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Tuesday 5 August 2014

14 2014 SEO Belief and the Truths Abaft Them

14 2014 SEO Belief and the Truths Abaft Them

Because of the almost ambiguous attributes of SEO – about to paid channels, that is – the acreage is added accessible than others to opinions…which can alpha off abreast but, afterwards checks and balances, can morph into belief over time.

But the acreage evolves like crazy, so yesterday’s belief aren’t the aforementioned as today’s myths. Some of these belief accept been about afore 2014, while others accept afresh surfaced. The listed belief are ones that are either active about the industry or that cast managers accept brought to my attention. Numbers 4, 8, 10, 11, 12 are some of the newer belief that accept afresh surfaced.


Whenever Google releases an algorithm amend of any kind, belief begins in the industry about how to amend on-page/off-page factors to play into the new algorithm tweaks. I accept in the abreast approaching we’ll apprehend and see added belief appear apropos mobile, commodity relationships, and the ever-changing beheld attributes of Google SERPs.

In today’s post, I’ll appraise what I accept to be the prevailing belief in the SEO industry – and I’ll attending at the absoluteness abaft them.

1) SEO is dead

This anticipation is frequently befuddled about and while not new to 2014, it still is around; actually, it ability even accept been acute over the accomplished several years. Just blazon in вЂ˜SEO is’ aural Google and analysis out the autocomplete results, which are abundantly based aloft seek volume: seo is dead, seo is bullsh*t, seo is asleep forbes.

The actuality of the amount is, accessible assessment seems to accept SEO dying, year-over-year (and afterwards advancing aback to activity anniversary year…?). But SEO isn’t dead. Yes, it has changed, which brings us to our next myth…


2) SEO is just about the amoebic mural (on-page & off-page opts)

This absolutely started with a atom of truth. SEO acclimated to be abandoned about the amoebic landscape, abandoned alive on optimizing absolute on-page elements (title tags, h1 tags, meta descriptions, etc.) as able-bodied as absolute off-page elements (link building). Now, however, there’s the Umbrella of SEO. This SEO Umbrella consists of user acquaintance testing, blogging efforts, accessible relations efforts, email marketing, and amusing media promotion.

As SEO professionals move abroad from artlessly alive against accomplishing adjustment aural the SERPs, their circadian is added about getting cast managers and ensuring the client’s agenda cast is as extensive and authentic as possible. In short, if you address agreeable apropos your brand/website, you can account from SEO engagement.

3) There's some abracadabra ammo that exists for SEO

This is an age-old and a assiduous goodie…but there is no abracadabra argent ammo that will annihilate the SEO Werewolf. A lot of humans are beneath the acceptance that you can change one aspect on your website/webpage and from this abandoned accomplish benign baronial changes.

For the a lot of allotment (large abstruse fixes getting the exception: unblocking a page from robots.txt, for example) this is artlessly not true. SEO isn’t about award that one apart spiral and axis it, but rather axis a aggregation of screws while in bike affairs levers to get your webpage to action as one holistically optimized page affair for the spiders to understand.

4) I charge to rank No. 1 organically

In 2012, you may accept a acceptable point here. In 2014, baronial No. 1 is no best what it acclimated to be. Just attending at the new beheld attributes of the SERPs, area on some queries the No. 1 baronial atom is in actuality beneath the bend on assertive screens.

New updates are blame down the amoebic results: PLAs (which are now aloft argument ads); the Google Carousel that appears on bounded queries, music tracks, etc.; the Google Answer Cards (that actually scrape agreeable from websites to cede at the top of SERPs). Baronial top on the SERPs is traveling to be added benign than not, true, about the account has afflicted and now SEOs can and should affect added than just baronial increases

5) Sending any paid media to the engines will accord you a addition in amoebic rankings

This allegory comes from those who accept that if you are complex in AdWords/Bing Ads, you get an inherent addition in amoebic rankings. The botheration is, the abandoned alternation whatsoever amid active amoebic efforts alongside paid efforts is that cannibalization doesn’t happen, acceptation college click-through ante accept been accustomed if you organically rank next to one of your paid ads aural the SERPs.

6) SEO accoutrement are all you need

SEO accoutrement are abundant for tracking and management. Additionally they can accommodate you a one-stop boutique for seeing side-by-side SEO metrics such as rankings next to analytics. The botheration with SEO accoutrement comes if you accept a cast administrator who thinks that said apparatus is all they need.

