Myths and Realities of SEO

Have you ever wanted to develop a strategy to improve your SEO and didn’t know how or where to start? You probably tried to help yourself with what you found on the internet or what you’ve heard, and despite that, you haven’t had the expected results. Don’t forget that our world is full of myths that you should avoid if you want to achieve a successful strategy. In this post, we will talk about the most important myths you should avoid when developing your SEO strategy.

If you’re still wondering, “What is SEO?” SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of increasing the visibility of your website in the organic search results of different search engines. The ultimate goal is to place your website as high as possible in search results for one or more keywords. We highly recommend reading our post “What is SEO and how does it improve my website’s ranking?” to help you better understand the meaning of SEO before reading about its myths. So, without further ado, let’s get started.

MYTH 1: More links and less content.

REALITY: It’s undeniable that links are a very important part of your website’s authority. However, if you invest in content (by hiring someone to generate good content for your website, blog, etc.), you’re ensuring to achieve both results.

MYTH 2: My homepage needs a lot of content.

REALITY: Your homepage is the first impression your visitors will receive. You have to convince them at first glance of who you are, what you do, your value proposition, and what the next step they should take is. It has to be easy and quick to understand, so your page has to be simple, not too crowded with content, nor empty. You have to find a balance.

MYTH 3: The more pages my website has, the better.

REALITY: If you’ve read our last post about SEO, you know that quality should be prioritized over quantity. You must not forget that an excess of content doesn’t necessarily help your SEO. Since Google’s Panda update, the search engine can identify when content is of quality or not, so it’s better to focus on quality.

MYTH 4: SEO and Inbound don’t mix.

REALITY: This is totally false. Inbound Marketing and SEO are always connected. SEO is the first stage that consists of attracting people to your website, so that your Inbound actions can convert those people into customers.

MYTH 5: Local SEO doesn’t matter.

REALITY: Although local SEO doesn’t help you to be in the top positions of Google’s search results, it can help people near you find you more easily.

Google My Business, the preferred local SEO tool for its maps and business listing.

MYTH 6: Google will never know if I have other websites linking to mine.

REALITY: It’s a big mistake to think that way. Google knows everything, and you know it. Besides, you can get penalized for that.

MYTH 7: The more you repeat the keywords you want to rank for, the better.

REALITY: It seems logical, but it’s false. Texts that repeat certain terms many times don’t produce a pleasant experience. Therefore, you have to find the right keywords so that they are well understood and not repeated in the content of the pages.

MYTH 8: User experience isn’t important.

REALITY: It’s a fundamental factor for Google in the ranking of a website. Google analyzes several aspects to determine how the experience of each user was, if it was pleasant or not.

MYTH 9: Pay 10,000 pesos a month and you’re sure to rank #1 in everything.

REALITY: Paying a certain amount of money never guarantees you a good ranking. You have to invest knowing that you have a person/agency prepared to make a PPC strategy work and be viable.

MYTH 10: SEO is secret techniques.

REALITY: In our view, it’s not secret at all. There are plenty of articles about SEO, what it is, and its techniques. You just have to research well to find relevant information. (You can go to our Positioning section to learn all about SEO)

MYTH 11: The traffic myth: the more, the better.

REALITY: Well, no, it’s not always true. The important thing is not to have immense traffic, but one that is really interested in your offer. It’s better to have 1,000 users who are really interested in what you offer than 1,000,000 who aren’t.

MYTH 12: Better rankings = More sales.

REALITY: Having a good ranking doesn’t mean you will have more sales. It can help, but it doesn’t mean you will automatically sell more. It may be that your offer doesn’t convince the searchers, or that they only visit with another purpose than buying. That’s why it’s important to attract good traffic.

MYTH 13: By publishing more content, I will get more traffic.

REALITY: It’s more or less the same problem as number 3. Publishing a lot doesn’t mean your content is interesting and therefore will improve your ranking. It’s better to publish 1 content a week, but of very good quality.

MYTH 14: SEO is free.

REALITY: SEO is not necessarily free. There are several possibilities to invest your money. And even if you’re not willing to invest money, you will have to invest a lot of time and effort for it to work.

Great! Now you know the most common myths you should avoid when developing your website’s SEO strategy. As a reward for your progress, we’re going to present you with 2 very common mistakes that many people make when trying to develop their strategy. Avoid them and you’ll be ensuring that your SEO strategy is the most successful in your niche.

ERROR 1: SEO must be done only once, and then wait for results. Our strategy is only SEO.

That’s a fatal mistake. You have to invest a lot of time and effort to maintain good SEO; it should be seen as a long-term strategy. Also, remember that a good positioning strategy is not only composed of SEO. It’s a mix of many actions such as content marketing, social media, SEM, etc. You have to take advantage of each of these channels to get the best results.

ERROR 2: Copying other websites.

It’s the easiest mistake to make, but the worst of all