SEO is a topic that can be intimidating and confusing for many. The best way to avoid those feelings is to get educated on the subject matter, which is what we hope to do with this blog post.
We’ll be covering 16 of the most common myths about SEO in order to help address some of those misconceptions. Let’s dive right in!
SEO is not a replacement for PPC
While SEO is an amazing way to get your brand in front of consumers, it is not a replacement for PPC, social media marketing, or any other method. You need to be using all the tools at your disposal if you want to succeed online!
If you think that SEO can do everything for you, you’re bound to be disappointed. Instead, think of it as an incredible way to interact with people who are already searching for your business.
SEO is a brand marketing tactic.
It should always be used in conjunction with PPC, social media marketing, and other advertising methodologies.
SEO is not a “get rich quick scheme.”
If you’re looking for shortcuts to success, SEO is probably not the right choice for you. There are no magic bullets when it comes to this field, and if you’re not willing to put in the time, you’ll never see results.
In order to see a significant impact from SEO, you can expect it to take about 90 days of intensive work before you start seeing results. If that sounds like something you’re able to handle, then keep reading!
You do not measure SEO success on revenue generated.
While it is difficult to gauge a direct connection between SEO efforts and revenue, this does not mean that you should ignore setting up metrics for your efforts.
It’s true that factors like increasing traffic can lead to increased conversions (hopefully!), but there are other aspects of SEO that are worth measuring separately in order to determine the success of your strategy.
Some of the most important metrics to look at include:
* How much traffic has your website received in a given month?
* What is that number relative to the previous year?
* What keywords are trending up that you can attribute sales too (or content)?
* In which areas of your site are your most valuable traffic coming from?
All of these metrics are important to measure, but the key is to not rely on anyone metric alone. You need to look at everything together in order to get a sense of how you’re performing.
Most businesses have an insufficient SEO budget to achieve success.
If you want to see the best results from your SEO efforts, you need to allocate a significant amount of resources towards this goal. If your company is not ready for an increased budget, then it may be best to wait before diving into SEO.
Hiring low-budget providers and expecting to see major growth will certainly not work out in your favor.
Reserve about 10% of your ad budget for SEO. If this is too much, then consider decreasing how much you spend on PPC or social media since those strategies can often yield similar conversion rates to SEO anyways.
The best search engine optimization campaigns should be managed by more than one person at a time. You need to have a dedicated team of employees to ensure that all aspects of your strategy are being done correctly.
SEO isn’t a one-man job.
You need to have a number of people working on this strategy if you want to see the best results from it. Just like any other aspect of online marketing, SEO cannot be carried out by a single person.
Most marketers do not appreciate SEO.
According to a recent survey from Clutch, only 25% of marketing professionals think that search engine optimization is valuable. This shows just how undervalued SEO is in the business world.
SEO may be one of the most important parts of your digital strategy, but many people don’t value it nearly as much as they should. If you want to be successful in business, you need to understand how important a strong SEO strategy is.
SEO requires strategy; otherwise, you will mostly waste time and money.
For your SEO effort to be successful, you need to have a strategy. If you don’t understand the basics of how it works or how to write for search engines, then you should pay for experienced help. You can’t expect someone else to do this part of your marketing without having a solid understanding of what they are doing.
Just throwing money at an un-strategized marketing strategy will not work. You need to know what you’re doing in order to be successful with SEO, and this is why it often requires a dedicated team of people in the office.
People who leave pages up after they are penalized by Google don’t understand how search engines work.
When you build links to your website, you must expect that Google (or any other search engine) will eventually find out about it and penalize your site as a result. The only way to ensure that this does not happen is by removing the page from the index. If it remains, then your site will stay penalized for a long time.
SEO Ability
A good way to find out how good someone’s SEO is is to ask them if they own a website. If they do not, then it should raise a red flag. It’s important to note that owning a website is not enough on its own since you can buy hundreds of cheap domains and still be terrible at SEO.
If the expert doesn’t have time to explain every detail of their strategy to you or does not return your phone calls in a timely manner, this is a clear sign that they are not reliable.
A good SEO provider will always take the time to explain their strategies in detail and answer any questions that you have. This person should be readily available by phone and return calls quickly if you leave messages for them. If an expert doesn’t make time for you, then they likely don’t really care about you.
You have to trust your SEO provider to do what they say they will do. Otherwise, it’s not worth hiring them in the first place. If an expert is unable to give you any evidence that their strategies work, then proceed with caution because these types of tactics are often scams or ineffective at best.
