E394: Sharing popular SEO myths that many people believe not to be true!
If you want to know what matters in SEO - what to focus on - and what to ignore, this podcast is perfect for you.
If you’re active doing SEO and need something to get you going - also great for you.
Lots of value in this one.
00:00 Introduction: SEO Myths and Personal Experience 00:58 From Ukraine to Top Rankings 02:24 Content Below the Fold 03:28 Keyword Density 05:14 Meta Descriptions 06:07 Content Quality vs. Domain Authority 10:38 Schema Markup 12:23 SEO Fundamentals 13:28 On-Page SEO Software That Works 15:03 Wrapping Up SEO Insights
#seo #searchengineoptimization #digitalmarketing #contentmarketing
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/
What SEO myth did you believe until you tried it yourself? For the longest time, I believed that Google ignores content below the fold. I focused all my key content at the top, thinking anything below wouldn't matter. But when I spread quality content throughout the page, my rankings improved, and user engagement increased. What's an SEO myth you believed until you tried it yourself? Did it work wonders or fall flat? Let's share experiences and help separate fact from fiction. This is a thread at the top of the Search Engine Optimization subreddit. I'm going to be reading through the comments and giving my experiences on each one of them. I've been doing SEO for over a decade. If you don't know, I've been doing search engine optimization for over a decade. I've done it for some of the biggest companies in the world, like Procter and Gamble, ADP, Microsoft, so many more. I've done it for lots of SMBs and my own companies, and I've gotten crazy rankings on another episode. I shared a story of when I was living in Kiev in Ukraine. This was during lockdowns. I'm from New York. I was in Ukraine when lockdowns started in 2020, and I had a choice. Should I get an emergency flight back to New York to do lockdowns in New York? Or should I just stay in Kiev where I had this crazy mansion that I was staying in and a great life? I picked Kiev. There was a time when I was there, I published an article. I found this keyword that I liked about remote learning, and I published this article, and I outranked the New York Times within five minutes of publishing the article. The New York Times was ranking, I think, number one, and then I ranked number one within five minutes of publishing the article while living in Ukraine. I published this article, outranked the New York Times within five minutes, and the domain authority on the website, I think, at the time was like 32 out of 100, whereas the New York Times domain authority, right now, it's 95 out of 100. So I've done some SEO stuff, so I'm going to share my opinion on the myths as they are called in this thread. If you are learning SEO, or maybe you've been doing SEO for a bit, but there are things that you're confused about, this will be an interesting listen. You want to focus on what matters and what doesn't. You don't want to waste your time on the stuff that isn't going to get you results, and that's what this thread on Reddit is about. The very first comment is, I used to think keyword density, oh, I actually want to give my opinion on the below the fold stuff, Google certainly does not ignore content below the fold because it's very important for users. The top of an article should either immediately satisfy search intent or convince somebody to stay on the page and look further because the searcher who arrives on that page when they're looking at the above the fold content, they believe that their search intent will be satisfied by the page that they're on. The reason that the below the fold, this means below what loads, what immediately loads is important, is it's really important for searchers. If a searcher looks at what's above the fold, goes below the fold, and then bounces and goes back to the search results, Google can see that. It's been proven with the recent Google leak that Google can see that. And the rankings of that page will decrease. So Google ignores content below the fold, absolutely an SEO myth. The top comment on this is, I used to think keyword density was key, and I would stuff keywords everywhere, but when I focused on natural, high quality content, my rankings improved, Google values context and content quality over just keyword count. That's absolutely true and using the keyword too many times on a page is very bad, and I've seen that myself, I've had times where I have removed the occurrence of a keyword from like one or two times, and then my rankings went up. The most important thing, it's just use the keyword in the page title at the beginning of the page title, at the beginning of the H1, hopefully at the beginning of the meta description, in the beginning of the first sentence on the page, and optionally not necessarily in the alt text for the first image. Oh, and in the slug in the in the URL slug. I don't think I'm leaving anything out there. If it's a longer page, if it's like several thousand words, then you will have to use a keyword a few more times, but that depends on the context like this guy said. You want to just want to have high quality content. Part of the reason Google likes to see that the main keyword that you are targeting is in the first sentence or in the H1 is because when a user arrives, if you if you're thinking from like a searcher perspective, when the searcher arrives on that page, who has searched