Stunting Your Website's Growth

As a result, myths often creep in and begin to errantly guide the SEO practices of less experienced practitioners.

Most of these myths are old practices and hacks that Google has long since invalidated with updates to their algorithms, while others are simply an over emphasis of smaller elements in the much bigger SEO picture.

Either way, when put into practice on your website, many of these myths will mysteriously frustrate and stunt the growth of your organic Web traffic.

12 SEO Myths Stunting Your Website's Growth

SEO IS A HIGHLY COMPLEX AND EVER-CHANGING MARKETING DISCIPLINE.

So.... What are the myths?

This is a myth perpetuated by the sales copy of snake oil-selling SEO charlatans.

Get Ranked #1 for Your Keywords is the tagline of thousands of these shady SEO

firms and consultants.

The truth is, it’s near impossible to rank #1 for the most highly competitive

keywords on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). And often the less competitive

keywords, where you can rank #1 position, aren’t worth the effort.

In addition, there is some research supporting strong click behavior and conversion

in a variety of positions all the way through the top slots on subsequent search

result pages.

There are also lots of opportunities to level the playing field leveraging the features

of universal (i.e., mixing Local, Image, and Video results) search, rich snippets, and

appended author profiles; all of which significantly raise click-through rates.

This myth is gaining strength, especially among less technical marketing

agencies.

As Google’s algorithm has become more sophisticated it has become less

susceptible to keyword tricks, but that doesn’t lessen the relevance of keywords.

Keywords and text are the still the most measurable indicators of relevance to

guide search engine indexing and results. Keywords are also the most reliable

indicator of consumers’ request for products, services, and information.

Therefore, keyword research is critical to learning the language of

your customers. Without this research and intelligence, you’re

simple producing content, products, and services in a vacuum

and hoping for the best.

You would be shocked at the number of times I have had clients

using, and consequently ranking well, for insider-type keywords.

The result? They were drawing in industry insiders and even

competitor traffic, but completely missing their potential

customer base.

The need to target exact keyword matches with your SEO is a very common misperception.

In my opinion, SEO keywords are better thought of as clusters of related concepts versus

discrete keywords. Trying to rank or create content for an exact keyword is both frustrating

and fruitless at the same time.

This is also the reason and source of the mountains of horrible SEO articles, littering the

Web, devoid of character, rarely ranking, and offering no value to consumers.

Avoid loading up your website with this kind of thin content, obviously meant only to serve

an SEO motive. A website full of exact keyword content is more likely to look like a content

farm, both to Google and to customers, than a website to serve customers.

Google hates low quality content websites produced by this kind of keyword-exact SEO

tactic and is highly likely to penalize the website.

Focus on putting yourself in the shoes of those doing the keyword searches. Then, create

content that answers their questions in the most authentic, simple to understand, and

complete way possible. This SEO keyword strategy is a winning formula for growth.

As search engine algorithms increase in

sophistication, they become increasingly less

dependent on clues provided by webmasters.

Google and the other search engines are using

meta data and meta tags less and less to index and

rank websites. Yet, the mythical importance of meta

tags, particularly meta keywords, continues

unabated.

In the interest of providing you, the reader, the best

value for your search, (as authors should strive to

do with any piece of SEO-related content) here’s

the truth, straight from the horse’s mouth--Matt

Cutts, Google’s Head of Search Quality team:

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Before I dive into this one, I don’t want there to be any confusion

about the importance of on-page SEO. Well-structured Web pages

are highly valuable to Web visitors and search engines, however,

it’s not the end of the game.

Search engines look for hundreds, possibly even thousands of

indicators and signals to determine your Web pages’ quality,

relevance, and ranking position.

Therefore, ending your SEO strategy at the individual page level is

stopping short of giving your website the opportunity to reach its

full potential.

A healthy blend of on-page optimization and off-page SEO

techniques, like link building, PR activities, and social media

syndication, develops a strong holistic strategy for positioning your

website in front of customers.

This is another one of those SEO myths that are the result of overemphasizing a truth, to the

detriment of the whole.

Yes, link building is terribly important, but it’s only effective in to the context of a larger SEO

strategy.

For example, if you have ten pages and hundreds of links to each you’re very unlikely to

outperform a website with hundreds of pages and a handful of high quality links to the

majority of those pages.

