SEO Myths and Misconceptions

There's a no defined SEO blueprint to fall back on!

Every website is unique and needs a tailored SEO strategy to get crawled, indexed and ranked well in search engines. Out there on the Internet, you’ll find articles, forum threads, newsletters and emails that talk about SEO tactics. But some of these tactics can be discarded as SEO myths.

Many SEO professionals and marketers have spewed out these SEO myths to delude their clients to reap in $. Newbie SEO professionals and ecommerce business owners become the real victim as they gobble up these myths without a second thought. I was one of the victims at the hands of these myths, and now when I look back at the start of my internet marketing career I merely laugh at my naiveté.

With this blog post, I just wanted to share few SEO myths and misconceptions that I have heard and read.

SEO Myths and Misconceptions

Myth 1: Once your site reaches the top position, it will remain there forever – if that was the case then internet marketing and SEO firms would fade away very soon.

Myth 2: In link building quantity overpowers quality - Definitely not, quality always wins. You may ask a question, how to build a quality link for my online store?

Myth 3: Do not build links aggressively - You should thrust-aside this if your website is smart enough to get natural backlinks from other like-minded professionals/users.

Myth4: Reciprocal link is good and will provide an SEO success – Gone are the days of old school SEO. It depends on how smartly you use it.

Myth5: There is a one specific or defined factor that will help your site rank well in search engines. No, the actual SEO requires lot of work. It comprises of…

Your business goals and thresholds
Online marketing strategy
Competition research
Keyword research
Information architecture and internal link building
Website design and development
Compelling copywriting with users and search engines in mind (continuous effort)
Quality link building/baiting (continuous effort)
Mixing social media strategy into SEO
Web analytics and conversion optimization
Never ending process

Myth6: Site structuring doesn’t matter in SEO – Hey, it matters a lot. It helps spiders and users to read your content.

Myth 7: Don’t bother about duplicate content – For that matter, most retailers use manufacturer’s product description on their site. That’s definitely not good for users and search engines. Please don’t do it.

Myth 8: Dedicated hosting is good for SEO – Is it so? Check this dedicated hosting, shared hosting, and SEO. Don’t forget to check what matt-cutts comments on dedicated and shared hosting. BTW, check out this funny picture of Matt Cutts. Thanks to BigOak for sharing this.













Myth 9: Google PPC ranking may harm your SEO ranking – Oh my God! This is really a big myth. There is absolutely no connection between Google’s PPC listings and organic listings.

Myth 10: Search engines pay a lot of attention to Meta keywords - I don’t think so. You need not bother about this too much. If you really want to get your hands into it, then use only relevant keywords without spamming and stuffing.

Myth 11: Submitting sites to 1000’s of directories will get you on top of SERP– Absolutely not, you’d simply be wasting your valuable time and money by doing so.

Myth 12: Search engines are the only channels to market your product– It is true that search engines are a great traffic puller, but there are other online marketing channels like comparison shopping engines, internet marketplaces, etc that give good traffic and sales.

Myth 13: Keyword density should be of 2-5% and is a real mantra for SEO success - There is no specific KD to be followed. Many newbie SEOers still practice this a definite SEO tactic.

Myth 14: Google Page rank is dead - No, it is still alive. GPR is one of the SEO factors, but remember it is not everything.

Myth 15: Having mirror sites will fetch you a good rank – This is same as duplicate content in others, which is of no use.

Myth 16: W3C validation will definitely rank your site higher – There are many e-commerce sites that are not w3c compliant but still rank in search engines. Don’t bother too much about this, but build your site with no major errors.

Myth 17: Content should have minimum of 250-300 words – Even shorter copies/content do good in search engines. There is no such defined numbers. Write unique product copies with clear cut marketing message filled with targeted keywords.

Myth 18: Search engine optimized sites will for sure rank high – Thumbs down! There is no such guarantee.

Myth 19: SEO can be done by anyone – No, Tom, Dick and Harry cannot do SEO. It is not easy.

Myth 20: Sitemap can guarantee SEO rankings – Actually No, your site should be spider friendly.

There are many such SEO myths that has shuddered the entire SEO community. It is wise to brainstorm every time you hear a strange SEO tactic. Discuss the concept with your peers and other SEO professionals to validate it.

More SEO Myths are Welcome... :-)