It’s 2019, post Panda, Penguin, Pigeon, Possum and all the other Google algorithm updates.
So, why are you still laboring under the same old SEO ideas? Even among SEO practitioners, there are wildly different ideas of what works.
Just ask a room full of internet marketers and they’ll likely disagree on anchor text, meta tags, and links versus content.
It bears repeating that as Google gears up for yet another algorithm update, there are still lingering ideas that could penalize you.
Or worse, there are still many SEO myths out there that could waste your time for nothing. Let’s discuss the top SEO myths you may believe.
Fact vs. Fiction
After every Google algorithm update, there are always a lot of discussions about what does and doesn’t work anymore. We’ve all gotten the message that quality is the name of the game now, but how that’s achieved is often still debated about.
I’ve heard many fine business owners utter some of the following myths with no idea how much time they were wasting or the potential penalties they could be incurring.
You Need to Exactly Match Your Anchor Text
When it comes to the keywords you choose as your anchor text, you don’t need to keep repeating best digital counting scale ad nauseum.
Instead, you should be focusing on semantically linked keywords which help to make your text more diverse, organic, and less spammy sounding.
The reality is that people search under multiple words and phrases. To capture more of that traffic, you should be including more keywords into your content.
SEO is All that Matters to Gaining Customers
The truth is, that while SEO is helpful, it is not the be all end all. In fact, people seek out their content in different sources and trust a variety of sources to point them in the right direction.
If you are trying to rank for Librestream remote mentoring keywords, focusing solely on SEO and not on other tools that could help boosting your marketing campaign, you may miss out on benefits such as new customers that other tools such as pay per click advertising and public relations can bring.
Blog Comments will Add Some Boost to Your Ranking
These days, we’re all used to being spammed by bots trying to leave thousands of comments about boner pills on our blogs. So, most people now use software which blocks these bots, adds the domain to a blocked list, or adds “nofollow” links.
A “nofollow” link or a blocked domain won’t help you to rise higher in the rankings. The comments that do get by will likely be on low ranked sites, providing little, if any boost at all.
Social Media Is Not Valuable to SEO
SEO is now being influenced more than ever by social media. Social signals actually help your content to get ranked higher in search engines.
This is because Google gives priority to content you engage with socially, including anything you’ve connected to socially or reposted.
Your friends and followers are likely to see these posts more prominently as well, helping your SEO in the end.
Linking to High Ranking Sites Improves Your Ranking
Some business owners labor under the idea that if they link out to enough businesses, their rankings are improved.
Unfortunately, this time waster does not provide users with the quality that search engines show preference for. Links aren’t going to provide the value that people seek when they’re searching Google.
The Number of Links Determines Your Ranking
The truth is that while we’d all like a lot of high quality sites linking to our content, a single link from a high valued site such as CNN or Huffington Post could be much more valuable in both terms of SEO and in terms of publicity than hundreds of low quality spam links.
If you manage to get links from high-quality sites, the anchor text matters. It would be better your business name, or related branding keywords, but also something like learn more will work!
All You Need to do is Buy Links
Even after the algorithm updates penalized people, many business owners still actively believe that buying links is the only way to go. And many SEO companies are happy to try and sell link portfolios which often turn out badly for the business’ website.
Don’t take the chances, or your website will get penalized with these links.
Update Your Efforts
As Google prepares to unveil new updates, your business should update its SEO efforts.
It’s time to get your SEO under control and to run a nice clean campaign.
If you’re still laboring under these old SEO myths, you could face consequences for your misunderstandings.
Hello,
I can’t believe that all these days I was believing these myths,
Thanks to this amazing post, I came to know the reality.
Thank you for sharing this amazing article.
I’ve seen still make the mistake of buying the links. While you may see a boost at first this way, once google figures it out, you are bound to be penalized. Thanks for this, great read.
Erik,
I am surprised and a little worried about how I missed watching out this blog so many days. As usual, the simple but the most helpful article about SEO myths to make ourselves matured and understand the essentials. And, rightly said about buying backlinks. That is never appreciable as a white hat SEO practice. Even a single backlink that built naturally is more valuable than hundreds and thousands of unnatural backlinks bought.