that keyword, the searcher goes, Oh, this page was written for my keyword. This page was written for what I just searched. There's a good chance it's going to satisfy my intent. And Google wants that Google wants to have a positive experience for its users so that users will keep using Google and Google can get ad revenue from the users keyword density, total myth, though there are places like I just explained where you want to use your keyword. Next one, I used to believe that meta descriptions have a direct impact on rankings. I spent hours crafting the perfect meta descriptions for every page only to realize that while they're important for click through rates, they don't really affect rankings. Once I focused more on high quality content and backlinks, I saw much better results. I'm going to break this one down. High quality content backlinks, definitely important meta descriptions, however, also important, generally try to include your keyword at the beginning of your meta description. Google might ignore the meta description, but it is a positive signal. Do you need to spend hours crafting the perfect meta description? No, oftentimes I will just take a variation of my first sentence, which has the keyword in it and use that as the meta description. But definitely don't need to spend hours on a meta description. You could spend one to five minutes. Another one, I believed writing quality content would result in rankings. The truth is content quality matters very little. Links matter a whole lot more. You can absolutely publish shit on medium, LinkedIn, Quora, or Reddit, and it will rank very well. The only reason why is because Google values these domains. If Google doesn't value your domain, then you're not going to rank. There's a huge debate on this post and I believe that the debater, the guy who is opposing this guy, is right. So the comment on this guy's post, he said writing quality content doesn't matter. From my experience, that is false and from the experience of the debater, that is false. And the guy says, you can put out shit content on LinkedIn, Quora, Reddit, and Medium. The guy says it's not because of domain authority, like backlinks. It's because Google is prioritizing user generated content signals because so many webmasters are spamming AI written content and people trust user generated content more. So many people are just searching plus Reddit at the end of their searches. That's really what it is. It's a known thing that Google is prioritizing user generated content right now. And it is a leading theory that the reason for that is because so many webmasters are spamming AI generated text. And even though AI generated text works on these top user generated content platforms like Reddit and Quora and Medium, it's generally more trusted because it's a user generated content site, especially if there is engagement on the post, Google and other search engines love to see engagement because it means people can go to the comments for nuance. And that's very helpful. A lot of blogs, they don't have great comment sections anymore. Engagement on a post is a big signal and user generated content platforms get a lot more engagement. The debate on this comment goes really deep so the original poster says you could post shit content on Forbes and it'll rank well. And then the debater says maybe Forbes could put out bad content and temporarily outrank anyone for its desired keyword. But if the article didn't satisfy search intent and the searcher bounced for the Forbes article, the Forbes article would lose rankings just like anybody else. I personally believe that too. If someone is going to a page and they're going back to the search results, that is a really bad signal and Google pays attention to that. So this guy says, he gives another example, there's this famous thing that the Verge did. So he says, search for best printer read the Verge article at number four. It's AI. They are mocking Google with the content. And he's wrong. Actually, the second half has AI content. The top half is mocking Google, that is true, but the whole thing is not AI. And they actually do recommend at the very top of the article, they recommend their best printer. And it's the same printer. They say it explicitly. It's the same printer that they have recommended year after year. The whole point of that article is they think it's like so annoying that they have to just update the article for 2024 and that they're able to use their domain authority to recommend a printer. And they actually do recommend a printer and they say very convincingly that they believe it is a great printer. And so here's what happens. People come to this Verge article because it is a high domain authority website. The article also has comments on it, but the article recommends a great printer. So do people bounce after looking for a printer when they get on this page? No, their search intent is satisfied. They don't go back to the search results and keep searching. And that's why this article continues to rank. And if they didn't recommend a printer on that page, I would bet you that the article would not rank. Or if they didn't give like a convincing argument about why you should get a printer, why you should get this printer, I believe that that article would not rank or it wouldn't rank well. That's my opinion on like domain authority is everything. Not at all. Actually, all the time on the show, I give examples of websites that have like under 10 domain