There are a lot of myths in the SEO world and I think it is about time we discussed what is what don’t you? Excellent! Then read on…
*SEO people are con artists
Some people are still wary of SEO and see it as this mysterious being that no one really knows about but makes out they do. However, this actually couldn’t be further from the truth! SEOs spend their lives researching best practice, looking into Google algorithms and carrying out A/B testing usually on their own sites to find out what is the best way to achieve results.
*SEO practices will do more harm to the website than good
Question; tell me what you think about me? Sorry, it’s a habit. No the real question is why would we want to cause harm to a website? If companies are paying for good SEO and receive bad SEO, all that will happen is that they leave, go somewhere else and probably ensure that the SEO company is tarnished with a bad brush forever more. So basically if we did a rubbish job and ruined your site, you would hate us and we would never get any business. There would be no point!
*Link building is really bad
This is complete poppy-tosh! (Please excuse the language but it just really grates on me.) Links shows Google that people trust your site, find it useful and are talking about it. Of course there are bad versions of link building such as dodgy sites and simply creating thousands in one go, but we don’t do that because all that will happen is your site will peak and then drop off the face of the earth…well, the Google rankings but you catch my drift.
There are many ways of getting links to your site and as long as the sites are relevant and good quality, they will only be beneficial to the site and potentially drive more business as well as help with rankings.
*All SEO agencies are ‘black hat’
This is a term that is used for bad practices within SEO and is basically a collection of things Google hates. ‘White hat’ is for the bits that Google likes as they are beneficial to its users such as relevant content, page titles and user friendly URLs. Agencies who use ‘white hat’ practices will tell you what they are doing, which is why we always give you a run down each month of the work that’s been completed and will send over tools for you to use to check it if you still have doubts! At the end of the day, SEO isn’t some kind of sorcery so why shouldn’t you know what is going on?
*Social channels have nothing to do with SEO
Let’s put it this way shall we? People interact with social channels, these channels are linked to your website, and therefore they visit your website to take a look around. They already know your brand so stay on the site for a while and look at a few pages, decreasing your bounce rate. They link to you occasionally because you have good ideas and products. They might even leave you a review or buy one of your products. All of this is what Google likes! So that’s that one sorted.
*I will pay a ridiculous price for barely any work
Noone has ever said SEO is cheap, and if they did they weren’t doing it properly. If they offer to get you to the top of page 1 for £20 a month, you may as well put that in a jar each month and let it pay for the Christmas party. However, all SEO campaigns are calculated on the amount of work it would take to get you onto page 1 for the phrases you choose. Some places will vary in price but you should be concentrating on what they will do for you more than just scanning the price and choosing the cheapest. It takes a lot of man hours to get those results and to get your phone ringing off the hook. So just because some people have had disappointing experiences in the past, don’t put us all in that bucket because you will find that 99% of us are actually pretty great at what we do and you get a great return on investment.
*Once a website is optimised that is it
Let’s think of this in terms of Mo Farah shall we? He trains every single day, running huge distances to stay at the top of his game. So if after his first gold medal he said ‘well I’m the best now, I don’t need to train anymore because I will always be the best’ people would have laughed! It is the same for SEO.
Just because you are at the top of page 1, it doesn’t mean that you will stay there forever because everyone else is already on your tail. Everyone is competing for that spot and if you don’t continue to train then you will simply fade into the background and be remembered as the person that won a medal once.
*My website will have been built to perform well for SEO already
Now SEO agencies and web design agencies love each other because we complement each other. They will (hopefully) never tell you that they can do SEO to a high standard, just like we won’t pretend that we can design your website unless we actually have a designer and builder in house! We are each specialists in our areas and therefore we almost come as a pair, neither is usually a specialist in both!
*SEO is quick and easy!
If SEO was easy, everyone would be doing it! Plus if it was quick then a lot of people wouldn’t have jobs right now. Google doesn’t decide within 5 minutes of adding content to a site that it should be number 1 (if only). Let’s all just repeat after 3…’good things come to those who wait.’
