SEO has changed drastically in the last decade. Google introduced new algorithms that devastated SEO professionals, which caused many to relearn the basic fundamental of SEO. Businesses that utilized black hat techniques saw their rankings drop astronomically and struggled to regain their former ranking. SEO has changed so much over the years that many people still believe in outdated information, which only hurts them in the long run.
In a past blog entry, we listed 3 common SEO myths that many still believe today:
• “SEO is dead.”
• “SEO is a one time deal.”
• “SEO results will show up overnight.”
Since there are so many myths running rampant on the Internet, here are 3 more common SEO myths debunked!
SEO Myth 1: “The more links I have, the better.”
You may recall a time when all links were equal. That’s not the case anymore. In the past most websites accumulated links using techniques now labeled black-hat SEO.
Search engines interpreted these links as evidence of a website’s value and elevated its ranking. With the introduction of the Penguin algorithm, this began to change. Websites benefitting from black-hat link building tactics received Google penalties, which caused a dramatic drop in ranking, from which it was difficult to recover.
Over time, the Penguin algorithm has become stricter and better at identifying sites that attempt to manipulate search engine results. Search engines want to see a natural increase of links over time. This is a signal that your website provides relevant and useful content.
SEO Myth 2: “The more content my website has, the better.”
Some people believe that if you have more web pages, your website will receive more traffic. Just like link building, having more will not necessarily help you. You need to focus on quality, not quantity. If you do not have good content, you will not rank well and you will have wasted your time.
Introduced in February 2011, Google’s Panda algorithm updates have been getting better at detecting bad content. Nowadays, if you have poor content you may be at the mercy of a Panda penalty, so make sure you are creating great content that users will want to read.
Content creation is not easy nor can it be done with a snap of the fingers. Writing unique content is time consuming and needs to be done on a continuous basis, which means an ongoing commitment to generating new and original text.
SEO Myth 3: “Mobile SEO isn’t important.”
In the spring of 2015, Google introduced an algorithm update that marketers have since coined “Mobilegeddon.” This new algorithm expanded Google’s use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This algorithm rewards mobile-friendly websites and penalizes websites that aren’t optimized for mobile search results.
Due to the abundance of smart phones and tablets, our search behavior has changed. Last year, Google finally announces that mobile search surpassed desktop search. This means that while people may not be purchasing your product on their smart phone, they are searching and learning about it. In order to take advantage of this new behavior, websites must be optimized to fit the visitor’s smart phone or tablet screen.
If you want to give your visitors a rewarding experience, you need to implement responsive design into your website. Responsive design will cause your page to adapt to the visitor and will display information that is sized and zoomed appropriately, so it is easy to read on whatever device he or she is reading.
Conclusions
Since SEO is continuously evolving, it is very easy to become overwhelmed by the seemingly endless “rules.” But by taking the time to learn these rules and guidelines, you will be able to correctly identify the truth, and avoid the consequences of foolishly following these prominent SEO myths. For more about SEO and SEO myths, contact the experts at Premiere Creative or give us a call at (973) 346-8100.