SEO has become one of the best ways for businesses to find potential customers without much cost. You produce a lot of content and optimize it to rank. But when 67.6% of the clicks go to the first five results, you need to do everything possible to rank higher.
The problem is that there is a lot of information out there about SEO, and not all of it is accurate. You need to know which information to rely on if you want great results.
You need to understand the common search engine optimization near me myths if you want to improve your rankings. Read the SEO guide below to learn the common misconceptions about search engine optimization.
Duplicate Content Hurts Ranking
For a long time, the common wisdom with SEO was to avoid duplicate content. Google devalued duplicate text, so you can hurt your chance of ranking if you have duplicate content on your site. That includes duplicate text from both your domain and your competition.
However, web admins discovered over the years that duplicate content ranks. Duplicate text doesn’t have ranking penalties if Google sees your website as providing more value.
The biggest thing you have to worry about is manual penalties. If you copy the work of another website and it’s provable, you can get a manual penalty and DMCA strikes that hurt your rankings. Otherwise, test your content to see if duplicate content matters for your website.
You Need to Stuff Keywords
Keyword density was a big topic in SEO for a while. When Google wasn’t as good at reading content, it looked for as many keywords in posts as possible. That led many SEO professionals to try and cram as many in as possible and still keep the content readable.
That’s no longer the case today. Google understands search intent and content much better today. It can determine if your website properly fulfills the search intent of the visitor.
It makes more sense only to include a few instances of your keyword. You can spend your time fitting secondary keywords into your articles instead of focusing on one. That will help you rank a single article for several keywords to get even more traffic.
Much of the time, you’ll get more traffic from those keywords than the primary one for the article.
Backlinks Don’t Matter
There is a saying in the SEO world that content is king. While it is true that you won’t rank without great content, it isn’t always the only thing you need.
Many websites invest in amazing content writers that produce great content. Even if you match that quality, why should Google rank your website over another one with similar quality?
One way Google figures out who to rank is by measuring website authority. If you’re a new website and try to compete with a website that has been around for years, you won’t stand a chance. That’s because an old website probably has powerful links increasing its authority.
Backlinks can shortcut your success by pushing authority to your site. Getting links from a popular website gives your site more credibility and will increase your chance of ranking all search terms.
Usability Doesn’t Matter
Content was the primary thing Google looked at when evaluating where to rank a site in the search engine. However, that’s changed over the years now that Google’s content evaluation algorithm has improved.
Google wants to offer its users a great experience on the search engine and the sites people visit. If you don’t provide that experience, it can now hurt your ranking.
The Core Web Vitals algorithm update came out recently and now factors into your ranking. You need good website usability and performance to avoid getting penalized because of a poor experience.
You can check out Google’s performance tools to see what things you need to improve. Of course, the technical part of this process isn’t always easy for people without technical experience. You can reach out to an SEO company like Tribal Core to get help optimizing your site for usability and performance.
Social Signals Help Ranking
There was a lot of speculation about social signals when they first started gaining traction. Many SEO pros conflated a rise in rankings with increased likes on social platforms. Unfortunately, much of this speculation happened when there wasn’t much research done on the topic.
Today, SEO experts know better. Research into social signals has shown that it doesn’t impact Google rankings the way people previously thought.
Yes, you can get traffic if you get a viral social media post. It can also lead to more exposure and backlinks from other web admins that see your content. Just don’t expect to get higher rankings because you get a ton of likes on another platform.
Keyword Research Isn’t Important
You’ll sometimes find SEO advice that tells you just to write content and don’t worry about anything else. While it is true that content is important for ranking, you won’t get traffic if you write about just everything.
Not every keyword out there gets traffic, so writing about those terms won’t lead to long-term results. You can also write about incredibly competitive terms and not make a dent in the rankings.
You’ll need to find the right keywords to get traffic from Google. Look for a mix of keywords that get search volume and don’t have much competition on the front page.
Don’t Fall Victim to the Common Search Engine Optimization Near Me Myths
SEO takes a long time to work, so the last thing you want is to waste time on search engine optimization near me myths that don’t work. You want to spend your time on known tactics that get results in today’s SEO world.
Luckily, many common myths are easily disproved. Make sure to avoid the myths above and focus your efforts on SEO tips that will move the needle for your website’s traffic.
Head back to the blog to check out other marketing tactics that will grow your website.
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