SEO is an exciting field because it offers a variety of ways to succeed, learn and innovate. It is easy to get caught up in the latest and greatest of SEO because it seems to be changing almost daily. But just because some of the tactics are growing and changing doesn’t mean that the basics are. Don’t fall prey to the following myths just because these lines of thinking may tell you what you want to hear. Arm yourself with the truth and then go out and build a successful campaign.

1- Instant Popularity Some believe that starting an SEO campaign will give you instant popularity: ranking you in the search engines, driving up traffic and increasing revenue. Although these are all side of effects of an effective SEO campaign that does not mean that it occurs instantly. As a matter of fact, big effects from SEO can takes months and even years depending on how competitive your industry is. Don’t give up half way down the trail because you haven’t seen the results you want in the first couple months. Quality link building takes time. So hang on for the ride because even though it’s a journey, the end results are well worth it.

2- One Time Magic False Thinking: ‘I’ve optimized my site, changed my meta tags, added keywords and linked internally creating an impressive web of information. I have also gathered a decent number of back links, submitted to directories, built some Squidoo pages and even gained a PR 6 link! I am finally finished!’ The Truth: SEO isn’t a project that you start and then finish like a To-Do list: i. Clean Kitchen ii. Write Term Paper iii. Rank #1 in Google iv. Buy Milk and Eggs Search Engine Optimization is an ongoing process, like brushing your teeth. You wouldn’t dream of going a day without brushing your teeth, or worse you wouldn’t spend 5 hours brushing your teeth on the first of the month so you didn’t have to brush them the rest of the month. SEO is the same way. SEO is never finished but it isn’t a huge project that has to take hours and hours every day. A simple effort daily can have a big impact but skip a couple days and your rankings may start to decay.

3- Google Hates Me Well that is a little harsh don’t you think? But the truth of the matter is: Google might. Put yourself in their mindset and see if your efforts are actually countering theirs. One of Google’s biggest business objectives is to provide viewers with a search engine that provides them with relevant and valuable information. If your attempts to get ranked are thwarting that goal by submitting content that is already all across the web, or has no relevance to keywords you say it does, then can’t you see how that could cause some hard feelings. But the reality of the matter is, if you are making the effort to stick to white hat tactics Google will reward your efforts. It may seem that sketchy tactics work faster, and they probably do at first, but in the end it isn’t IF you’ll get caught it is WHEN. Giving Google what they want, relevant content linked to other relevant content, will give you the benefits of being an asset to its algorithm instead of a worrying when you will get banned.

4- Once an Expert Always an Expert If we believe we are ever done learning about anything then we are done succeeding because success is based upon a strong, ever growing foundation of knowledge. SEO is no exception; this industry is growing so quickly that in order to gain success you have to have a desire to learn and innovate along with your market. Never be so quick to throw out a concept or idea before mulling it over in your brain and seeing it from every angle. A can opener is a stupid invention if it is used as toddler’s toy but when placed in the right setting it proves invaluable.

5- All Links are Created Equal Imagine again for a moment that you are a search engine and you had the fun task of organizing sites and ranking them in an order of relevance. What would you look at? If it was me I would look at any element that would prove a site was relevant to the topic they are professing. For instance, pretend a page selling snowboards is trying to rank well in the search engines. I (as a search engine) go to that page and see that they have text about snowboards, meta tags about snowboards , headlines about snowboards, yet they are chalk full of links that lead to everything from buying a car, to taking out a loan, to a Good House Keeping magazine subscription, in my mind those are irrelevant holes in the site making it deal less with snowboards and more with selling anything to anybody. Also equally important are those links that are pointing at your site. No site can completely control where all of their backlinks are coming from, and it wouldn’t make sense to be punished for having irrelevant backlinks, (because then competition could sabotage you). It does however, make sense though that there are rewards for having relevant ones. A relevant link is like having all three of the properties in Monopoly, the value they carry because they are grouped and all relevant to each other is higher then another property that just stands on its own. Its not that the single property doesn’t carry some value and won’t bring income but you will never win the game if you aren’t creating relevant sets of properties.

6- Beauty is Solely External I don’t think anyone would deny that one of the most important aspects of SEO is building a strong external linking campaign. However it would be a crucial mistake to forget internal linking and believe that only external links matter to a complete and beautiful campaign. Internal linking is vitally important. When something on your site is relevant to one of your past articles, link to it. This will create an interlocking web of information that does two things. First, it proves how relevant the information on your site is to itself. And second, it causes the reader to get lost in your site going from one article to the next.

7- And the Lucky Number is… Some have adopted the idea that there is a certain number of links you have to gain or a PageRank (PR) you have to achieve to get ranked on Google. That is simply a misunderstanding of how rankings work. You are not battling to be ranked #1 in Google you are battling to be ranked #1 for a keyword in Google. It is a minor wording difference, but the change makes all the difference in terms of meaning. The first phrase suggests that it is a worldwide battle meaning we are all competing against each other in one large war. And if this were the case then there would be a set number of links and rankings that you had to achieve, or top. Instead, we are battling for keywords, making the goal that of winning lots of smaller battles with different competitors. In other words each battle is different and so there is no set number of links or PR because the conditions to win each battle are different. Ultimately SEO is about being willing to change, grow, research and work hard. Society has a credit mentality, meaning I’ll take it now and pay for it later. This line of thinking has created the idea that you can get something for nothing. Getting caught up in that line of thinking when it comes to SEO will get you nowhere. But if you are willing to work hard, research, change and then research some more then you will succeed at SEO. SEO isn’t a magical, mystical world where results have to fall out of the sky and only a select few are lucky enough succeed in it. You can do SEO and be very successful, just don’t fall prey to the myths that surround it.