SEO is like a Treatment
You first diagnose why a site is not ranking (unoptimized content, too many ads, competing with the home page), then recommend and apply changes to excise these challenges. It requires a holistic approach, like most things in marketing.
SEO is more than just writing optimized content. You need to understand the technical side as well and also how you can use your content effectively for business. If you only focus on writing good content, then it will be difficult.
A successful SEO campaign starts with the optimization of the page’s content.
Apply the 80/20 approach.
This means spending 80% of your time optimizing content and 20% on other parts of SEO. If you’re struggling with content marketing, it can be helpful to read some beginner guides or attend a training course.
When writing optimized content, think about the end-user first and how your page will be able to answer their questions and solve their problems. This should be your goal for every page on your site. If you find that your content is too promotional in nature, then it will need to be rewritten from scratch with optimization in mind.
The style of writing used on the page (when optimized) must also match the topic and purpose of the page. Don’t use slang if you’re writing about a finance or banking service, and don’t use overly elaborate terminology when it isn’t necessary.
If you want to rank well with SEO, then your content must be written for humans first and search engines second. This means that the page needs to be relevant, original, and useful in order to attract visitors and rank for competitive keywords.
Poor understanding of analytics data.
It’s very important to understand your analytics data so that you can identify trends and make informed decisions.
If you find that an SEO provider does not appear to have a good understanding of your site’s basic KPIs (key performance indicators), then this is a worrying sign. A lack of familiarity with basic analytics will mean that they are likely unaware of your site’s most important content and the types of visitors that you are attracting.
Without this information, how can they make valuable recommendations?
Keyword research is a critical part of any SEO campaign, so it’s extremely important to choose an expert that has strong knowledge in this area.
SEO is part of the brand marketing budget.
Don’t just treat SEO as an isolated campaign. It should be seen as part of your overall marketing strategy and work to complement other activities on your site.
SEO is a long process that requires consistency in order to achieve tangible results. If you can afford to dedicate the time, then try not to run too many campaigns at once because it can confuse search engines.
New Visitor, not Conversion
SEO is not meant to increase conversions on your site but rather to bring new visitors. If you see a significant decline in conversion rates (compared to previous months or years), then it could be because too many people are arriving from search engines and clicking off immediately.
Keep this in mind when running SEO campaigns, as you should definitely rank well for key terms, but make sure your content is high quality and relevant first.
SEO Cost is getting high due to Pandemic
SEO is getting expensive these days. Some of the SEOs charge a very high premium for their services and deliver mediocre service. They don’t have any filter on how they assess clients or projects, and as the overall market gets saturated with such companies, prices have gone up.
This is not necessarily because they are providing better services, but because they are willing to charge high for it.
Linkbuilding is not as important as content creation.
Linkbuilding comes second in importance to content creation. It is only important because it helps increase trust and authority with the search engines. Without high-quality content on your site, then no one will link to it, so create great content first and then worry about earning links from others after that.
SEO should never be your only marketing strategy.
You should always have a marketing strategy that incorporates and supports your SEO campaigns. If you’re only relying on one channel to attract visitors, then you are putting all of your eggs in one basket, which isn’t very smart.
However, this shouldn’t be an excuse; just hire another company to handle everything else like PPC or SMM. Use SEO as your primary method for acquiring visitors and then use other channels to convert them into leads or sales.
SEO Needs Content Strategy First, then Tactics
Most companies start by choosing their keywords before worrying about the content that is going to be used on their site to achieve a high rank for those terms. But this is the wrong way to go about it.
Content should always come first, and then once you have a clear idea of what your content is going to be about, then you can position yourself as an expert on that topic with the help of keyword research.
You should also use off-page SEO tactics such as press releases or guest post writing to build links back to your site.
Conclusion
The state of SEO is changing rapidly.
Most businesses tend to look at the growth in search engine optimization as a burden and waste of money. This might be true if you approach search engine optimization without any strategy or plan, but this should not deter you from looking at it from a different perspective.
The key here lies in how well the company that is working on your site understands SEO. You can never get out of this game, and you should treat it as a marketing channel that will require consistent effort if you want to achieve any tangible result.
SEO is no longer about making money but more about being discovered by the people who are looking for what you have to offer in terms of products and services.
If you have any queries related to SEO, let us know in the comments below, we will reply or cover them in future articles.
