Regardless of the recent developments by Google, SEO is still a very large part of ensuring that your site is seen by the most people. Unfortunately, there are many (and we do mean many) SEO myths which are circulating the internet currently. Where a great deal of these can easily be seen as being nonsense, there are a few myths which especially need to be debunked. Here are 5 such myths.

My pagerank is the Number one Factor in my SEO…

To those of us that work in SEO we will remember the little green bar that indicated the pagerank of a webpage. For a long time this little bar was the talking point of many SEO professionals. People waited in anticipation for the next update, predicting whether or not their PR4 page will increase to a PR5.

The truth is that pagerank is the last thing that you should look at when determining your status on the search engine results. Pagerank was easily manipulated through buying links & link spam, therefore Google changed the priority of that factor of their algorithm. There are many Webmasters that still use pagerank as an indicator for selling links, despite Google saying that they are no longer updating pagerank.

A site which has professional SEO can stand for itself

SEO is an ongoing process and must be updated regularly. One thing we all know for sure, and that is that Google loves fresh content. Think about it… the more content you have on your website the more keyword groups you can target. All this is a part of a content strategy shaped around your business, and more importantly, your audience. So what does this mean? It means that to get the most from your SEO then you need to constantly keep working at it. Content is just the start (although the most time consuming) and there are other elements of SEO that need to be addressed:

• Technical SEO
• Visual SEO
• Content Marketing
• Link Building
• Email & Outreach
• Social Media

Mobile Site conversion will give me a massive SEO boost

Having a mobile friendly website has now become a ranking factor within SEO, yet it only plays a very small part. Since the much hyped April 21st ‘mobilegeddon’ update we haven’t actually noticed that much of a difference throughout all of our clients campaigns. Google has since quashed the media hype by stating that a non mobile friendly website can still outrank a mobile friendly website if the content on the website is more relevant to the search query. So, what does that tell you about content and how important it is?

Google have also stated that there are around 200 different ranking signals that makes up its complex algorithm, so therefore your conversion to a mobile friendly website will not meet all of your SEO requirements, but it will meet the requirements for your website visitors (which is more important anyway).

One word says it all

Keywords… keywords… keywords… they can become an obsession. Lets be fair, that time has now moved on, and if you have not realised this yet then give your head a wobble. In order to survive you have to focus on the bigger picture. Since the introduction of localised & personal search we have seen a dramatic difference in individually ranked keyword numbers. Firstly, as I always preach, more and more people are turning to their mobile phones as their preferred choice of Internet browsing.

Many people find keyboards too small on a smart phone, so they then activate their speech recognition as an easier alternative.

This alone changes the way people search!

With speech recognition people will ask the search engines a question, which brings with it the introduction of long tail search. Those who are becoming more and more savvy to this notion are now looking towards content and long-tail search as their primary focus over individual keywords.

If you want what is best for your business then let go of your ego and focus on what really matters!

I can do all the other SEO and neglect Social Media SEO

There are those which have an issue with social media and so they stay away from Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Personally, this is fine. However, if you want your site to go anywhere in the SERPs you will need to have social integration. The misconception is that social media integration means that you have to have a Facebook page. This is not necessarily true (though it does help).

Social media can help to build your authority status within your industry. More and more businesses are turning to social media to draw attention to their expert articles, and where there is knowledge and support, there is a following, you just need to go out and find them. You can also use social media to outreach to bloggers and/or journalists that specifically write about your industry, so if you are not using it to your benefit then I suggest you get started.