5 SEO myths. What is the truth about optimizing your website?
The process of optimizing your website (or SEO, in short), is a complex and difficult to understand one. How many times have you looked for SEO advice and became overwhelmed by the thousands of tips and trick available out there? So what is myth and what is not?
More so, a lot of agencies and freelancers claim to offer you optimizing your website – or even worse, they guarantee their techniques will land you on the first page – without providing any info on what their strategy actually entails. All in all, not everything that you read is true, and not all SEO technicians are going to bring you the results you desire!
This is why we’ve put together a list of the most common 5 myths about SEO. We want to make sure you do not fall for the gimmicks and promises of a quick and cheap optimization and end up with a website that is penalized by search engines.
1. "The more pages my website has, the better!"
A lot of clients believe that a big amount of pages on their websites equals more traffic. Like in the case of linkbuilding, the simple act of creating content is not enough. However, it is understandable why this myth has increased in popularity: a rich in content site should mean more keywords, therefore more chances to be noticed in the thousands of results, no?
OUR VERDICT: WRONG!
First of all, not everything you publish will be indexed. Sometimes, if it does get indexed, it won’t remain this way for ever.
For example, search engines will ignore your page because too many websites have similar content. The mere fact of being indexed does not mean more traffic or more conversions.Sadly, those who strive to have their pages filled with information, forget the fact that the main quality of content is relevance. Introduced on the market in 2011, Google’s Panda algorithm has become better and better in detecting content that is of no use to visitors. So, our advice is to write for your audience and not to attract the attention of Google, because you run the risk of being severely penalized for poorly written, duplicate content.
2. "User Experience is a bonus feature and not a requirement"
You’re thinking it’s better to focus on link-building and keywords whilst ignoring the design and functionality of your website? At the end of the day, people come on your website to find information about your company and, if you have a look at your competitors, they don’t seem to have spend much time investing in the technical aspects. So why should you?
OUR VERDICT: WRONG!
The more google grows in popularity, the more they can afford to invest in developing the algorithm they use to rank websites.
So, at least three times a year, this algorithm gets better and focuses more on UX (user experience).
It’s easy to understand why. If Google recommends a website that does not load, has broken links, is not optimized for your device, the search engines looses credibility. So, to improve UX, take into consideration loading speed, design elements, call to action buttons, fonts and images you use on your site. Install Google Analytics and you will be able to see how many visitors your website gets on a daily bases and how long people spend on your website. This way, you can adapt your layout and focus it on highlighting and delivering critical information first.
3. "Local SEO is not important."
Your business is online so it can have access to a bigger market: the entire globe, just a click away! So there’s no point in focusing on local markets, because these types of customers will already see your store, your logo, your headquarters, when they are in your area or they will find you by using they global keywords you are optimizing for.
OUR VERDICT: WRONG!
The process of optimizing your website locally, will prove extremely useful in order to be discovered when people close to your business look for services or products that you offer. Think about it: if you are looking for a dentist, you will most probably be google-ing for “dentist x area”, in which case the results you see are ranked by proximity to you.
In need of more proof? Along with the launch of the Pigeon algorithm in 2014, Google started to increase their focus on indexing local businesses, by tracking down the distance between user and the service they are looking for. Therefore, optimize your Google Business page with as much attention as you optimize your website.
4. "I don't need a mobile responsive website."
If your company sells products and services to other businesses, it’s normal that you will not be paying much attention to mobile users. At the end of the day, your clients are business people who spend all their weekdays at the office, which means that if they need you, they will be accessing your website from a desktop or laptop.
OUR VERDICT: WRONG!
In the spring of 2015, Google launched the Mobilegeddon algorithm, through which they started focusing on mobile responsive website, using this as a main ranking factor. This update penalized websites that were not optimized for mobile devices and rewarded those who did not ignore this aspect.
When we ran an analysis on over 1500 websites which were not optimized for mobile, we found a 5% decrease in their organic traffic.It is essential to focus on Responsive design so that all the content on your website adapts to any types of screens and it’s easily readable. SIDE NOTE: All our clients automatically benefit from mobile optimization with every purchased package of web design or SEO services.
5. "SEO is quick, cheap and easy."
If you’re spending most of the time reading about SEO, you will most definitely learn some of the most common strategies. optimizing your website and you will therefore believe you can implement them on your own. Or, maybe you found an agency/freelancer who promises quick results in exchange for very small prices, which makes you realize SEO is not something worth investing more time and money in.
OUR VERDICT: WRONG!
Sure, you can research SEO or even take some quick online courses, but it will be a while before you gather all the necessary information that a specialist possesses. Just like you can read a cooking book, but that will not make you become as talented as, let’s say Alain Ducasse.
And, in order to test your newly acquired knowledge you will need to use your own website as a guinea pig. This can attract severe penalties from Google and you might wake up with a worse ranking than before.
OFF- SITE SEO is expensive and lengthily, as it entails links that send directly on your website, but they need to come from reputable domains. A lot of so called specialists will offer these services for a a couple hundred euros, and, if this is the case, you should ask a few key questions: “Where will the link be posted?”“What type of websites are these? How long have they been on the market and how many users do they have?” Thousands of links from websites that have no domain authority will flag you for fraudulent use of back-linking strategy and, this way, your website will be penalized or, even worse, blacklisted.
Conclusion
Now that you know what the most common misconceptions about SEO are, how many have you been applying on your website? Understanding what is wrong and what is right in the process of optimizing your website will help you become fore efficient in your efforts to rank better.
If we had to choose one advice that is the most important from this post, we would say: focus on quality! UX and content is more important than anything else!
And, if you need help with your SEO, BrandLocked offers you customizable packages that start from 70 euros a month. Get in touch here!