Most important SEO myths of 2017 - Debunked!

Most important SEO myths of 2017 - Debunked!

SEO probably the most misunderstood online practice. Seriously I came to the conclusion that not even designers, programmers or even other online marketers and social media "specialist" have any idea what SEO really is.

And I don't blame them, but is 2017 and SEO have been around for a long time. At least the people working in digital agencies should have some basic and real knowledge on what SEO is and how it is implemented. But this doesn't really happen and to my surprise, there are still lots of myths and outdated ideas about SEO floating around.

My main issues with all of these myths are that they heavily influence clients and red-pilling them about what SEO really is seems to provoke a negative response, they are mostly so far in the wonderland that they don't really want to hear the truth.

So, let's debunk some of the biggest SEO myths still floating around in 2017:

1. SEO is a scam.

This usually comes from two main type of people: Clients that got heavily burned by scammy SEOs and haters that gonna hate no matter what and how much you are going to explain them the truth.

I can understand the clients that paid big bucks to some guy for 6 months only to discover that the only thing they got in returned was so spammy backlinks that got their domain penalized in Google. I agree that the SEO industry still haves a huge number of scammer that promise the world for few bucks, but one of the reasons they still exist is that the clients themselves aren't properly educated on what SEO really is and just follow blind statements from shady sources on the internet or follow what some of their friends "think" SEO is.

The real problem is the haters as well as the clients that want instant results. They paid some decent SEO for 1 week of SEO services and at the end of the week, they already expected to be on the first page and the first results for a very competitive keyword. As soon as they don't get what they want the began spreading lies about how SEO is a scam and doesn't work and it is a waste of time and money, same as the haters, which do this by default, without the need of even trying SEO.

2. User experience is not a ranking factor in Google.

Seriosuly there are people out there that don't think Google looks at how users are interesting with their website. This can be a fatal mistake in 2017. Nobody in their right mind is going to believe this after the Rank Brain update.

Google is putting a lot of weight on user experience and will continue to do this more and more in the future, becoming on of the most important ranking factors.

3. SEO is a one-time thing. Just like the design of a website.

I heard this statement a dozen of times from clients. "Why do we need SEO again? We already paid someone for SEO when the website launched".

This is so wrong I don't even know where to start. SEO never ends and will never be "enough". Depending on your needs and budget you should always have an SEO campaign running, same goes for on-page SEO optimizations.

4. Keywords. Why aren't you listing all of my keywords in every single title and meta description?

Seriusly, I have lost clients because of this. They didn't want to understand you don't need to put every single one of your keyword in the title tag and meta description.

When I refused to make such implementation they said they know what is best for their website and dropped me as their SEO, made the implementations withsome else and 1 month later they started complaining about a huge drop in organic traffic, I had one world for the: "Google keyword stuffing".

They all want to get back after they mess things up. I never take such clients back, never. I believe clients need to educated and this is a good way to do it. When they act all bossy and state they know better what is good for them, let them go and never help them again. They'll find someone else and won't repeat this experience again, trust me.

What do you think are the biggest SEO myths that are still floating around in 2017 and how should we as SEOs combat them?