SEO is a mystifying, constantly changing landscape. It’s not hard to imagine why most business owners are baffled by it. Marketers tend to complicate things further by not explaining the concept properly to their clients so that they don’t have unrealistic expectations from this strategy.
Yes, SEO is highly effective. In fact, it’s not just effective, it’s necessary. However, it’s vital to understand that it’s not miraculous mantra that would draw customers in. Here are some of the most prevalent misconceptions about SEO that business owners have.
SEO is Quick
That’s a laughable assumption because nothing about SEO is quick. Consider this: Google determines the ranking of your website based on 250+ categories. These are both on-site and off-site factors and some of them are completely beyond your control. The 5 or 6 that you need to work to optimize takes time, knowledge, and patience. SEO is no quick fix and no marketer would say otherwise.
SEO is Set and Forget
Nope. That’s a dream and something most marketers would love to be true. SEO isn’t set and forget. In fact, it requires near constant effort. Marketers will usually keep an analytics software running that reads data. This data would be regularly studied and the website and all SEO aspects would be optimized accordingly. As long as you have a website and own a business, you need to do this. You need to constantly evaluate the SEO and optimize aspects of your website.
Content Has Replaced SEO
Content marketing is highly effective. Not one can really deny that, but it’s a part of SEO. It’s a vital aspect of a larger strategy to bring organic traffic to your website. That larger strategy is SEO. If you have great content marketing in place without tackling other aspects of SEO, your search rankings won’t be affected drastically. If you implement content marketing and SEO together in a cohesive manner, you’ll see much better results.
Social Media has Surpassed SEO
Not by a long shot, no. Social Media Marketing might have increased in importance, especially with Google adding content posted on social media to the SERPs. But it hasn’t and won’t surpass SEO anytime soon. To understand this, you need to understand just how comprehensive SEO is.
It encompasses everything from your website’s structure and code to the quality of content on it. It also includes backlinks from high authority websites. While social media might give you some results, it doesn’t yet have the power to surpass SEO.
Domain Name is Important
Not really. Most of the time, people won’t even look at the domain name. They simply bookmark the website that they like. Yes, there are some rules you need to follow while planning your domain name, but it doesn’t have to be a super expensive, exclusive domain name. Just keep the domain name relevant to the company, avoid things like numbers and abbreviations, and you’re good to go.
You should keep these factors in mind when you’re dealing with SEO. They would help you make the right investment decisions.
