appears in the <head> part of a page is an essential page element. The Meta description explains to search engines what your page is about.
For instance, if you Google the phrase “meta keywords,” you might get this result:
Note that the Meta description tag will not come up in the results for a search at all times. Google often chooses a text snippet from the page itself.
And Google itself has stated that using keywords or phrases in Meta descriptions is not a ranking factor. Nevertheless, when you create a persuasive Meta description tag, you will be able to convince searchers to click through from the SERP to your website. And this might indirectly increase your rankings.
While creating Meta descriptions, make them descriptive, unique, and short. The Meta description limit placed by Google is 160 characters or fewer.
If you are a WordPress user, you can consider availing WordPress page speed optimization service as site speed is also a crucial Google ranking factor.
4. Google penalizes links in comments and forums
Not all community engagement is harmful. Placing links in comments and forums is not infringing Google’s quality guidelines.
Of course, generally speaking, there are forums and links in comments that are of low-quality, thanks to spammers. All through the years, many forums were barraged by regular spam messages. They came from marketers attempting to take advantage of a captive audience and build tons of spammy links. Since forums were popular, the spammers put their focus on them.
That being said, there are plenty of credible forums and social communities that are built on UGC. They offer valuable info, tips, and advice from experts and specialists. Forums such as Reddit, Moz Forum, WebmasterWorld, and Quora are some examples.
Make sure that your comments are interesting and offer value to the reader. Only then, the readers will visit your website following the link you placed, impacting SEO.
5. Social signals do not impact SEO
While a “like” on a social media channel won’t affect Google rankings, they can persuade people to share and engage. There is not a direct ranking signal in Google’s ranking algorithm.
The search engine treats social posts like it treats web pages for search. However, it is not to be understood that social signals have zero SEO value since they can indirectly impact rankings.
Social signals can help in brand building and increasing traffic, thus boosting your Google rankings.
Here are the significant signals that can boost your rankings:
Social shares
Social impressions
Creator impressions
Links and mentions
As per a study, having a solid social media presence is linked with better rankings. Online studies also claim that Facebook post engagement can impact organic search CTR. A study found out that Facebook posts with extremely high engagement rates have organic search CTR beyond expectations.
Eventually, it is about creating engaging content. If you are active on social media and are able to create engagement, you can attract a broader audience and send traffic to your site.
Also, if your audience finds your content interesting, they will most probably share the info and organically amplify it. You will be able to easily find influencers and increase your links, which will enhance your SEO efforts.
Social engagement indicates to Google that your site is trustworthy. Thus, these signals have an indirect influence on SEO and a substantial impact on rankings.
6. Domain age affects ranking
This is an SEO myth that you need to debunk right away. Just because your site has been up and running for years, it doesn’t mean search engines will rank it on top of its search.
Google itself has announced that domain age doesn’t count. It is true that a site that has been up and running for many years has had plenty of time to build high-value backlinks. However, it has also had enough time to make serious errors.
7. Buying backlinks works
Want to signal Google that others vouch for your content? Build backlinks ethically. You can follow strategies such as writing guest posts, commenting on other relevant blogs, building broken links, and so on.
However, never make the mistake of buying backlinks. It will never work. There are many shady companies that will add your links on many low-value sites and try to fool Google. But Google, as you know, is smart.
Google will flag you for this and penalize your domain. It will spoil your brand reputation for good. While building links, offer people valuable info and a great user experience. You will have to work to earn qualified backlinks. They cannot be bought.
8. Links dominate over the content
Many people think that links dominate over content with regards to SEO. In reality, it is not so. In fact, there has to be a happy medium between the two for things to work.
Google keeps tweaking its algorithm, and it is evident that simple backlinks are not effective. The quantity of your backlinks matters as much as the quality. Thus, you need to create impeccable quality content to be able to maintain that balance.
Wrap up
It is crucial for every business, large or small, to invest in SEO. But it is equally important to invest in carrying out effective SEO strategies. There are plenty of myths around SEO that could be hurting your business ranking. If you aren’t able to debunk them right now, you will be simply wasting your time and money as you will be following all the wrong strategies.
Refer to this article while building your business SEO strategy so that you can execute your plan in an effective manner. Do away with the 8 SEO myths mentioned above and up your SEO game.
About Author
Lucy
Lucy is a creative content writer and strategist at Marketing Digest. She specializes in writing about digital marketing, technology, entrepreneurship, and education. When she is not writing or editing, she spends time reading books, cooking, and traveling.