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Fact or Fiction: SEO Edition

Fact or Fiction: SEO Edition

2017-03-23 10:00:00 | Khylie Gardner | marketing strategy

We love SEO. We use it every day. But for many people, this mysterious little acronym can be both incredibly intimidating and a little bit confusing. We all know that SEO is important, in the same way that we all know a lot of things without ever really understanding them. So, let’s clear up the confusion once and for all. Here are 5 SEO myths that are tripping you up and harming your marketing strategy.

Watch Out for these 5 SEO Myths

Keyword Research is Redundant

The number one mistake that non-SEO folks seem to make is thinking that keyword research is an unnecessary step in the process. When you skip out on your research, you’re also skipping out on the potential to create top notch content and create high quality leads for your business. Sounds like a no brainer to us – do your research! You’ll take the guess work out of your SEO and we guarantee that you’ll thank us for it later.

More Keywords = More Chances to Be Seen

Alternatively, we often hear from folks who take their keywords overboard. This can be just as big of a mistake as our first. When you overload yourself with every keyword under the sun, you reduce the chances that your content will be relevant to the people who do see it. If they see it, that is – since Google is notorious for penalizing marketers who engage in over-optimization. In SEO, balance is key. 10-12 keywords is usually the optimal range for helping to get the right eyes on your content.

Meta Doesn’t Matter

Meta tags appear underneath the title of your website’s page on search rankings and provide a description of the content on the page. While it’s true that meta tags don’t hold quite the same clout that they used to in terms of search rankings, you shouldn’t count them out yet. They give potential visitors important information about your website and about the content that you’re sharing with them.

Linking Out Makes Them Leave

Recently, we’ve seen some SEO novices warn digital marketers against linking to authority sites within the body of their content. While we can appreciate this in theory – because obviously, linking out your visitors will send them to another business’s website – you should not be afraid of losing them to bigger fish. If you are providing useful, in-depth content, your visitors will respect you as an authority and they will come back, even if you link them out of your website. This strategy allows you to establish your website in their network of resources, and become the place where they go to find other helpful resources.

Google Does the Work, Anyway

If you’re inexperienced with SEO, it’s easy to fall into this trap and think that Google’s fancy algorithms will do all of the work for you. Not so! While Google is an incredibly smart and powerful tool, it is not designed to optimize your content for you. Getting the right eyes on your website requires a lot of research and a little bit of elbow grease.

When you’re designing your SEO strategies, keep these SEO myths in mind. If you’re looking for more tips and tricks to stay at the top of the digital marketing game, check out our blog on the latest inbound marketing trends.

 

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