Digital Myth Buster

In this digital myth buster resource, we would like to debunk some of the common myths we hear and explain briefly why they are utter nonsense. Have you heard something that you believe to be false? Then get in touch and we can advise.

“Google+ Helps with SEO”

No. No it doesn’t. Why would it? Seriously. Just by being on Google+ adds zero value to your website in terms of SEO. Remember, SEO is all about creating an awesome website that your customer love. Google wants to send organic traffic to websites that deserve to receive the traffic, websites that have high quality information and resources about a specific topic.

If it was that easy to ‘do SEO’ then everyone would be jumping on board and getting a Google+ page, then, according to the myth-logic, everyone would be better, so everyone would be the same. Google+ does not directly help with SEO. Fact.

Google+ can help you connect with your audience if they are using the social media platform, which in turn can help spread your messages further afield and increase the number of people talking about you online. Just in the same way that Facebook, Twitter and your email mailing list does.

Do not be fooled. Google+ does not directly help with SEO.

“‘Digital Thing’ Doesn’t Work in Industry ‘X’”

Yes it does. Instead of dismissing what you have not succeeded at, likely because you haven’t implemented things successfully does not mean that something doesn’t work. Nor should you listen to someone who claims to be an expert in something who says a certain method doesn’t work.

Every single business is different and every single digital marketing channel can be tracked accurately to see how each is performing for your own business and website. Test for yourself on your own website to see what works for you and where improvements can be made.

Would you ever say that newspaper advertising, radio advertising, television advertising, flyer distribution and more doesn’t work for your business and your industry without every testing it? No you wouldn’t. So don’t be fooled that certain digital marketing methods do or don’t work for specific types of businesses or industries.

Don’t be fooled. Test everything to see what works for your business and website.

“Our Website Has Already Had SEO Done On It”

Ok, so let’s qualify this. We hear this quite a bit that SEO is now ‘complete’ on a website as it has had a few meta titles changed and ‘keywords have been added in’. To be visible on Google you need to be continually investing in SEO, continually improving your website, continually adding awesome content to your website and continually sharing this awesome content with your audience on social media, email marketing newsletters and more.

SEO is never complete in the same way that you would never open a shop and never do anything with it after the first day. Remember, Google wants to drive traffic to the best website available for a specific search query. Looking at the physical world example again. In a shop, you would clean up every day, add new stock, remove out of date stock, list promotions, improve the shop layout to increase sales and more. This is no different than on your website, SEO is never complete, you should be continually improving your website in all aspects to increase the traffic to your website.

Don’t be fooled. SEO is never complete, to succeed you need to be continually improving your website in every way.

“SEO is Dead”

This has been circulating around for a number of years. SEO is not dead. Fact. Read through the many case studies and you will see hard evidence that SEO in indeed alive and kicking for those investing seriously. This point warrants no further discussion.

Don’t be fooled. SEO is not dead. SEO is alive and kicking.

“Video Helps with SEO”

Having a video on your website isn’t going to help with your SEO efforts by default. If your videos is pointless, adds no value or has been thrown together without any thought about who this is for, then this is not going to help with your SEO efforts.

Having an awesome video that is highly useful, fun, entertaining or in some other way providing value to your customers will naturally help with your SEO efforts. Video is a great way to add an extra dimension do your website and can engage with your audience well. There are a lot of cool things and technical tweaks that you can make once you have video content. Always start with the why, why are you creating a video and what value is it going to add to your website and your customers’ lives.

Don’t be fooled. Video per say, is not going to help with SEO. Video that is awesome is going to help with SEO.