If you want to effectively position your website, you must avoid believing in these search engine optimization myths.
Misconceptions about how SEO works generate a series of erroneous beliefs. In this article, we will discuss the most common misconceptions about search engine positioning and, with the help of our experts, Blas Giffuni and Camilo Ramírez, we will provide answers.
Can the first position in a search engine be guaranteed? Does Google favor large brands? Is the technological platform responsible for the success of an SEO strategy? These and other questions will be answered throughout the following article. Keep reading!
FIRST SEO MYTH: Is SEO a person?
That is, SEO is handled by a person within the organization with a designated role, and this person is responsible for achieving web positioning.
Yes and no. Yes, because there really must be a person who takes charge of SEO, who is responsible for web positioning tasks, and who has a passion for the subject with an achievement-oriented and strategic vision.
On the other hand, more than a person, SEO should be a corporate culture that is lived within the company. Therefore, what I recommend is that SEO starts from the top and then permeates all levels of the company.
If at the executive level, everyone is not on the same page, we can have the best person in the world in charge of SEO and still not achieve anything because the initiative is not supported by the leaders.
SEO must be a commitment of the entire company; everyone must be "in the loop" and mobilize towards it because one person alone will not make a powerful enough impact.
SECOND SEO MYTH: Does SEM influence SEO?
That is, many people say that when one invests in paid advertising through search engines, it automatically boosts site positioning, and if one wants to achieve quick results, one must always advertise on search so that the website is indexed much faster.
That is completely false: there is no direct relationship between organic positioning (SEO) and paid advertising positioning (SEM).
There is something that must be considered and that often confuses people, which is that when their advertisement appears, it already creates a level of intention, which causes people to start searching for their brand, but that does not mean that by paying for advertising or running campaigns, their organic position will immediately improve or that Google will give them any position because they are pay-per-click clients.
You cannot pay Google to be in the organic number one position. What is paid and worked on is the optimization of a website and the generation of valuable content. Even so, this does not guarantee that you will reach number one.
THIRD SEO MYTH: Is it possible to guarantee the first organic position in a search engine?
All of us who have worked in the SEO universe have had clients or people who expect that after an investment, they will be first on search engines.
No, there is no way to guarantee the first organic position in a search engine. We have received this same question several times, not precisely from clients, but because our competition comes and tells them: "I guarantee that I will put you in first position." That is something that absolutely no one can guarantee.
What can one guarantee? That the greatest possible effort will be made to achieve it and that, based on the experience of past cases, certain websites have been positioned by using certain keywords in certain positions, and this took X amount of time.
But that does not mean that one can guarantee the first position, starting because the competition is also smart and moves. But not only that, the user also changes the way they search.
In summary, it is completely illogical to say that someone can guarantee the first position. In colloquial terms, we recommend that if they are promising a certain position in search engines, they are probably selling them smoke.
Also, we must consider that SEO is a long-term investment, that is the only reality, that sometimes the investment can start to yield results in two or three weeks or really can maximize its return in two years. For this reason, it is necessary to be much more strategic than simply running SEO campaigns from time to time.
FOURTH SEO MYTH: Google favors the big players!
That is, large companies have the advantage because they have large investments, because they are recognized brands, and Google will like to see them more.
This is false, for several reasons. First, not long ago Google, through John Mueller, said: "We do not index websites, we index pages," that is; for Google, each page has its power, each page has its reason for being, and each page will provide a solution for a user or answer a question.
What happens? That normally it is thought that they favor large brands because guess who is doing the job well: the big brands! They are the ones who really understand the power and value of being well positioned in search engines.
It is not necessary to have a big budget for SEO, if you do not have it, it is necessary to have a good way of describing the product, of telling what you do, of explaining easily how you are an expert in your area, and how you make things easier for your ideal customer. By doing this, you could beat giant companies.
The above was proven by Blas Giffuni with a client who is a studio in a single location in a town in Florida, United States. They managed to position themselves on a fairly broad keyword and are already in the first position, well above those who invented the technology they sell and well above other providers of these services. The reason is that they managed to define and describe who they wanted to help, how they could help them, and through a personal touch, they told the story of how that studio solved their clients' problems.
So, it is not a matter of budget, it is a matter of strategy and knowing how to intelligently manage your investment.
Now, we address small businesses, those that are starting and have a website that they believe is lost in the universe of searches: don't worry! You can achieve it, be smart, make a smart strategy, and keep listening to the SEO Bites podcast that will help you a lot to beat everyone.
FIFTH SEO MYTH: To achieve good search engine positioning, all you have to do is have many backlinks or incoming links from other pages.
This question arises because initially when talking about SEO, it was said that a link from one website to another website was a vote, a declaration of trust in which the owner of a certain website told others that he thought the content of another website was very good.
So, what happened at the algorithm level was that if a website is saying that this other one is very good, it passes a bit of factor, or as it is said in digital slang, it passes a bit of link juice to the other website.
Currently, with all the changes that have occurred in terms of Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, and other technologies, it has been learned to really find the context of what is inside a page.
Therefore, it is important to take the time to research and link to pages that are relevant to the topics covered on a website and that also provide value to the user, that is; really use other websites to improve and enrich the content of my website.
So, to answer, this myth is false: all you have to do is not search for links, ideally links come by themselves as a result of having created quality content.
SIXTH SEO MYTH: Does SEO depend on the platform on which I have my website?
That is, if I use WordPress I get one result, if I use Drupal I get another result, Magento or any other platform, that is what really determines the success of SEO.
This is false, the platform does not determine the results of SEO. Really, the platform does not influence, but the way the platform is used.
Now, where can problems arise with the platform?: at a technical level. For example, if the platform itself is very slow or has a lot of elements loading, this will therefore delay the loading speed or require unnecessary code to be added, thus harming SEO.
The invitation is to think about how our website can influence the lives of others. If we have a website that does not load quickly, that influences, regardless of the platform.
If our platform is very complicated to handle and I will always need a developer to upload even a small article or create a page, that is also affecting my business because I cannot move at the speed I need. But to say that the platform is what makes a website better or not positioned is completely false.
Thank you for your interest in learning more about the main SEO myths. We invite you to keep reading our blog to learn more about search engine positioning!
