10 SEO myths debunked

Michael Estrin
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Search Posted on June 30, 2008

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Aaron Wall, founder, SEOBook.com

Myth #5: Keywords need to appear everywhere

A popular myth (brought on by people reading old SEO information that is not relevant to the current marketplace and optimization software that was programmed many years ago) is that you should put your keywords everywhere to rank as best you can. The truth is that Google's current relevancy algorithms favor more natural writing that includes a more diverse and realistic set of text with more variation in it. Some common variation strategies include using both the plural and singular versions of a keyword, changing the order of words in a phrase and adding relevant modifiers to page titles and headings.

Four or five years ago if you wanted to rank for "credit cards" you would put that phrase in your page title, in an H1 tag on the page, and in most of your inbound anchor text to that page. If you wanted to rank for the same phrase today, you might put a modifier word or two in the page title, opting for something like "Compare Credit Cards Online." Within the page copy the heading might be something more like "Apply for a Credit Card Today." Rather than focusing on the core phrase, this strategy still gets you decent coverage for it, but also helps the page rank for a much wider net of related keywords, and it makes the page much less likely to get filtered. You should also mix up your anchor text as well, if possible. If every link to a site has the exact same anchor text it doesn't look natural.

In addition to Wall's SEOBook.com site, he has also launched the SEO Training program to help interactive marketers better understand SEO.

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Adrienne Lewis January 7, 2009 at 8:35 AM

I'm very new to this site - but, I found this article really useful, and relevant even though I'm a online marketer in the UK,

mag ferraro January 3, 2009 at 4:37 PM

great site!

Kevin Trye January 1, 2009 at 8:58 PM

Great article, especially if you're seeing a diminishing number of leads coming via Google. For many sites today it's a lowly 5-20% of new traffic. The rest of course comes via a mix of online/offline referrals, direct mail, email, TV, Radio, magazines ads etc.
Google is but one of many traffic sources and just one link in a long chain, if we accept that the website we've built is there to actually sell or market something and get an ROI.
Time spent on optimizing the website and processes for sales leads and high sales conversions is far more important than SEO alone which too many are fixated with.
Studies have repeatedly found that over 90% of those coming to a business website today, (by whatever channel) will click away within seconds and never return. This is the bigger problem I think...

Bruce McDermott December 29, 2008 at 10:54 AM

I'd agree with everything but myth #1.

Just as Adam Lasnik states (in Myth #10) "We (Google) are, of course, a bit constrained in what we can disclose about the subtleties of our ranking algorithms and such...", a good SEO is continually perfecting his craft through techniques he develops over time. To openly talk about these techniques to other SEOs is counterproductive to an SEO's client base. This is a competitive business after all.

Do these "secret" SEO techniques have to be "Blackhat?" Of course not! They simply are better ways to address the goals of the clients and the requirements of ranking in the search engines.

By the way, the goals of the clients are usually misstated. Generally, they follow the same wording used in myth#1, ie, "We want more traffic." In reality, what they want is more sales, and "more traffic" has very little to do with more sales.

That's an old Google Adwords myth, commonly applicable to the spammy Adsense websites you see in the listings. (Those are the guys that equate traffic with sales by making money off of PPC clickthroughs). That has nothing to do with bringing a relevant buyer to the threshold of your client's website to sell him a product.

At any particular point in time, you would be horrified to learn, that there are only a finite number of buyers interested in buying a client's goods and services. Targeting those buyers is your job, not pushing useless traffic at a website.

Aparup Saikia December 28, 2008 at 10:05 PM

so how should one go about SEO. I am very keen on the matter and is coming to a dead. Seeking professional help ismy last resort that i might take if i can't find any solutions myself.

Cecilia Pineda Feret July 24, 2008 at 10:05 AM

Thank you for this article. It confirms my doubts about some of my colleagues' strategies and now I can reference the advice from these experts. Accessibility has been a particular point of contention since all the fanciful work in the world is for nought if some of your audience can't see it, whether on the mobile screen or on the computer screen.