The Biggest Misunderstandings In SEO

If you think you know everything that there is to know about SEO, then think again. When it comes to search engine optimisation, there are a lot of myths out there.

What follows are some of the things that you think you know about SEO, but don’t. 

Misunderstanding #1: Viral Content Is King

Whenever a new entrepreneur steps into the world of business, their priority is to somehow create “viral content” that people on social media will share infinitely with their peers. It might sound like a great idea, but it’s actually a fool’s errand. 

Viral content is incredibly rare and unpredictable. Most companies with viral content never set out to create it. It just happens. 

Thus, while it is often extremely beneficial, it’s not the core of search engine optimisation. You can’t manufacture it on-demand. It’s often blind luck or sweeping originality that won’t come around again for a long time. 

Misunderstanding #2: Bad SEO Is Good For Business

Sometimes companies rise through the Google ranking faster than you might expect under normal circumstances. It could be that they have a fabulous SEO strategy that is really striking a chord with their target audience, or it could be that they’re buying cheap links from dodgy websites and manipulating the Google algorithm. 

If it’s the latter, there’s a good chance that their SEO campaign is unsustainable. Google will eventually find out what they’re up to and shut it down. It’s that simple. What appeared to be a great campaign ultimately winds up being a disaster, with a lot of money wasted in the process. The best approach is to go slow and steady. 

Misunderstanding #3: All Links Are Good Links

There are dozens of tools that allow you to see in real-time who is linking to your website. The more links you have, the thinking goes, the better your ranking prospects. 

Unfortunately, this isn’t how it works in practice. While some links are useful, others are very, very bad. For instance, if Google detects that you have a bunch of links from a questionable domain, it’ll take note and could punish you. If your website seems to only have links from low-quality sites and none from authority domains, then, again, it’s a sign that you’re employing dodgy link building tactics, and search engines don’t want that. 

Misunderstanding #4: Duplicate Content Is Always Bad

Let’s say that you want to streamline your website URL index and copy content from one page to another. In the past, this was a big no-no, and the search engines would punish you terribly for it, even though you are helping users by doing it. 

Google and other search engines, however, have updated their tools, allowing you to republish content on your URLs, without losing your ranking. Meanwhile, if you notice that somebody has copied your content, you can report them to the search engine and get their pages relegated in the results. 

Do you use SEO in your business? If so, don’t fall foul of some of these common misunderstandings.