A Look At Prevailing Myths About SEO – PART 2

In the First Part of SEO Myths article, I had examined a number of myths about SEO that exist in the world of Internet Marketing. In this second post I will examine some more myths associated with SEO.

H1 Header has More Value than all Your other Text

Your page structure is seen by search engines, but different sites are structured differently. One specific tag does not have more value than others. Since an H1 tag is only a header that relates to a CSS to enable the user to see your page in a particular way, Google will rank your webpage differently if you use H2 tags.

Header tags like H1/H2 matter for search engines see your site’s layout. So you must have sensible headers which include your keywords to let search engine know what your content is all about. But the headers’ style or size doesn’t matter for search engines are interested in usability and content, not the creative style.

Linking to Highly Ranked Sites Will Help Your Ranking

Linking to several other higher ranked sites so as to help their ranking will be of no help. Google makes use of PageRank to rank your site. That algorithm sees how useful your website is to others, and so it will only see the number of people who are linking back to you. It is not important if you link back to them.

Title Tag is Concealed From Search Engines

Most of the stuff that Google sees on your website is the text that users also can see, like what shows up on the screen and is delivered to a web browser. It would be too simplistic to imagine that the title is not noticed. The title is essential for SEO, as it is the text which appears on the link that people will click on. Google uses it for your ranking, and people too will see it when they click on your website.

Usability is Ineffective for SEO

The aim of SEO is to attract traffic and keep people glued to your website so they can purchase or be entertained by your services and products. So, usability is essential for SEO because it will make the difference between people coming to your site or not and staying there for long. Search engines also look at both usability and layout.

.gov, .edu Backlinks are Best

Most .gov and .edu sites have good rankings and high authority, mainly because these are official sites; they are well maintained and don’t contain spam. But, benefit from a backlink from these sites will be good only if the site has high authority. You will not benefit because it is a government or educational site.

SEO Depends on Number of Links Website has

SEO success and good ranking cannot be achieved by having maximum number of backlinks. Ranking algorithms of search engines are based on many varied factors. For successful SEO, therefore, you must pay attention to all these factors.

Backlinks More Essential than Content

If your content is of poor quality it means that your website is of no use to anyone. Then all those extra links will not benefit you. If your content is good then you will help your site in the long run. At times you could be persuaded to concentrate on link building and not on content. But it’s good content that will automatically get you links. Thus backlinks are not more essential than content.

Google Will Ban You if You have Paid Links

There are many ways to obtain links; some of them involve paying some money. But not all links that are paid for are bad. It depends how the payment is done. For instance many sites provide advertising services. One can purchase an advertisement on Adwords and go to another advertisement network. Besides, many sites have their own advertising services. While some won’t give you any ranking, some others may and these are totally legitimate. If you buy poor quality links in large quantities Google will de-index your site.

Google AdWords will Provide You Special Treatment

Adwords is a very helpful Google program; it helps you to place an advertisement on other websites to publicize your own site. It must form an element of all e-commerce marketing campaigns. But AdWords will not help to enhance your ranking. To think that Google will treat you in a special way because you pay for their services is wrong.

SEO is Done Only Once

SEO isn’t something you do once and forget it. It is an ongoing process that is done over a long period, in fact as long as the site lasts or is used. The web is changing constantly. New rivals come on the scene, search engines modify their algorithms, new marketing opportunities appear and good links become stale and unimportant. If you constantly take stock of your SEO endeavor, you will maintain your good ranking and be able to focus on new methods that could work better.

Numerous Links on a Page can get you Penalized

Don’t be scared to place lots of links on a page. Some people feel that having plenty of links on a page can adversely affect your rankings. For instance, if your landing page has one hundred links Google will penalize you. You must not indulge in link spamming on a page; if the links are relevant and essential to typical navigation of your website you won’t get penalized.

Internal Links Unimportant For SEO

Many SEO experts design in terms of backlinks only and so focus more on getting links from other websites to their pages. Internal linking is essential too. Your internal links must be well created to make navigation at your site easy. Poor internal navigation will be detected by Google and they may penalize you.

Tweets, Facebook Likes are the Main SEO Factors

Signals from social media sites are fed into search engines in actual time. No business can ignore the social media, due to the large amount of time that people spend on Twitter or Facebook. But no social site is more special than others and Facebook likes is just another SEO technique.

Keywords Relevant No Longer

In the last few years well-informed marketers have come to know that keyword stuffing is not needed any longer and is greatly discouraged by the search engines. But keywords remain important and inserting some in the actual text remains essential.

Keywords Have to be Exact Matches

When people type some words into a search engine the words should match what they are seeking. But some argue in favor of using words other than your chosen keywords. The large majority of words have plenty of synonyms and mostly people type in these synonyms. So if you use a bigger choice of keywords, you can expect to capture those searches also.

When your SEO’s Good, You Don’t Require PPC Marketing

Certain sites will spend plenty of time on SEO and obtain terrific results but still too PPC strategies can be helpful. Surveys have shown that frequently the same people who click on natural links also click on ads. It can thus be worthwhile to do SEO as well as PPC – if you can afford it. Besides, PPC links are not hurt by Google algorithms.

A Long Domain Name Will Rank Easier

In the days when search engines looked for keywords in the domain name, it would help to use a long domain name for good ranking. But now you must choose a domain name to enable users identify your brand. It’s not used for SEO reasons.

Backlinks to Blog Comment are Always Helpful

Many SEO methods advocate leaving forum and blog comments as a means to enhance your ranking. But there are 2 problems pertaining to this. Firstly, these backlinks will generally end up on sites that have low authority which will not benefit you however many you add. What’s worse is that many forums and blogs add a tag named ‘nofollow.’ This means search engines won’t take account of any link left behind.

.COM always Ranks Better than .NET or .ORG

Leaving a link on an .edu or .gov site won’t automatically lift your ranking. It’s the same with a .com as well as an .org or .net. Search engines don’t consider domain extension when they rank websites.

Directory Links Don’t Work Anymore

When search engines were not very developed, many people would make use of directories to find websites. But now the majority of marketers don’t care about directory links for they feel that search engines are sufficient. But remember, these directories can count as links too.

Better to have More Content

Quality content is a vital factor for a successful site. Adding content regularly helps you for you get more indexed content which people can find. But if you add more words only to have a better chance of figuring in the rankings can be confusing. When you don’t have any keywords and if the content is long and dull, you may isolate your readers.

Articles Content is the Best One

Articles are frequently seen as the finest way to attract traffic, either by way of article marketing or blog posts on your website. But if people don’t know your content exists, they will not see it. So you must do fundamental SEO practices to augment your traffic.

Nofollow Links are Worthless

Due to the nofollow feature you will find that leaving backlinks on forums or blogs won’t help your ranking. But not all nofollow links are useless. The links have two utilities – they gain ranking and also lead traffic to your page.

Google Dislikes SEO

Google’s strictness and the way they observe SEO practices make some feel that Google doesn’t appreciate SEO. But Google itself has said that this is not true. So, all companies, small or big, optimize their websites.

Good SEO is Typically About Trickery

False. There are certain SEO experts who try to trick Google. But this is certainly not the way to good SEO. High quality SEO means creating an informative and relevant website that has great UX and unique content.

I have gone through a pretty large number of SEO myths in this post. If you have any other myths about SEO you wish to explore, kindly share them in the comment section.