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How to Spot SEO Myths: 20 Common SEO Myths, Debunked

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How to Spot SEO Myths: 20 Common SEO Myths, Debunked

There’s a lot of advice going around about SEO.

Some of it is helpful but some of it will lead you astray if acted on.

The difficulty is knowing which is which.

It can be hard to identify what advice is accurate and based on fact, and what is just regurgitated from misquoted articles or poorly understood Google statements.

SEO myths abound.

You’ll hear them in the strangest places.

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A client will tell you with confidence how they are suffering from a duplicate content penalty.

Your boss will chastise you for not keeping your page titles to 60 characters.

Sometimes the myths are obviously fake. Other times they can be harder to detect.

The Dangers of SEO Myths

The issue is, we simply don’t know exactly how the search engines work.

Due to this, a lot of what we do as SEOs ends up being trial and error and educated guesswork.

When you are learning about SEO, it can be difficult to test out all of the claims you are hearing.

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That’s when the SEO myths begin to take hold.

Before you know it, you’re proudly telling your line manager that you’re planning to “BERT optimize” your website copy.

SEO myths can be busted a lot of the time with a pause and some consideration.

How, exactly, would Google be able to measure that?

Would that actually benefit the end-user in any way?

There is a danger in SEO of considering the search engines to be omnipotent, and because of this, wild myths about how they understand and measure our websites start to grow.

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What Is An SEO Myth?

Before we debunk some common SEO myths, we should first understand what forms they take.

Untested Wisdom

Myths in SEO tend to take the form of handed-down wisdom that isn’t tested.

As a result, something that might well have no impact on driving qualified organic traffic to a site gets treated like it matters.

Minor Factors Blown out of Proportion

SEO myths might also be something that has a small impact on organic rankings or conversion but is given too much importance.

This might be a “tick box” exercise that is hailed as being a critical factor in SEO success, or simply an activity that might only cause your site to eke ahead if everything else with your competition was truly equal.

Outdated Advice

Myths can arise simply because what used to be effective in helping sites to rank and convert well no longer does but is still being advised.

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It might be that something used to work really well.

Over time the algorithms have grown smarter.

The public is more adverse to being marketed to.

Simply, what was once good advice is now defunct.

Google Being Misunderstood

Many times the start of a myth is Google itself.

Unfortunately, a slightly obscure or just not straightforward piece of advice from a Google representative gets misunderstood and run away with.

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Before we know it, a new optimization service is being sold off the back of a flippant comment a Googler made in jest.

SEO myths can be based in fact, or perhaps these are more accurately SEO legends?

In the case of Google-born myths, it tends to be that the fact has been so distorted by the SEO industry’s interpretation of the statement that it no longer resembles useful information.

When Can Something Appear to Be a Myth

Sometimes an SEO technique can be written off as a myth by others purely because they have not experienced success from carrying out this activity for their own site.

It is important to remember that every website has its own industry, set of competitors, the technology powering it, and other factors that make it unique.

Blanket application of techniques to every website and expecting them to have the same outcome is naive.

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Someone may not have had success with a technique when they have tried it in their highly competitive vertical.

It doesn’t mean it won’t help someone in a less competitive industry have success.

Causation & Correlation Being Confused

Sometimes SEO myths arise because of an inappropriate connection between an activity that was carried out and a rise in organic search performance.

If an SEO has seen a benefit from something they did, then it is natural that they would advise others to try the same.

Unfortunately, we’re not always great at separating causation and correlation.

Just because rankings or click-through rate increased around-about the same time as you implemented a new tactic doesn’t mean it caused the increase.

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There could be other factors at play.

Soon an SEO myth arises from an overeager SEO wanting to share what they incorrectly believe to be a golden ticket.

Steering Clear of SEO Myths

It can save you from experiencing headaches, lost revenue, and a whole lot of time if you learn to spot SEO myths and act accordingly.

Test

The key to not falling for SEO myths is making sure you can test advice whenever possible.

If you have been given the advice that structuring your page titles a certain way will help your pages rank better for their chosen keywords, then try it with one or two pages first.

This can help you to measure whether making a change across many pages will be worth the time before you commit to doing so.

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Is Google Just Testing?

Sometimes there will be a big uproar in the SEO community because of changes in the way Google displays or orders search results.

These changes are often tested in the wild before they are rolled out to more search results.

Once a big change has been spotted by one or two SEOs, advice on how to optimize for it begins to spread.

Remember the favicons in the desktop search results?

The upset that caused the SEO industry (and Google users in general) was vast.

Suddenly articles sprang up about the importance of favicons in attracting users to your search result.

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Whether favicons would impact click-through rate that much barely had time to be studied.

Because just like that, Google changed it back.

Before you jump for the latest SEO advice that is being spread around Twitter as a result of a change by Google, wait to see if it is going to hold.

It could be that the advice that appears sound now will quickly become a myth if Google rolls back changes.

20 Common SEO Myths

So now we know what causes and perpetuates SEO myths, let’s find out the truth behind some of the more common ones.

1. The Google Sandbox

It is a belief held by some SEOs that Google will automatically suppress new websites in the organic search results for a period of time before they are able to rank more freely.

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It’s something that many SEOs will argue simply is not the case.

So who is right?

SEOs who have been around for many years will give you anecdotal evidence that would both support and detract from the idea of a sandbox.

The only guidance that has been given by Google from this appears to be in the form of tweets.

As already discussed, Google’s social media responses can often be misinterpreted.

Tweet about Google sandbox myth

Verdict: Officially? It’s a myth.

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Unofficially – there does seem to be a period of time whilst Google tries to understand and rank the pages belonging to a new site.

This might mimic a sandbox.

