That can impact your ability to provide guidance for digital marketing clients or spot a reputable partner for SEO. And if you don’t feel secure in your own knowledge, you might end up compromising on results. To that end, we’re sharing a few popular misconceptions about SEO. Understanding the truth behind these common myths can allow you to make more informed decisions for the sake of your business and set you up for digital marketing campaign success.
MYTH: Good Content is All You Need to Rank
You’ve probably heard the expression that “content is king.” While a lot has changed with SEO over the years, high-quality content is still an essential part of any strategy. If you don’t have great content, your website won’t offer the value that users are searching for. However, that doesn’t mean that content is the only thing you need for an effective SEO strategy. It’s just one piece of the puzzle; while it’s one you can’t forget about, you also can’t neglect the other components of search engine optimization. You need a number of components working together to improve search engine rankings. Content is one of those components, but others include backlinks, keyword research and usage, website design, user experience, and other back-end optimizations. Even if you have fantastic content, Google may not reward you for your work if you don’t optimize that content properly, have a fast-loading website, or obtain votes of confidence from other reputable websites. Certainly, content marketing should be part of your SEO strategy. But you’ll also need to focus on other factors if you expect to see results.
MYTH: Guest Blogging is Outdated
Link-building has long since been part of successful SEO strategies. But some marketers have taken statements from Google employees to an extreme. It’s easy to interpret these statements as hard lines in the sand that have condemned guest blogging as a way to build backlinks. But what’s really being referred to is the practice of posting poor quality, irrelevant content on other websites for the sole purpose of obtaining a backlink. That practice should be avoided, of course, but that doesn’t mean you have to stop guest blogging. Contrary to popular belief, guest blogging isn’t dead. The bar has merely been raised to ensure no one abuses the system. You should make sure that your efforts (or the efforts of your SEO agency partner) focus on finding publishers that are well-aligned with the kind of content you want to contribute and that the content is unique, valuable, shareable, and contains well-optimized anchor text. That way, everyone will benefit from these guest posts.
MYTH: You Can Handle SEO Yourself
A lot of digital marketers believe that they have to do everything in-house for their clients. Whether it’s due to their personal ethics or their pride, they might be inclined to feel that this is simply the right thing to do. The problem is, trying to execute a successful SEO strategy is basically a full-time job. And when you’re tasked with doing several other digital marketing projects for multiple clients at the same time, it’s likely that your results (and your sanity) will suffer. That’s why many digital marketing agencies will outsource their needs to a white label SEO company. These agency partners will handle the technical fulfillment of the SEO strategy, allowing the digital marketing company to focus on sales and client relationships. In this way, you can maximize your profits and grow your business while freeing up your time. This is a win for both you and your clients, as they’ll benefit from having a dedicated team focusing on their SEO success. In a rapidly changing digital world, it’s not easy to stay on top of what’s trending. With so many conflicting ideas on what works for SEO, you might understandably not know what to believe. We hope you’ll now have a clearer idea of how these misconceptions could impact your business and how knowing the truth can have a positive effect on your decisions moving forward.
