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Every single business owner with a website and most people that use the internet today know at least something about search engine optimization (SEO). The problem is what most people know is completely false.

After working in the SEO industry for over 10 years now, I can tell you that you always have to explain something to a client. There is always at least one major misconception you have to address as a specialist. This can be frustrating…but it is a part of the job.

Before I talk about the most common facts people misunderstand about SEO, here is a little tip:

“If you do not know something about SEO, ask a reputable, well-known specialist. Do not blindly trust someone with an “SEO” tag in the profile description.”

Let’s get started with the myths.

SEO Is Fast – You Get Quick Results When You Do Good SEO Work

I think every single SEO specialist out there has this frustration. The client comes, hires you or wants to hire you and tells you that they will reach rank 1 for keywords in a month, right?

Completely wrong!

It takes time to produce authoritative, valuable content. Then, it takes time to publish it and search engines also need some time to crawl pages so that “link juice” can be passed on to the linked page.

Based on how many links already exist for a site, how good they are, and the quality of the content already present on the website, the time it takes to rank can vary a lot from one site to the next. Usually, you need at least a few weeks to see the first results.

Remember: For the business that has literally no online presence, ranking can take months…for top 100 results. For top 3 results, it often takes longer.

Tip: Instead of focusing on time, when you hire an SEO agency or an SEO specialist, ask for weekly reports. You want to see that rankings keep going up over the month. If this is the case, there is a pretty good possibility the work done is good.

Good SEO Results = Business Success

The fact that you get good rankings for your keywords does not mean that you will make more money. SEO is correlated with business success but it will not affect sales in a direct way.

Let me give you an example.

Let’s think about a site that offers smartphone repair services. The SEO agency gets to work and ranks the website high for very relevant keywords. Does this mean that more business will be generated? Not necessarily!

If the customer support department of the repair company is horrible, sales will not be generated. If the services are too expensive when compared with similar businesses, conversions will be low.

Tip: Work with an SEO agency/specialist that talks to you and does more than search engine optimization work. The real specialists out there will actually analyze your site and will also help you out a lot when it comes to increasing conversion rates.

I Just Need Really Good Content And I Will Rank Well

The truth is that you cannot rank well without very good content. However, this does not mean that all you have to do is create very good content and expect rankings. This “build it and they will come” mentality is very wrong.

You need links coming from high authority sources and an effective link building strategy. Also, you might even need some sort of social media strategy so that visibility is increased.

Creating very good content takes a lot of time. Then, even more time is needed to promote that content.

Sure, you might be lucky to end up with viral content on social media. However, in order for that to happen, you still need someone really big in the industry to link to you or to share your content on social media. You cannot rely on that.

Fortunately, if you create really good content, once you start to rank in search engines, the process tends to become faster and faster. The more people learn about your content, the more fans and followers you have.

Tip: Always combine your SEO work with a well-researched and documented content marketing strategy. This is actually the norm at the moment and what is done to rank websites in very competitive industries.

Organic Searches Are Improved When You Buy Google Ads

I do not know who started this myth but I would honestly scream at him for a couple of hours because of the frustration of having to deal with it.

FACT: Google ads and organic rankings are 2 totally different things.

When you buy ads, you just guarantee yourself prime real estate at the top of search results. Google will NOT favor you in front of those that do not buy ads. Why would they?

When you have the budget to buy Google Ads, you should do it, as long as you do it right. This will increase online visibility and can lead to increased sales.

But. Do not expect to get higher rankings in rankings for your keywords because you buy ads. This is just a huge myth nobody should believe.

Final Thoughts

Search engine optimization is not rocket science. It just takes a lot of time to learn and you need to have an affinity for the work to do it right.

At the same time though, there are great SEO specialists out there to hire. These are the people you should trust, not random articles you find on the internet.

Most of these SEO misconceptions and many others are promoted by people that are not even involved in the industry and that do not have a website. This is why it is so sad to see.