Few other professions are prone to myth making quite as much as search engine optimisation. Rumours spread like wildfire through the webmaster boards and forums and half-truths are often espoused as gospel.
The whole problem is compounded by the fact that the search engines obscure their algorithms which makes finding the facts hard.
Unless you have the savvy and expertise that lets you keep a steady finger on the pulse of what’s happening in the online marketing world, it’s easy to be deluded by SEO myths you may come across while looking for ways to rank your site better. Here are three such myths and a guide to why they’re plain wrong.
Links Are No Longer Necessary
You may have read that links, once the powerhouse factors of any SEO campaign, are now discredited. You may even have celebrated.
Sorry to disappoint, but the fact is that only spammy links are a problem. The natural high quality links that Google wanted you to acquire all along are still at the core of SEO ranking.
Google Spam Chief Matt Cutts has talked about a link free algorithm on several occasions recently but the ultimate message is that links are here to stay. Just make sure you earn them by creating websites that others want to link to.
Just Put up Great Content and Visitors will Flood In
This is another grand myth that emerged following Google clampdowns on link building and over optimisation. Content is king became the new mantra. If you tried throwing up your best content and waiting for a flood of traffic you were probably disappointed. The fact remains that SEO remains at the heart of online marketing.
Search engine optimisation at its essence is not about taking advantage of weaknesses in Google’s algorithms. Rather it’s about working to determine and present the relevance of a page so that it’s best understood by visitors, both human and Google’s spiders.
Thus the careful use of keywords, the crafting of relevant meta tags providing meaningful alt text for images helps accurately portray what the site is all about. The most astonishing content in the world does no good if it’s not by optimised by SEO and online marketing professionals.
Guest Posting is Dead
Considering all the publicity Google’s clampdown on guest posting has received recently, the truth is that guest posting is still a valid strategy.
You just need to adhere to Google’s standards of authority and relevance. Posting to quality relevant sites is a great way to find new readers. The site gets content, you get traffic, and everybody wins. Blasting out guest posts to all kinds of sites just to get a backlink was doomed from the start and no one deserved to win.
Navigating the world of online marketing and avoiding falsehoods and flimflam is difficult without expert help. Let Sydney search engine optimisation experts SmartSEO help you.
