SearchEngineLand Top 10 SEO Myths,
Search Engine Land wrote a great article about the top 10 SEO myths. I’ve provided my comments below each myth.
Myth 1: You should submit your URLs to search engines.
Comment: Your site should be found through links from other sites. Submitting them to search engines does nothing because your site will only gain popularity if other sites link to you.
Myth 2: You need a Google Sitemap.
Comment: A well designed site should have a good linking structure, and the search engine should properly follow the linking structure without problem. In this case, you would not need a sitemap.
Myth 3: You need to update your site frequently.
Comment: This has a lot to do with the type of site you have. However, most content is inherently static and doesn’t require that you update it too frequently.
Myth 4: PPC ads will help/hurt rankings.
Comment: I believe these have been purposefully made separate so that there is no confusion about how it impacts results. I would argue that Google should consider giving people better rankings if they’re willing to pay for keywords, but I sure 100 other people could argue why that’s against the social good. I just believe that the ability to pay for keywords is an indicator of a keyword’s success for the company, and therefore, should be an indicator that the site is relevant to the topic.
Myth 5: Your site will be banned if you ignore Google’s guidelines.
Comment: I’ve never personally known of anyone who this has happened to. However, I don’t hang out in the black hat SEO community, and I don’t know what happens there. My assumption is that people in that community bend the rules so much that they do get into trouble. However, unless your doing things that are just plain bad, you’ll be fine.
Myth 6: Your site will be banned if you buy links.
Comment: Ha ha. That’s all I have to say about that. Advertising is advertising. You can penalize a company for buying ads on another website.
Myth 7: H1 (or any header tags) must be used for high rankings.
Comment: I believe this has some value, but it must be part of a bigger content on-site picture.
Myth 8: Words in your meta keyword tag have to be used on the page.
Comment: I don’t believe your keyword tags have much to do with rankings.
Myth 9: SEO copy must be 250 words in length.
Comment: Why not 200? Why not 300? Who picked 250? That’s funny.
Myth 10: You need to optimize for the long tail.
Comment: Love the long tail. Stick those keywords in your description tags, but don’t really worry about them too much. Don’t stick them in your H tags, don’t put them in your alt tags, etc. You should work hard for the top keywords. Remember…Focus.
Ryan Pitylak is a search engine optimization guru.
Tags: Ryan Pitylak, search engine land, search engine marketing, Search Engine Optimization