Some Common SEO Myths That You Should Know About
According to research by Weidert Group, there are an average of 6.5 billion web queries every day, and millions of websites, many of them competing for the attention of your prospects.
To rank as high on the search engine results page as possible for terms related to your products and services — and the problems they solve — you need to master search engine optimization tactics.
To understand SEO misconceptions, let’s start by answering the most basic question: What is SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of using tools and methods to increase the quantity and/or quality of traffic to a website organically (non-paid advertising). It’s not attempting to improve quantity or quality using paid ads that appear in search results.
According to research by Weidert Group, there are an average of 6.5 billion web queries every day, and millions of websites, many of them competing for the attention of your prospects.
SEO is not a straightforward topic, which is why so many misconceptions have popped up over the years.
Below are some we hear most often:
1. “Rank is all that matters.”
Although search rank will always be a measurement of success, it’s important to look beyond whether a website holds the first or second position on the search engine results page (SERP). Today it’s pretty common for two users to get completely different SERPs based on what they have previously searched for, and the context in which they're searching.
Although rank can be a measure of success, it should not be the only one. Remember, too, that a good SEO strategy is about attracting people to your site; if your traffic is improving, you’re seeing success.
2. “My Content can only have one topic.”
There’s nothing wrong with focusing on a niche vertical with your content, but all businesses should be open to including multiple broad topics. A larger content reach can tell Google that your site has broader appeal, with the result that more traffic is brought to your site.
Even if you’re in a niche industry, there are connections to other related topics that potentially bring in additional qualified leads.
3. “I need to target high search volume keywords.”
Chunky middle and long-tail keywords will yield more qualified traffic than short-tail keywords which everyone is using. [As an example, by targeting the search term “whey protein ingredients for commercial dairy applications,” you will get more qualified traffic than by targeting the keywords “whey protein.”]
4. “I only need to do SEO for my website.”
Search engines weigh multiple sources on the internet, including social media platforms and online press releases, so optimization must be executed for everything you do online — videos, image alt tags, Twitter updates, etc.
5. "Search engines only search textual content."
Although the text on the page is important, there are many other on-page factors that influence your search engine results page rankings.
Wrap Up
Search engine optimization can be intimidating, even for people who have experience with it.
You need an expert team of SEO and content marketers to optimize your content strategy by enabling the key insights into what really affects your rankings and outline tactics that any industrial manufacturer (any company, really) can implement.