Common SEO Myths and Misconceptions

The big buzzword (or phrase) today regarding website content, including article writing and blog writing is SEO, which stands for search engine optimization.  There are experts in the field of SEO who get paid to optimize your website. Some of them get paid a lot. There are experts out there who give free advice.  What should you believe? Search engines change their algorithm constantly and in the last decade or so a lot has changed.

Just like anything that goes through changes, some old techniques still linger and persist.  Search Engine Optimization has evolved significantly even in the last few years. It is important to know that up to date research should be part of applying SEO techniques. (So, check the date of this article).

The myths and misconceptions fall into a few general categories. There is some debate, but these few are reasonably accepted as misconceptions.

This myth may have been true at one point, but search engines have caught on to this tactic.  Avoid link farms and any type of link exchange service.  Google and other search engines are aware of these sites, so it is wise to avoid them. 

Obviously, there will be times, two people will exchange links, especially within their niches.  This will not hurt your ratings.  It is the unnatural reciprocal link behavior that will be real obvious to a search engine.

There are rumors that there is some magic formula for the proportion of keywords one should have on a website. These claims state that if you have the right amount of keywords, your search engine ranking will go up. It is true that you do need to have the right keyword on your page, there is no formula and overstuffing your article or post with keywords is not recommended. 

Not only will it not help and look spammy, but the content will suffer.  It is best to just insert them naturally and not force them in your content.

This is another outdated method that is not necessary anymore.  Search engines do this automatically. If you have a new site, you may consider doing this, and today it is pretty easy to do. 

Never pay for this service!  There are people out there trying to website owners to fork over some cash to get their site submitted to 500 top search engines.  I think you know who the top search engines are and they do not require a fee, so no one else should – SCAM alert!

While it is a good idea to put tags for RELEVANT keywords, loading up with keywords that are not related to your content in hopes of getting more traffic will not work.  Doing this looks spammy and is not a recommended SEO technique.  Be sure the keywords are related to your content and are keywords searchers would use.

There is some truth to this, but it is not as critical as once believed. It is good to have fresh content, but there are stale sites out there that still have good rankings. A good rule of thumb is stay consistent with current updates, but don’t stress if there are several days in between updates.

The bottom line is be smart about SEO, look to a variety of experts, and don’t try to game the system.  If you have a site with consistently good content, and natural backlinks, you should be fine.  Pay attention to keywords, but place them in your content naturally.  I learned quite a bit about keyword research from the Keyword Academy – I would recommend checking them out!

Please see the links below for more information from the experts on SEO myths and misconceptions.