It is normal when something doesn’t have clear enough clarity, people start making assumptions about it, and as a result, many myths come into existence. This precisely applies to SEO or Search Engine Optimization.

Another reason for many SEO myths is that SEO keeps changing as Google releases multiple algorithm updates per year and SEOs need to keep evolving. For example, last year, the BERT update made the search engine better at processing natural language processing. And, site diversity update in the same year impacted on the SERP, reducing the duplicate results from the same site. 

Because of these constant changes, SEOs have to keep up with the changes and keep adapting their tactics continuously. 

I will discuss some of the tactics that are not going to be effective in 2020. If you are a website owner or a webmaster working on a website, you may have come across some of the myths that I am going to discuss here. 

1. I must submit a website to Google in order to appear on search results.

Even if you do not submit your site, Google will find your website with the help of bots or web crawlers. 

Though a sitemap can be used to get your site crawl faster, it doesn’t mean that if you do not submit your site, Google will not crawl or index it.

Having that myth cleared, for SEO purposes, If you make changes or create a new page on your site, you should submit the updated sitemap to help Google find your site faster.

How to do it?

Go to Google search console, paste the URL into the URL Inspection Tool, and it will run a live test on the URL. Then select Request Indexing and the tool will queue the URL for indexing. 

If you want to run a check on what pages are already indexed in Google, type this string in the search bar: 

Site:yoursite.com

For example, site:digitalmastershub.com

This search will return all the indexed pages of your website by Google. If you do not find a specific page in the results, then submit that URL in the search console. But if you have a large number of URLs to submit, it is better to submit a Sitemap instead.

2. Meta description has a huge impact on SEO.

A meta description is not an official ranking factor. 

However, a meta description influences a user to click on the result if it is written well. It is important from a user’s point of view and helps to enhance the click-through rate. 

• The best practice is to keep it under 160 to 220 characters for desktop and 120 characters for mobile devices. 
• Make sure to use the key phrase in your meta description to attract the user’s attention. 
• The best way to write a meta description is to appeal to the intent of a user inserting the keyphrase seamlessly.

3. Keywords are the most important for SEO.

There has always been a debate around the density of keywords in an article. How many or what per cent of keywords usage is ideal? In reality, there is no one size fits all rule when it comes to keywords density.

John Muller from Google made it clear very long back in 2014:

“Keyword density, in general, is something I wouldn’t focus on. Search engines have kind of moved on from there.”

As far as your content is useful to your site visitors, don’t sweat too much on the density of keywords you should use. 

Through the recent BERT update, Google again made it clear that user intent will be given priority over keywords.

It would be best if you focus on writing content around user intent. And when you do that, you will automatically include the keywords and the LSI terms as well.

4. Linking to other websites is not that important.

When writing content, there should be one central motive, and that is ‘to provide value’. To link out to other authoritative content on the topic enhances the credibility of your content and user gets more value by getting more resources on the subject.

John Muller from Google explains the importance and how you should link to other websites.

For the links that are sponsored or advertisements, you can use the “No-Follow” attribute, but for the value-adding links, you don’t have to do anything special. 

5. There has to be only one H1 tag per page.

Google has evolved a lot in the last couple of years. We used to maintain just one H1 tag per page before, but now it is not the case. Users’ intent fulfilment is the central concern that Google cares about.

Check out what John Muller says about H1 tag usage. If your content needs to use multiple H1 tags to give better user experience, then use more than one H1s, it is perfectly okay. 

6. The home page needs more content.

The home page should ideally be treated as a gateway to your website. It is not necessary to have more content on a home page. 

It should entirely depend on what is it that you want the user to do next when he/she enters your site, or what is it that you want to convey first to your visitor about your business? 

Some websites just need a search bar on a home page, whereas others need some more context. 

In short, your visitor should not feel overwhelmed with so much on your home page, or unsatisfied because of not enough content. And, of course not left confused because of no clarity about products or services you offer.

7. Older domains rank better on search engine.

The difference between a domain that is six months old and a year old is insignificant. Also, many think that getting the pre-aged domain would help rank better; this is far from the truth. 

Yes, your site generally appears in search results after a couple of months. Setting up a page saying ‘coming soon’ and work on content in the backend during that initial months should solve the issue.

Matt Cutts from Google explains that a domain’s age factor is insignificant, especially after the site is 2 to 3 months old.

What matters is the quality of the content and links to the site.

8. Low-volume keywords are not worth pursuing.

It is attractive to go for keywords with high search volume, thinking that if the search volume is high, you will get more traffic to your site.

But in fact, pursuing the keywords based on only the search volume number may negatively affect your ultimate business goals.

The ideal motive behind the keywords that you choose has to be the conversion. A high volume of traffic without conversion is empty traffic. To attract qualified traffic, design your content strategy around the intent of your visitors, regardless of the search volume. 

Long-tail search strings focused on user intent will result in a higher conversion rate. 

When it comes to SEO strategy if you just keep the users’ in mind and the user’s journey from the SERP to the inner pages of your website and what you wish your users to take away before exiting from your site, you will do much better than most SEO strategies.

What do you think? Is this list helpful to you? Was there any specific myth that caught your attention? Do you think of any other myth that is important to debunk, but not included here, I would appreciate an input? 

If you are looking for personalised SEO Services or other Digital Marketing Services for your business call on +61 415526553 or email us on contact@digitalmastershub.com