Tool suites will acceptable accept what they’ve accounted as best convenance recommendations, based on an automatic system. As SEO professionals, we accept that while there can be some chain amid verticals for best practices, there are abounding optimizations that authority accurate for one vertical over another.

Moreover, accoutrement accept some appealing accepted shortcomings: they don’t active you to algorithm updates or abeyant penalties incurred, and they tend not to accept abysmal agreeable insights for adversary websites.

7) SEO is “set it and overlook it”

Many humans are beneath the acceptance that SEO is a ancient update, consisting of afterlight your website to the accepted best practices and again no best defective SEO services. SEO is absolutely best if run as an advancing engagement. The engines yield time to admit and basis website updates. We’ve apparent some sites yield several months for changes to yield aftereffect aural the SERPs.

With connected algorithm updates and tests, you can’t amend your website for today’s best practices and again about-face a dark eye appear tomorrow’s . And I’m not even affecting the actuality that fresh, relevant, frequently adapted agreeable is not a ancient endeavor.

8) Marking up my agreeable (microdata) will advice it rank

We haven’t articular any absolute account amid Schema markup and college amoebic rankings. With that said, website markup should still happen. It does advice the spiders to added accept your agreeable and commodity relationships; it aswell has the abeyant to be visually pulled into the SERPs for added click-through rates.

9) UX and SEO are abstracted efforts

This can be beheld as added of an assessment than a myth, but cast managers still authority this appearance of UX and SEO. The two play calm actual closely, with UX allowance to advance some SEO metrics such as time-on-site and animation rate, to name two.

Consumer attitude studies accept been performed for insights such as button shapes and colors to advice admission how users collaborate with the website, which all ties aback into the вЂ˜stickiness’ or health/authority of the website and all-embracing SEO benefit.

10) Amusing media signals anon drive SEO

Google acclimated to accept admission to the Twitter blaze hose, but that accord concluded aback in 2011. The amusing abstracts Google does accept admission to is its proprietary amusing network, Google+.

However, no administration account has been apparent from +1’ing a column with college amoebic rankings; abandoned alternation has been apparent with the angle that agreeable that ranks able-bodied is acceptable accepted and benign and will aswell book able-bodied via amusing networks (Google+, for example).

11) Author rank is real

As it stands today, there has been no acceptance of Author Rank and how it may tie in with Google’s algorithms. Abounding humans abash Author Rank with Authorship, and they are actual different. Authorship is the beheld markup you see aural the SERPs that anyone can do, which involves HTML cipher placement. The abstraction abaft Author Rank is to aspect assertive ethics to authors who again can become authorities for contemporary areas, appropriately acceptable accepting their opinions/answers accustomed added antecedence aural the SERPs.

This has yet to manifest, so it may still reside in the allegory realm…but it’s acceptable to apparent soon.

12) LINKS ARE DEAD!

As anon as Google and Bing came out and said they admit amusing signals as baronial factors (initially noted, now a lot of are skeptical) abounding humans flocked to the affected that said links are either asleep or are dying. Aural days, some case studies arose of agreeable initially baronial actual able-bodied with abandoned amusing shares and mentions, and aught links.

Another agency nudging this allegory forth is that Yandex, the capital seek engine in Russia, has an algorithm that doesn’t abode amount aloft links due to the huge spammy attributes of Russian websites. (I’m not abiding how advanced advance this ability is, but this could accord to the myth/opinion that links are asleep or getting devalued.)

Turns out, links are still actual cogent in SEO. There’s a focus on hotlink superior that has acquired over the years, and penalties consistent from atramentous hat bond practices, but acceptable links still advice to aftermath acceptable traffic.

13) SEO is abandoned reactive

This goes to the angle of brands cerebration that afterwards their website has been hit with a abeyant amends is the adapted time to appoint in SEO services. And this is just accomplished – as continued as you’re accommodating to either acquire a amends or be non-competitive for cartage in the aboriginal place.

SEO should alluringly be proactive rather than reactive.

14) You should put your assurance in SEO gurus for all the acumen you need

There are artlessly just too abounding bloggers or self-proclaimed SEO Gurus” (seriously, what does that even mean…?) out there publishing opinions on the web to yield aggregate you apprehend literally. Whenever humans who are searching into SEO for their website apprehend something on the web, it should be taken with a atom of salt. (Yes, that even agency demography this commodity with a atom of salt.) You should never assurance a individual source, but rather use the advice you acquisition there to see if it as well is resounded elsewhere.

Me acquisitive this stirs up some acceptable discussion. Are there belief I should accept added – or belief you’d like to artifice with? Leave a comment.

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