Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most popular topic nowadays among every web entrepreneur. It is because of the fact that every business is establishing its presence on the internet by building a website. To rank higher in search engines and make the best out of website, they consider every SEO tactic and invest accordingly.
However, there are several SEO tricks which hurt the website rather than improving its rankings. No doubt, everyone wants to optimize their sites for Google and other search engines, but some of the SEO tricks are just myths which you should never follow.
For example, there are several SEO professionals who claim that they are SEO partners or affiliates with Google, which is not true. Such individuals take name of Google and use some fake certificates to fool people by promising a higher ranking at some monthly cost. The truth is nobody can guarantee you a higher search engine rank.
Having said that, following are the main SEO myths that you need to stop following right now.
- XML sitemap improves search rankings
Most of the website owners think that creating a sitemap and submitting it to Google will improve the search rankings. But that’s not true. The role of an XML sitemap is to make it easier for Google and other search engines to crawl your website and its webpages.
However, there is no impact of sitemap on search rankings. What sitemaps do is guide the search engines to your webpages. Of course, this can eventually optimize the SEO, but it is not a guaranteed thing.
- TLDs can boost search rankings
You might have noticed that whenever you search any term on Google, most of the websites that appear in search results are using a .com domain name, rather than the top-level domains (TLDs) like .guru and .biz. In fact, researches show that as much as 98% of the results that appear on search engines are using .com domain names.
Exceptional cases are also there if you are using a country-level TLD and searches are made from the same region. For example, if someone is using a .in TLD in India and the visitors are from India only, then it might be beneficial. But the target of most of the websites is to cover the global traffic. So, it would be better to go for a .com while opting for best hosting companies.
- Use of a lot of keywords in content boosts ranking
No doubt, the keywords in content play a crucial role. But the webmasters go on to stuff the content with a lot of keywords, thinking that it will help in ranking higher. This is a myth that should not be followed.
Overuse of keywords can negatively impact the ranking of your webpage or blog posts, because search engine algorithms can detect that you are gaming the system. Google chooses to prioritize the content and ranks only those content higher that can provide value to visitors, instead of the keyword stuffed content.
- SEO experts or agencies can guarantee higher rankings
Many companies go on to hire SEO experts or agencies to work on their website and boost its ranking. There are thousands of such people who claim to improve rankings in a short span of time at some cost. And people opt to choose them.
Beware of such experts, because more than 100 billion searches are made on Google every month and nobody can analyze all these searches and guarantee highest rankings.
What these agencies and experts can do is help you make the right SEO strategy to improve rankings over time. But don’t fall into trap of quick rankings.
- Use of AdWords is necessary for highest rankings
Another popular myth of webmasters is that going for AdWords PPC (pay per click) can boost organic rankings. But there is no connection between paid rankings and organic rankings. Their working is completely different. While organic rankings are based on index database, the paid rankings come from bid and investment by webmasters.
- Leveraging Google Places will improve your rankings
Google allows businesses to list the location and contact details on search engine via the Google Places. It is a good thing to list your details on the Google Places, so that local users can easily find contact details, routes and directions, and other info about your business.
However, if you are thinking that doing this can help you in search rankings, then it is completely a myth.
- More words in blog posts= top rankings
Having detailed and comprehensive posts can work positively for your SEO strategy, but it’s not that easy. There are a number of things that contribute to optimization of content.
Nowadays, people are writing long posts to rank higher, but if the content is not relevant to end user, it will be of no use. Google keeps track of this while ranking the posts.
- External linking is bad for SEO
Of course, the use of external links sends your visitors to other sites, but many websites have gained benefits from it, and so can you. There is no harm in linking out to relevant sites that can provide your visitors more information.
If you are having a high-quality post that includes external links to Google-friendly sites or webpages that can help visitors further, then Google might rank your post higher.
- Homepage should have a lot of content
Recent developments in SEO indicate that the homepage should be user-friendly that can provide easier navigation to visitors. A cluttered homepage having hundreds of words can even negatively affect your rankings.
- H1 tags can optimize rankings
H1 tags are really important for on-page optimization. Before Google Panda, it was one of the key factors in SEO of a site, but things have changed now. Google hasn’t indicated clearly that H1 tags can improve rankings.
Wrapping up:
With the massive rise in number of websites and content, the digital marketers and webmasters are finding it difficult to pick the right SEO tricks and build an SEO strategy that can make their site ranker higher.
There are several so-called SEO tricks which don’t work, but numerous sites are following them. Avoid the above-mentioned SEO myths to protect your site from negative SEO impacts and invest efforts into right things.