What do the following statements have in common?
All sharks die if they stop swimming.
Cats only purr when they are happy and content.
Alcohol will warm you up.
These are all misconceptions that have already been debunked, but which many still believe in. SEO – search engine optimization – is an area where there are plenty of such claims circulating.
There is a lot of superficial or even completely false information about SEO that discourages many companies from trying to optimize their websites for search engines. We are here to dispel the most common misconceptions about SEO optimization and help you better understand the potential of this form of digital marketing.
What myths about SEO optimization need to be dispelled as soon as possible?
1. "It's enough to do SEO once."
If you view search engine optimization as a one-time activity, you're wrong from the start. Unlike time-based marketing methods such as Google Ads campaigns , SEO involves continuous efforts and is done with the aim of achieving long-term results that need to be maintained.
First of all, web search engines are constantly monitoring user needs and jordan phone number data frequently introduce various updates and new ranking factors. So, even after you see results from one SEO investment, it is guaranteed that there will be new trends and changes that you need to keep up with if you want to keep up (and improve even more).
Take learning a foreign language for example. Only by working consistently can you achieve good results and progress. If you take a long break from learning, not only will you not progress, but you may even forget a good part of what you have previously learned.
The situation is similar with SEO optimization, because there is always an opportunity for improvement and something new to learn. If you leave SEO aside, you will be overtaken by competitors who are consistently working on optimizing their websites and your online presence will slowly but surely fail.
2. “You don’t need SEO optimization if you’re already investing in PPC.”
PPC marketing , unlike SEO optimization, is a one-time activity. It is usually very cost-effective and brings good results and gains, but only in the short term. This is one of the reasons why as many as 70% of marketing experts consider SEO to be a far more effective technique than PPC.
However, in addition to increased sales, some of the benefits of paid advertising include better online visibility and increased brand awareness. Unfortunately, this often leads to the mistaken conclusion that PPC also brings a website higher rankings in organic search results.
But PPC brings in paid traffic and by itself can only have an indirect impact on your organic ranking. Namely, PPC can expose your brand to new potential customers who may search for your business in the future and reach it organically. It can also be used to find keywords that you can use in your SEO strategy. And, finally, with a good enough strategy, PPC can help you attract new backlinks.
These are all great benefits that can complement your SEO strategy, but they won't directly lead to higher search engine rankings. Furthermore, investing solely in PPC can damage your business's reputation, because in the eyes of consumers, a quality brand never relies solely on paid advertising.
So, SEO and PPC are two different marketing methods with only a few points of contact, but both have their benefits and it is most often recommended to combine them in your digital strategy .
3. “The more you use a keyword = better search engine rankings.”
Keyword research and use on the page is a basic requirement to achieve higher rankings. However, this does not mean that you should “throw” the chosen keyword (or several of them) into as many places as possible on the page. This can only have the opposite effect.
Web search engines are extremely skilled at recognizing quality, valuable, and relevant content and rank it highly because it must primarily satisfy the needs of users. Excessive use of keywords ( keyword stuffing ) makes content unnatural, low-quality, and worthless to them.
This is why search engines consider stuffing a manipulative tactic to rank content that does not bring any real benefit to the audience, but rather aims solely at a better position. Engaging in such tactics is “penalized” and has an extremely negative impact on organic rankings.
Below you can find an example of excessive keyword usage that will repel users and indicate to search engines the poor quality of your content.
Let's say you want to rank on the first page of search results for the term "donut recipe."