6 SEO Myths Of 2014

It seems like every year there are new SEO myths out there. In year’s past (and we should all know these by now) some of them were meta tag descriptions help your rankings, exact match domains help you rank for your main keywords, and you need website search engine submission services…no thank you.

#1. Content marketing is link building

While great content marketing can lead to links, it is not its sole purpose. You want to provide value in your industry and raise your brand awareness…that’s where it’s at.

#2. Stick a fork into guest posting

No…stick a fork into spammy guest posting. Anyone that contributes on Forbes, Huffington Post, Search Engine Land is essentially guest posting. So you’re going to tell me you don’t want to do contribute there? Fine by me. That’s more room for us to contribute. I no longer ask for guest posting availabilities, I ask if they allow regular contributors because it shows I’m not just in it for a one-off link.

#3. You have to have a responsive website

You can still rank with great content and natural links just fine. But you’re missing out on a staggering number of mobile users who aren’t getting the best user experience on your site, and may bounce to a site with better UX.

#4. You have to rank at the top of the 1st page to get traffic

Sure, being #1 or in the top 3 will result in a ton of traffic. But being in the top 3 spots on the 2nd, 3rd or even 4th page for those deep diggers will still bring you some visitors. Snippets and author tags are also making pages stand out, so having better optimization can sometimes get you a higher click-thru than your neighbor above you.

#5. The more links the merrier

This depends. If they are all high quality, natural and relevant, well then you probably made some awesome content and had a very successful outreach campaign. Otherwise just getting a few highly authoritative links and letting them flow in naturally while you create the next awesome piece of content is a better game plan. Keep your content fresh like Will Smith and you’ll be alright.

#6. You need exact match anchor text to rank for that keyword

Sure, if is 100% relevant or the title of whatever you are linking to by all means. But Google can now decipher through co-citations that the surrounding words of that anchor text is relevant to the link, and therefore those keywords should be rewarded with a raise.

These myths are newer and different from those in the past few years. SEO is always evolving, so who knows what Matt Cutts will want to eat with his A1 sauce next.

There are surely many more SEO myths. It’s hard to say what tactics are going on now and what the possible SEO myths of 2015 could be. Feel free to drop a line on some more SEO myths or take a stab at being the first on the internet to predict the SEO myths of the future.

Images: ”SEO – Internet Concept: Magnifying Glass with SEO and Growth Chart Icon on Old Paper with Red Vertical Line Background./ Shutterstock.com“

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