The Most Persistent and Inherently Incorrect Beliefs Related to SEO

The world of SEO is constantly evolving and to categorize practices in black and white descriptors is both tricky and nearly impossible. Google, the overlord of SEO land doesn’t share its ruling principles with anyone and even the experts can only use their best guess as to what Google will do next.

The minions, the men and women who labor away chained to the ideals of by-gone days, refusing to give in to new practices and relinquish faded ideals of ‘effective’ SEO will bring down their own empires link by link until all that remains are the decayed remains of a once successful business. The true leaders in the SEO charge are the soldiers who refuse to be deterred by change and adapt to survive.

The enemy isn’t Google. The enemy is an ignorant mindset, fueled by the belief that some past SEO practices are still valuable long after the algorithmic overlord has smote past offenders, leading us into a new era of optimization.

Vanquished practices must be left behind

Long gone (well maybe not that long) are the practices of putting up links all willy-nilly by quality content creation services, yet there are still clients—and unfortunately some companies—who still engage in shady link building practices or encourage it.

Why does this belief still persist?

I’m glad you asked. One of the fundamental issues is; some people still don’t have a clear idea of what link building entails. If it’s a link it must be good right? Wrong.

Take guest blogging for example. If you can build a backlink portfolio by creating a prolific amount of blog posts linking back to your site, why wouldn’t you want to blog about anything and everything filling the web with rabid hordes of blog posts with a company link included? Makes sense right? Well the problem here is, unless said posts are relevant and unique Google will not be pleased with your efforts and will smite you down anew. The same goes for duplicate or spun content. Seems rudimentary, but then why is it still happening?

Another bane of SEO existence is the idea that links can be equated into some sort of dollar amount. For example: $20 for 100 links. This simply isn’t the way the industry works (or should work). Accompanying this fallacy, akin to the smell accompanying the body of a victim of the black death, is some clients belief that SEO should have an immediate effect of the page rank of said company.

Don’t skimp on the pot roast

SEO doesn’t work like instant pudding, setting up with a little milk and powder over the course of a few minutes in your fridge.

Instead, imagine an immaculate pot roast. After carefully searing the outside to enclose succulent juices deep inside, and carefully slicing potatoes, carrots and pearl onions, the whole shebang spends hours in the oven, flavors combining in a careful harmony.

SEO is like the pot roast. A piece of meat alone doesn’t create a complete meal. Imagine the roast to be a company seeking SEO assistance. The searing process is inherently similar to website design and organization.

A good website is essential to overall successful SEO just as searing is necessary to keep a roast from becoming a dried out hockey puck. The accompaniments—the carrots, potatoes and onions—are like solid link building practices. The links all point back to your site sending traffic back to you and if the ingredients (read: links) are good, your roast will be exquisite.

If you skimp on time or quality, chances are you’ll end up tossing the whole mess and ending up with cheap pizza for dinner. Don’t let your company fall in the trash leaving you holding a limp slice of lackluster pizza because you were unable to be patient.

Trust the experts to let your link building practices cook to perfection.

Finally, leave out the stuffing. No, we aren’t talking about turkey here. You know what I mean. Sure, a puppy is great, but ten puppies, twenty? Now you have a mess on your hands. Although keywords are still important, keyword stuffing is similar to too many un-potty trained puppies. Your carpet will be over-saturated in no time. Naturally using keywords (sparingly) is perfectly fine, but when the content becomes inundated with keyword use becomes obvious and jarring you’ve failed in two ways. The first and most obvious—you’ve failed to implement quality SEO. The second, and perhaps even more damning—you’ve failed the consumer. Although many people seem to have lost sight of this, the internet is for sharing information, spreading knowledge, learning new things. When you are no longer providing the consumers with new or quality information you’ve failed, and this is why Google will show you the door.

Although you may be thinking this is all obvious, it must not be, because continually these practices are used by marketers who either think the rules don’t apply to them, or unlike the tortoise they can somehow still win the race by sprinting ahead and taking a nap before crossing the finish line. Learn to play by the rules and the Google overlord just might make you a knight.

About Author: Amy Merrill is a writer for Page One Power located in pristine Boise, Idaho. Amy abhors rule-breakers and consistently works to be the best by playing fair.