Working as Web Developer since 2010 I’ve had the opportunity to interact with thousands of clients and potential clients. As soon as website goes to production client keen to hiring SEO team and they seeking for your help. From the conversation with many of my client, I found out there are a long list of misconceptions when it comes to SEO.
Here are some of the common misunderstandings I see amongst my client when it comes to SEO.
Google loves content
You may have heard “Google loves content, the more content the better!” Google does not love content, Google loves high quality content. Quality content is much better than generating a lot of poor content nobody will care about.
It’s All About Rankings
Stop! Rankings do not matter unless they lead to other, more important metrics. What really matters? Traffic, leads, sales, and profits. You can get better rankings without generating more traffic. You can get traffic that doesn’t generate leads. You can get leads that don’t generate sales. And you can get sales that don’t generate profits. Rankings shouldn’t be ignored, but when you focus too much on rankings (and almost everyone does) you take your eye off the real goal. Rankings shouldn’t be ignored, but when you focus too much on rankings (and almost everyone does) you take your eye off the real goal. As a result, the decisions you make about your SEO efforts will not be the ones that give you the best possible growth in profits. Instead of focusing on rankings, work on traffic, leads and sales.
Buying “pay per click” Ads Will Help My Organic Rankings
It’s logical to believe that since Google sells pay per click ads alongside the natural, organic rankings, that if you pay Google for those paid ads then maybe, just maybe, they’ll give you a little boost in the organic rankings. But it’s not true. They’re entirely separate. However, for those who believe this is the case for all search engines, you also believe something that isn’t true, because if you’re optimizing in China for the search engine Baidu then running a PPC campaign will positively affect your organic rankings.
The More Links the Better
Wrong. As with content, when it comes to inbound links it’s more about quality than quantity. At best, low quality incoming links will have no positive effect, and at worst bad links may result in damaged rankings or a Google penalty. Focus on natural link building, rather than manually building links. That means focus on creating high quality content people will want to link to, rather than asking for links.
Hiring SEO is Going to Save My Business in the Next 1-2 Months
Hiring SEO is a long-term strategy. Yes, you may start seeing great results within 3 months of starting on SEO, but it’s unlikely. More likely it will take 6 to 12 months to get to break even and then, with consistent effort and investment.
What Can I Do?
At this point you might be saying “But I don’t have a lot of time or money, where does this leave me? What can I do?” you’re going after something larger than a local market, don’t waste your money hiring an SEO firm. Instead, go read the Moz Beginner’s Guide to SEO and work on SEO yourself. This will help you conserve your cash for other areas where your business needs it instead of throwing it away on something that is unlikely to work anyway.