Myths & Facts About SEO

Every day businesses across the country are flooded with telemarketing calls from various website and SEO companies. You’ve probably received a few of these calls in the recent past. Almost all of them claim to have discovered “serious issues” with your website that “affects SEO and rankings.” Of course, they will be happy to email over their report and if you sign up with them they will “fix” these "serious" issues.

The reports they send to you often appear troubling. “Issues” are dramatically described and highlighted, leading you to believe that your current SEO efforts, if you have any, are not working properly or inefficient. If you have an SEO company on retainer, you will begin to question their methods and expertise; and your doubts are what these companies are counting on.

If you look closely at these reports, many of them contain “issues” that are simply SEO myths that have persisted for a long time. Many of the “issues” have absolutely NO EFFECT on rankings, or at one time used to be factors but are no longer regarded as important. We will explain a few of these myths below in order to educate you on the tactics employed by less-than-reputable companies.

Myth: Your site must be submitted to hundreds of search engines and directory listings to get noticed.
Fact: Search engines will always find your website if at least one other website links to it. Submitting your website to “hundreds” of online directories and search engines is a waste of time, and in some cases, may hurt your rankings if your site is linked from questionable sources.

Myth: Having META tags will help your rankings.
Fact: The vast majority of search engines ignore META keyword, description, author, and robots tags, for obvious reasons. These tags have been abused in the past by webmasters looking to “game the system.” Search engines have ignored them for years.

Myth: You must have hundreds of “inbound links” to rank high.
Fact: Search engines place more importance on the quality of the inbound links rather than the quantity. Having a few inbound links from highly recognized and respected sources are much better than having numerous links from low-quality sources.

Myth: Your site must have a high "PageRank" in order to rank higher in the search results.
Fact: PageRank is just one factor Google uses in figuring out how to rank pages. A site with a low PageRank will show up higher in the search results if Google thinks it's more relevant.

Myth: Proper SEO will give your site permanent top rankings.
Fact: There is no such thing as permanent rankings. Search engine algorithms change all the time and rankings fluctuate as a result. New websites are constantly appearing, challenging the existing websites for rankings. Even the smallest tweak to the contents of your website may have a dramatic effect on rankings. As we’ve seen all too clearly here at Solutions by Design, customer reviews have a serious impact on local rankings.

Myth: You must have your targeted keywords in the IMG ALT tag and a link’s Title tag.
Fact: Like the META tags, these have been greatly abused in the past and search engines largely ignore them. It’s best just to place an exact description of the image or link into these tags to help the search engines identify them.

Myth: It’s important for your rankings to update your home page frequently.
Fact: Unless your home page is a blog with daily posts, static content containing your targeted keywords is just fine. There are plenty of “stale” sites with top rankings.

Myth: H1 tags are a crucial part of SEO and rankings.
Fact: There is little correlation between H1 tags and rankings. H1 tags play an important role and should be used primarily for accessibility and usability, but they have little effect on rankings.

Myth: Your site must have a specific “keyword density” in order to rank high.
Fact: As long as your site contains your targeted keywords in an easy-to-read and engaging format, search engines will be able to identify and index it. Trying to achieve an arbitrary keyword density percentage is both a waste of time and a pain for your customers to read.

There are many more myths that SEO companies still try to peddle in order to get your business, and it’s important for you to do your research and consult with people you trust before signing on with them. If they try to make the case for one of these SEO myths then they are not the company for you. If you have any questions or concerns about a company that is contacting you about these myths, feel free to give Solutions by Design a call and ask for our SEO department. Call 800-888-4084.