SEO Myths that Could Limit Your Google Keyword Rankings

Peter Jack
4 min readFeb 11, 2020

--

Ranking on Google’s top search results has become crucial for industries and businesses. Consequently, the value and demand for search engine optimization have increased a lot. Marketers know the importance of SEO but want to know the magical secret behind getting a higher ranking in the search engine results.

However, with rising popularity and demand, the optimization world is caught up in a lot of Search engine optimization misconceptions and myths. Some of the myths can even harm your marketing efforts. If you want to achieve success, it is important to leave those myths or practices behind. Here are some of the most common SEO myths that this article show and provide you with the real truth behind those myths.

Focus on Quality Content and Topics, not Keywords

Keyword research is an important step when you are planning for a content marketing strategy. If you want that your strategy becomes successful then you cannot ignore this step. However, there is no such update that deteriorates the significance of keyword research in Search Engine Optimization. Keywords still play an important role in a successful marketing strategy. Just remember that don’t over-optimize it with excessive use of keywords. Always use relevant keywords to play safe and focus on the user intent behind the search. It will help you to create content that is relevant as well as useful for the users.

Google will Delist Your Site for Keyword Stuffing

Google has indeed punished some marketers’ website ranking but it is not easy to believe that Google will delete these websites from its database due to keyword stuffing. The keyword is a part of the SEO process where words and phrases describe what your content is about. Google uses that information to find which content is relevant to a particular search query and how the page will rank in search for a particular term. This is what gives web pages its search ranking. So, it is wrong to say that the search engine will delist your website by using more keywords into your content. If you are providing users with a good experience by using certain keywords then don’t worry more about keyword stuffing.

Google Will Penalize Your Site for Duplicate Content

Google has updated the new algorithm for different websites to see different results. Whenever the algorithm is updated one site may see decreases and another may see an increase in search results. Google even penality the websites when it violates the webmaster guidelines. Google may respond negatively by decreasing the site ranking when a website seems to use deceitful behavior to get traffic for their sites. A lot of marketers have a misconception that Google will penalize a site that has duplicate content. However, the reality is that Google does not have any duplicate content filter. Google will not decide to rank all pages for the same query if there are multiple pages are present with the same content. Crawlers will choose which page to rank for what that can impact on organic rankings.

Myth: Placing keywords in the footer will boost your rankings

Indeed, sticking with certain keywords in your footer will not improve your website ranking. However, raking can improve, if the footer only had copyright data before the new text was added. Sometimes marketer uses keywords in their brief sentences or short headlines under a section of popular articles or blogs. Maybe these techniques will improve your content ranking but cannot boost your website ranking. Google doesn’t value your keywords based text or links as compared to highly repetitive website elements like primary navigation or other descriptive text in footers. The internal link can boost the ranking but mostly when the links are present in the core of content not like a link in the footer on every page of the website that contains hundreds of pages.

You must Limit SEO Page Titles to 60 Characters

The design of the Google search engine result pages (SERPs) dictates how much of the page title will appear. However, Google does not disclose the number of characters it will consider to collect information. Some marketers create a short page title because they don’t want any word to get trimmed from the SERPs. Even, you can gain ranking and traffic if all the words are not visible in search results.

SEO is a One-time Event

SEO is not a magic wand that waves once in the air and all the work is done. It is a never-ending process that involves planning, strategies, time, hard work and dedication. If you think you have achieved the desired result and outcomes for you than you are making a huge mistake as search engines keep updating its search engine algorithm for better user experience. Since SEO is the gateway to generate more traffic on your site, it needs to be updated regularly. Continual maintenance and improvement in the SEO strategies will ensure that your website will not lose its ranking on SERPs.

The web is filled with lots of SEO myths and users keep following them blindly. However, you have to decide which one is true and best for your SEO strategy. To do this you need to think like a researcher to get the best, true, and useful results.

--

--

No responses yet