The truth of this example is grounded in numerous elements of the bigger SEO picture.

Perhaps the most powerful of these factors is that search engines gain an understanding of

your website’s value and relevance based on both external signals like back links, and

internal signals like the breadth and depth of content.

The short lesson here is to avoid stunting your website growth with too much focus on one

good thing, to the detriment of other good things.

This is a myth born in the bowels of

business development teams with

advertising agencies.

To ignore SEO in the development of

content or design is to ignore the

preferences and expectations of your

customers. SEO should be an integrated

component of any content marketing or

design project related to your website.

SEO is more than just optimizing for

search engines--it’s optimizing for what

your customers are looking

(searching) for on the Web.

SEO can be a powerful part of the

creative process, putting consumer

intelligence into your content

marketing and web design.

Integrating keyword research and

analysis into the content and design

process will attract and convert the

traffic you gain from search queries

at a much higher rate than without

an SEO focus.

In the SEO process,

it’s wise not to confuse quantity over quality.

Flooding the Web with useless pages is not something that Google

or any other search engine likes.

Sure, temporarily, you might be able to sneak a few junk pages into

the SERPs or get an automated web scraper or script to bump the

number of ranked pages, but just know that Google will be gunning

for you!

Efficiency is the name of the game in SEO. Quality content is

enormously expensive, both in terms of money or time. Therefore,

your objective is to maximize the impact of each and every page

you have indexed--large or small in number.

8. THE MORE INDEXED PAGES THE BETTER

I’ve said this a couple of times in this

article, but I’ll reiterate it again.

Anytime you litter the Web with websites

and/or pages for the sole purpose of

gaming search engines--you’re setting

yourself up to lose.

Techniques like Webrings and Link Wheels

are dangerous tactics from the Wild Wild

West days of old-time SEO. Search engines

have become much smarter at sorting out

related websites, and discounting links

between similarly controlled websites.

There are times when microsites make

sense, but make sure that your objectives

are business and consumer value related,

not SEO trickery.

This might have been true in the early days of social media, but since then,

Google and other search engines have recognized the power of the people to

sort out the best of the Web.

Today, social media and social signals, as they are often called in the SEO world,

are inextricably interwoven. For proof, check out this oft-referenced Danny

Sullivan article on what social signals search engines use in ranking web pages.

Here is a little more detail from Google’s Matt Cutts on the role of social signals

and search engine rankings:

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Search engines optimize results for users, helping them

efficiently and effectively find what they’re looking for

on the Web. SEO should do the same thing, but for

search engines, helping them efficiently and effectively

find and index what should be ranked in relevant

searches.

Therefore, using nothing more than simple logic, SEO is

a usability exercise, by definition. Organic search

remains one of the top means of navigation on the Web

and probably on your website, assuming you make it

available (as you should). And for good reason,

navigation is one of the most important usability

concerns of any UX expert.

The very core of SEO is about organizing content in a

logical and easy to find manner.

If you’re in UX, I would highly recommend adding an

SEO expert to your team. You’ll be amazed at how

happy your users will be about it.

I saved the debunking of one of the biggest

and worst myths for last: SEO is not a set it

and forget it practice.

SEO is an evolving process. The Web is an

ecosystem, always reshaping and reinventing

itself. In response, search engines and Web

users are always reacting and changing their

behaviors. Even your own website is most

likely a dynamic place that radically changes

over time, based on your reactions to the

market and customer needs.

This dynamism, this constant change, makes

SEO a process that needs continual

observation, testing, and revision for best

results.

Simply creating an effective SEO framework

today and walking away will leave you

scratching your head in a few months when

your website is mysteriously hemorrhaging

organic search traffic.

For the best SEO results: keep learning, observing, testing, and adjusting to stay on the cutting edge of improving user experience on the Web.More SEO Resources:2013 Search Engine Ranking Factors24 Eye-popping SEO StatisticsSocial Media and Search Engines8 Simple Tricks to Increase Your Search Engine Rankings and CTRGoogle Penguin 2.0 Casualties: Why Sites Got Hit

That each page should be targeted at a particular keyword

market, have good on-page optimization, and quality

backlinks and social signals indicating that it’s a valuable

resource.

The more time you maximize this combination the more likely

search engines are going to position your page in a favorable

position to capture search traffic.