Popular Statements of SEO Agency Clients: True or False?

Every search optimization project is unique. Niches and audiences differ and we make sure to study a business domain well enough to suggest improvements in various optimization aspects to avoid errors.

However, while applying our developed set of optimization measures for every new project, sometimes we notice website owners and decision makers have misunderstood some basic approaches to optimization projects. Let’s review the most common false statements and explain their true meaning.

The first statement:

“A set of approved keywords must be used as many times as possible across multiple website pages”

This is one of the most common SEO mistakes. Approved keywords must be consistently used on the promoted website page that is relevant to it. We single out important relevant pages in the beginning of the project and pay extra attention to them.

These are the pages that potential customers find in organic searches while not knowing about the brand. If we use the key phrases from the semantic core multiple times across different website pages, this will result in competition in the search results between pages. Search engines will have difficulty defining which website page is most relevant to include in search results.

Our aim is for every website page to have its own aspect to be uncovered. For example: if the website is about, let’s say, selling electronics, then you may not want to have two pages dedicated to selling TVs; every page should cover a new product and thus will require new keywords to be used.

Conclusion: according to SEO rules, if a page targets a keyword, it shouldn’t be used often on the other website pages.

The second statement:

“Consistent keyword usage on the page means the page will be in top by this keyword automatically”

In the majority of cases, this is not true, especially for mid and/or high-frequency keywords with mid and high competition levels. Even though some sources say that using keywords is not a major ranking factor anymore, it’s a myth. Keyword frequency and density on the page do matter, but to get higher rankings it is critical to know how to write website content right and how to build a proper backlink profile.

This is why it is important to single out proper, relevant website pages to concentrate SEO efforts on. What if we target a specific low-frequency keyword with low competition? This is the case when optimized content can start bringing organic search visitors to the page after it is indexed by the search engine. Such content often gets high positions in search engines due to a consistent usage of a targeted search query.

Conclusion: in every SEO project there is a limited set of mid and/or high-frequency keywords together with the pages that are specifically optimized and promoted on the regular basis.

To improve their ranking results it is necessary to spend time and resources for building an appropriate backlink profile for the site and its promoted pages. To get newly developed content ranked well in a search engine, it makes sense to optimize it with low-frequency keywords from the semantic core that have low competition level.

The third statement:

“Website pages with no backlinks are not promoted”

This is not quite true. Building a backlink profile of the website or webpage is a continuous process that should never stop; it requires a certain amount of time and resources. That’s why the main effort is directed towards a limited set of mid and/or high-frequency keywords and pages where they are targeted. If blogposts or landing pages are added to the site on the regular basis during the project – they will not necessarily be covered by backlinks because it increases the initial scope of work.

At the same time, other general optimization measures still influence all existing and new pages of the website and improve their visibility in searches. For example: controlling important ranking factors such as speed of website loading, metadata duplicates, content uniqueness, website indexation process, URL structure, target audience settings, etc.

Conclusion: during the project, if a website gets new important pages that should be actively promoted, it is necessary to adjust the scope of the project to be able to build a proper backlink profile for them.

If there is a need to optimize hundreds and thousands of similar pages – it is possible, but the strategy is a bit different. It is necessary to develop templates and principles of automatic forming the metadata to avoid such common SEO mistakes as empty meta tags and content duplication.

The fourth statement:

“High quality content is all that search engines need to rank the page well”

This is partially true, but we have things to specify here. Website promotion nowadays is all about high quality, interesting and engaging content for users. What can be better? The answer is: well-structured, tagged high quality, interesting and engaging content for users.

If two competitive websites both have quality content – search engines will regard a number of other aspects besides domain age, its bounce rate and time spent on the page or website. It is better to help search engines index the content right and quick, as well as associate it with relevant search queries.

Let's single out 2 aspects here:

1. Using relevant low-frequency keywords will be useful because for such queries it will be easier to occupy high positions right after the content is indexed by the search engine. A SEO expert will tell you how many keywords per page should be used. To have feedback from a SEO expert necessary to provide one or several general ideas of the future piece of content. The expert will narrow them down to appropriate keywords to be used.

2. The page must have the right structure. It must have:

• a meaningful URL (short one),
• a meta title,
• a meta description,
• H1 tags (text name, stands above all other headings on the page),
• H2 and H3 tags (subheadings in the text),
• images with ALT and TITLE tags,
• numbered or bullet-point lists that structure the material for the user, and
• videos and infographics (illustrative elements that help people understand the material and keep users on the page).

The above constituent parts of the page are always described in the technical assignment for creating and optimizing content. 

The fifth statement:

“One should use keywords as many times as possible without asking the expert “How many keywords should I use”

No. Too many keywords is not too good. Search engines are smart nowadays and will be able to tell if the content is overloaded with keywords. An optimization expert will always take safe keyword density into account when creating an assignment for a copywriter, that’s why it is necessary to stick to the technical assignment.

Using too many keywords in SM channels, SM posts, press releases and other pieces of content that don't go to the promoted website is also not needed. It does make sense to use them consistently throughout all online brand properties, but first of all – on the promoted website. We do it to associate promoted website pages with particular queries.

If it is done correctly, a search engine will suggest website pages to the users in searches. Using keywords in SM channels, press releases, etc. should look and sound natural.

Here are some SEO rules about using key phrases:

• Keywords should be distributed evenly throughout the text.
• Try to place keywords as close to the beginning of the sentence as possible.
• You can insert punctuation marks between keyword components, it's okay.
• Don't use bold/underlined text formatting or other ways to highlight the keywords.
• Develop the new content right in the technical assignment document, it will be easier to check it.
• Remember that the content is written for the users, it is necessary to have a balance between the technical assignment and the actual content value for the reader.