Today, we here at iDzyns received an email, much like we do every day, about SEO trends and projections for the coming year. Normally I don’t report on them, but this one was a little different. This article was produced by HubSpot and featured 17 SEO myths to drop by 2016. I was able to whittle down the list into an essential seven items that you probably didn’t know were myths at all!
Having More Links is Better than Having More Content
Many of our clients get roped into SEO with the idea that the more pages you have pointed back to yours, the higher your page will rank when indexed. Sure, your page will be pinged multiple times and will possibly gain some organic clicks to your links from wherever your links are posted, however your page relevance compared to wherever your links were found might be negatively affecting the click-through rate of your site.
SEO is all about Ranking #1 on Search Engine Response Pages
This myth is based on old facts. When the Internet was younger, there was no social media to promote unique content and everyone used to blog for their own HTML web pages. Today social media is intertwined with the content produced by unique web pages, so as long as you’re finding your audience, being number one on a list isn’t everything.
Meta descriptions hugely impact SEO
Don’t waste too much time obsessing over correcting and changing meta tags in order to maintain relevancy to your content. Let the content do the work. I mean, of course you’ll want to have a brief meta description that accurately summarizes the page, but make sure the content they came for fits the bill.
Keyword Optimization is the #1 Priority
Keywords are definitely important as they let you gather relevant traffic on a range of subjects related to your page or content. Once again, the key is to engage them based off of these keywords. For example, someone may search for ‘replacement key’ but you’re using the keywords ‘replacement’ and ‘key’ independently. When search engines see this, your page authority tends to rank lower because your page isn’t necessarily relevant to the keywords when not in sequence.
Local SEO Doesn’t Really Matter
This is an ever increasing trend. As more Internet users are stepping away from their computers, they tend to use their mobile internet on the go to search for things near them like coffee shops or book stores. However, occasionally users will search on a whim for things like ‘pawn shop specializing in x.’ And due to this increase in spontaneous searching, your local presence can dominate, especially when geographically surrounded by direct or indirect competitors.
You don’t Need a Mobile Optimization Strategy
Lending into the last myth, this steps up the mobile platform further. Users have been downloading applications and exploring deep-links for a while now. While expanding, this trend focuses on having a ‘strategy’ for mobile optimization. At this juncture, it is gaining importance very rapidly and you may be losing conversions due to a poor mobile website performance.
Good User Experience is Not a Requirement for SEO
While being a myth, this is also the focus of my conclusion. The vast majority of these myths surround the need to have unique and engaging content. What matters most in SEO is your click-through rate, or time spent navigating pages and content on your website. If you are retaining web traffic or organically gaining business thanks to your web presence, then no doubt you are doing so by having a friendly, easy to use interface with relevant information that finds its way into the hands of your target audience.
