As an inevitable part of any company that is looking to offer goods and services, there are several myths, misconceptions, and misgivings surrounding SEO usage. As a result, companies, and brands are making mistakes in the optimization of their pages and content.
To ensure you’re boosting your website in the right way, we have unpacked a few common misleading points that may harm your SEO performance.
Choosing not to hire an expert
By virtue of the fact that SEO is not a science or not taught in schools, most individuals would want to perform SEO audits themselves. We would advise against that. This often ends up with a page ranking poorly on the Search Engine Result Pages, SERPs.
SEO is a time-consuming task that asks for continuous treatment of your pages and content. It is not a one-off assignment. Don’t experiment. Call an SEO professional and request their services.
Impractical promises
Like any other industry, there are fraudsters in the SEO market. There are some service providers who will promise to have your page ranking highly within a day or two. And true to their word, they will have done so. But check it after a few days and this will not be the case. This is often referred to as ‘black hat SEO’, where ‘professionals’ would use dirty tricks and tips to have a page ranking highly.
However, search engine bots always detect these tricks. Your page will be penalized, and, in some cases, even banned.
Amendments to search engine’s standards
The standards that determine the ranking of search engines are adjusted from time to time. The purpose of this is to detect cheaters (e.g., the users of black hat SEO methods and procedures) and also to improve the experience of users. These small changes will have an effect on the SERPs.
Therefore, it is recommended that you continuously perform audits on your pages and contents to keep up with the algorithms and standards of search engines. Otherwise, you will lose your high ranking.
Baseless keyword selection
Keyword topics and phrases are the typical phrases that are used by seekers of goods and services in your particular industry. The choice of keywords without any research will not lead to any changes in your ranking. Hire an SEO professional who can perform comprehensive research and select key phrases and words that will drive traffic to your website.
The quality of content
Search engines only have one goal in mind, and it is to improve the experience of their users. With the least effort, users should be able to find the information that they are looking for. Search engines will therefore perform a very thorough filter; looking into the content of your pages and articles. If your competitors have better quality content than you, be assured that they will rank higher as compared to you.
Duplication of content
Thinking you are smarter than the algorithms, you may want to duplicate your content, thinking that you can have two pages with a high ranking on the SERPs. That would prove quite disastrous. The bots will detect this and will penalize you heavily. All the content that you provide on your websites should be unique.