authority and still do well. I see it all the time. The only thing that is really true about this, about what this person said is that Google is prioritizing user generated content right now. I see that myself. I put keywords into my videos, into the descriptions from my videos, and then they rank the next day for the desired keyword. It's crazy what's happening. That is true. Does it mean that you should stop doing SEO? Because Reddit's just going to outrank you. Does it mean that you should stop working on a website? Not at all. Anyway, I could rant on this for so long. There's another one manually adding schema used to be important. All the major CMSs and page site builders will do it for you now. And even when they don't, Google is smart enough to discern. And then the person comments again, I'm going to clarify. I think schema matters for only the most competitive bottom of funnel keywords and top of funnel is a waste of time when you realize how much more lucrative bottom of funnel is. I agree completely with that. Comma matters for the most competitive bottom of funnel keywords, the most competitive purchase intent keywords. So if you Google like Brooklyn Williamsburg Plumber, that's a very competitive keyword. So maybe you want to include the aggregate rating schema so you can have stars show up for how good your plumber services because it's such a competitive keyword and everyone is optimizing their pages for that keyword perfectly. But generally speaking, I could name so many different search results. Actually I was just looking at one myself, CRM bulk text texting. If you Google CRM bulk texting, the top pages barely use any schema and they don't use the aggregate rating, they don't have stars showing up for the results. And only further down in the search engine results pages, you see ones that do use stars because it's just more important that the page is optimized for CRM bulk texting. So I totally believe this totally agree with that. Schema is generally a waste of time unless it's a super competitive bottom of funnel keyword and top of funnel compared to bottom of funnel SEO takes more efforts a waste of time. I'm literally making a product about this, it's called compact keywords, about bottom of funnel keywords and how great they are. I like this one, looking for shortcuts or magical solutions, that's a myth. I've been doing SEO for the past year for my small business and so far if I was to sum up my stance, the most important points of search engine optimization come down to, looking what people are actually looking for, writing content in a way that helps search engines to understand what you are writing. So short sentences, clear titles, clear writing, and then number three, writing quality content within these boundaries completely agree with that. That is a nice description. This is another one that I liked and this is actually similar to the first one. Using keywords repetitively was one that I believed. Then some experienced folk told me that it just makes content appear spammy and less readable to users. It's the same thing that the first person said about keyword spamming and then this person continues after that the priority was natural sounding and good quality content doesn't matter if it is less dense in keywords than the one that I used before. Same thing as the other guy but I liked it and I'll end with this one. This guy says that there's a myth that page optimizer software actually works but I like the comment which opposes this and the guy says actually what I say, the Moz on page greater is 10 out of 10 and it makes you optimize based off of suggestions. I've gotten real results with this. I love the Moz on page greater. I don't really need it anymore because I know how to do on page SEO but if you don't know how to do on page SEO, it's a really good tool. I have no affiliation with Moz. They don't have an affiliate program. I've asked to be an affiliate for Moz. I have emailed them and they're like we have no affiliate program and we don't intend to put one in and I'm still recommending Moz because it's a good tool and the Moz on page greater go to your page which you are trying to optimize for a keyword. You type in the keyword with the URL and then Moz just gives you a bunch of very clear actionable steps to better optimize a page for that keyword and it makes you do it yourself. So it says like use a keyword in the H1 if you didn't, reduce the amount of occurrences of the keyword. If the keyword appears too many times, it's going to tell you that it looks spammy. Might say things like use images, very clear actionable, straightforward things. A lot of the type of things that I say on this show but if you're new to on page SEO or if you're new to search engine optimization and you're just trying to figure out what matters and what doesn't, the Moz on page greater tool is super useful. So I disagree that page optimization software working is a myth. I don't think it is a myth. I think it is very useful for people who are new to search engine optimization and that is how I will end episode 394 of my daily digital marketing podcast. It is raining so hard in the European city that I am in crazy rainstorm right now and I am about to go out into it and get pierogies. If you were confused about some SEO things, I hope this episode addressed those things. I had fun sharing all of this with you. Thank you so much for watching. Thank you so much for listening. I will talk to you again tomorrow.
