SEO myths and facts explained in detail

What is SEO?

SEO is a process through which the quality and design of a person’s website is enhanced and optimized so that it gets displayed in the top results of a search engine. Search engines display the websites that contain related information to what the user searched for, It displays copies of web pages.

Search engines rank websites on the basis of their relevance and display them in a particular order in the results. They use a computer program called Algorithm to look through all the pages and thereby returning with the relevant websites. We can not determine the exact basis of these algorithms, but some factors that it uses to return relevant information are :

• Words used in the query of the user
• The relevance and design of the pages
• The expertise of the sources
• Your location and settings
• How relatable and the quality of the content of the website

Why SEO is needed?

Let us now look at the benefits of Search Engine Optimization :

• SEO is a great marketing strategy and targets quality traffic, it has a more customer-centric approach and makes helpful information easily accessible to the user.
• The content that you add on your websites will require a lot of research and would be the initial investment. Still, once you have focused on the content, there will not be any ongoing cost to keep attracting users to your site, you do not need to pay for ads on your website as SEO makes it possible for you to avoid any ongoing cost and at the same time brings users to your website.
• It is a process followed by organizations if they want to be ranked high, according to the search engine algorithm.
• The aim of SEO is not just to provide good service to the users but also to make sure the content is relevant when a particular keyword is there in the query.
• User-friendly websites are ranked higher by the search engines, and hence the main focus of SEO is to improvise the design of the websites.
• When certain keywords are included in the query, SEO devises ways to ensure that your site, if it has the relevant content, is ranked higher, and hence there is more user traffic on the web pages.
• SEO will make your site more attractive and demonstrates to the search engines that the content on your web page is more relevant to the query.
• For instance, if you have an article that gives information about lifestyle and fashion, SEO will help you to recreate your website in such a way that when anything related to fashion is searched for, your website will be on the top results.

What are SEO myths and facts?  

There are some pieces of information related to SEO that leaves site owners confused and have been continuously believed to be true. Let’s look at some of the myths and facts related to Search Engine Optimization :

• The content is the only thing that matters

The content is an essential part of your website. Still, often we have heard information like the content is the KING, however, this might not be completely untrue but is a myth since the content is less king and more of a significant business partner to other important parts of a website :

• Links
• Design
• Usability

Usually, though, content and links are similar in the SEO world, they are very both equally important and go side by side. You must have both. One will simply not work without the other at least not well and not for a long period. Content is special but not the king. You can always have one without the other but it isn’t as effective. Technical details are needed to be added to this duo and you have the package that is the basis of all good core SEO.

• The speed of the page is not important

Good page speed will act as a tie-breaker and will help to bring your website to a higher rank. While Google looks at the overall speed, but what they consider to be most important is how long the Direct Object Model takes to load. Now what is the DOM is a question that might pop up, the DOM items are the visible items on the page except for the ads on the webpage.

• Practicing something just because the big brands are doing it

You might be following something that does not suit your website just because some big brands did it. This is very much similar to doing something stupid just because someone else did it. There goes a long history of sites copying bad website decisions from each other only because they thought the other site knew something they didn’t, and hence it would also work for them. What a particular site does may work for them and may not, it might be the best thing for them, but it might have slight chances of being effective for your site too. You are a different company altogether, and your users have different queries and intent. Do not copy big brands, try to discover something that works for you, and continue doing that.

Some facts related to SEO

• Well structured and readable URL’S are better

It is a fact that simple and readable URL’s will be easy to understand and remember for the users, it will not only cause less confusion but websites with readable URL’s have higher chances of being ranked high by the search engines as they give a glimpse of what the site contains.

• A limited number of characters in the title

It is essential to limit your title length so that it does not get cut off in the search results. It is important to create a title that would be of an appropriate length.

• Creation of a mobile site is an integral part of the growth of your website and business

In a recent survey, it was concluded that mobile searches had outranked the number of desktop searches. Google boosts the ranking of mobile-friendly pages on its search results and this can be an effective step for how your website functions and is more accessible.

SEO Myths 2020 

To improve your ranks and traffic on the website, you need to stop believing in these SEO myths that can adversely affect the growth of your website this year :

• Including tabbed content can lead to your site being penalized- it makes the site look neat and clean without causing any confusion and overcrowding on the page, this tabbed content includes the “click to expand” buttons.
• It is better to have more links on your website than content both links and content work side by side and both need to be of high quality, it was earlier that links were more valuable than the content. Quality above quantity is what applies when adding links onto your website, good content will bring you higher rankings and hence both links and content are equally important.
• SEO is all about the rankings of your site relevant and well-optimized content has good chances of higher rankings, the user needs and intent is what is focused more by search engines to select websites to be featured on the top.
• Fake social shares will boost up your website’s ranking, Many sites believe that fake shares and likes of content on their website will lead to higher rankings, however, it is only true that artificial likes and share pollute the social platform and make it hard to build real connections with the users.
• SEO is not impacted by social signals- one might have questions like what would be the SEO benefit of linking your content to Instagram/Facebook/Twitter. Likes on your social account will not boost up your Google rankings. Still, they will surely affect the accessibility and engagement with the users as it would be a positive influence among shares.

How can SEO myths cost you?

SEO requires real effort and commitment, and also a lot of misinformation is spread about SEO, and it is therefore very essential to update our information about SEO. Maintaining your SEO efforts is important because of the following reasons:

• link degradation
• publishing new pages
• evolving search engine algorithms
• outdated content and more are important for the growth of your website.

Non-relevant and scaled approach towards links should be avoided at all costs, and we should be aware of the difference between an SEO myth and fact. A great example is that when Google’s John Mueller stated that link building is something he would avoid, site owners misinterpreted it and took it out of context, many started to believe that Google will penalize you for building links on your website. Many people believe that SEO is a scam; however, it has just been confused with and related to search engine spam.