2. Duplicate Content Penalty

This is a myth that I hear a lot. The idea is that if you have content on your website that is duplicated elsewhere on the web, Google will penalize you for it.

The key to understanding what is really going on here is knowing the difference between algorithmic suppression and manual action.

A manual action, the situation that can result in webpages being removed from Google’s index, will be actioned by a human at Google.

The website owner will be notified through Google Search Console.

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An algorithmic suppression occurs when your page cannot rank well due to it being caught by a filter from an algorithm.

Chuck Price does a great job of explaining the difference between the two in this article that lays out all of the different manual actions available from Google.

Essentially, having copy that is taken from another webpage might mean you can’t outrank that other page.

The search engines may determine the original host of the copy is more relevant to the search query than yours.

As there is no benefit to having both in the search results, yours gets suppressed. This is not a penalty. This is the algorithm doing its job.

There are some content-related manual actions, as covered in Price’s article, but essentially copying one or two pages of someone else’s content is not going to trigger them.

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It is, however, potentially going to land you in other trouble if you have no legal right to use that content. It also can detract from the value your website brings to the user.

Verdict: SEO myth

3. PPC Advertising Helps Rankings

This is a common myth. It’s also quite quick to debunk.

The idea is that Google will favor websites in the organic search results, which spend money with it through pay-per-click advertising.

This is simply false.

Google’s algorithm for ranking organic search results is completely separate from the one used to determine PPC ad placements.

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Running a paid search advertising campaign through Google at the same time as carrying out SEO might benefit your site for other reasons, but it won’t directly benefit your ranking.

Verdict: SEO myth

4. Domain Age Is a Ranking Factor

This claim finds itself seated firmly in the “confusing causation and correlation” camp.

Because a website has been around for a long time and is ranking well, age must be a ranking factor.

Google has debunked this myth itself many times.

In fact, as recently as July 2019, Google Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller replied to a tweet suggesting that domain age was one of “200 signals of ranking” saying “No, domain age helps nothing”

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Tweet answering domain age

The truth behind this myth is that an older website has had more time to do things well.

For instance, a website that has been live and active for 10 years may well have acquired a high volume of relevant backlinks to its key pages.

A website that has been running for less than six months will be unlikely to compete with that.

The older website appears to be ranking better, and the conclusion is that age must be the determining factor.

Verdict: SEO myth

5. Tabbed Content Affects Rankings

This idea is one that has roots going back a long way.

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The premise is that Google will not assign as much value to the content that is sitting behind a tab or accordion.

For example, text that is not viewable on the first load of a page.

Google has again debunked this myth as recently as March 31, 2020, but it has been a contentious idea amongst many SEOs years.

In September 2018, Gary Illyes, Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, answered a tweet thread about using tabs to display content.

His response:

“AFAIK, nothing’s changed here, Bill: we index the content, its weight is fully considered for ranking, but it might not get bolded in the snippets. It’s another, more technical question how that content is surfaced by the site. Indexing does have limitations.”

If the content is visible in the HTML, there is no reason to assume that it is being devalued just because it is not apparent to the user on the first load of the page.

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This is not an example of cloaking, and Google can easily fetch the content.

As long as there is nothing else that is stopping the text from being viewed by Google, it should be weighted the same as copy, which isn’t in tabs.

Want more clarification on this?

Then check out Roger Montti’s post that puts this myth to bed.

Verdict: SEO myth

6. Google Uses Google Analytics Data in Rankings

This is a common fear amongst business owners.

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They study their Google Analytics reports.

They feel their average sitewide bounce rate is too high, or their time on page is too low.

So they worry that Google will perceive their site to be low quality because of that.

They fear they won’t rank well because of it.

The myth is that Google uses the data in your Google Analytics account as part of its ranking algorithm.

It’s a myth that has been around for a long time.

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Google’s Gary Illyes has again debunked this idea simply with, “We don’t use *anything* from Google analytics [sic] in the “algo.”

tweet about Google using analytics for ranking algorithm

If we think about this logically, using Google Analytics data as a ranking factor would be really hard to police.

For instance, using filters could manipulate data to make it seem like the site was performing in a way that it isn’t really.

What is good performance anyway?

High “time on page” might be good for some long-form content.

Low “time on page” could be understandable for shorter content.

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Is either right or wrong?

Google would also need to understand the intricate ways in which each Google Analytics account had been configured.

Some might be excluding all known bots, and others might not.

Some might use custom dimensions and channel groupings, and others haven’t configured anything.

Using this data reliably would be extremely complicated to do.

Consider the hundreds of thousands of websites that use other analytics programs.

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How would Google treat them?

Verdict: SEO myth

This myth is another case of “causation, not correlation.”

A high sitewide bounce rate might be indicative of a quality problem, or it might not be.

Low time on page could mean your site isn’t engaging, or it could mean your content is quickly digestible.

These metrics give you clues as to why you might not be ranking well, they aren’t the cause of it.

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7. Google Cares About Domain Authority

PageRank is a link analysis algorithm used by Google to measure the importance of a webpage.

Google used to display a page’s PageRank score, a number up to 10, on its toolbar.

Google stopped updating the PageRank displayed in toolbars in 2013. In 2016 Google confirmed that the PageRank toolbar metric was not going to be used going forward.

In the absence of PageRank, many other third-party authority scores have been developed.

Commonly known ones are:

  • Moz’s Domain Authority and Page Authority scores.
  • Majestic’s Trust Flow and Citation Flow.
  • Ahrefs’ Domain Rating and URL Rating.

These scores are used by some SEOs to determine the “value” of a page.

That calculation can never be an entirely accurate reflection of how a search engine values a page, however.

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Commonly, SEOs will refer to the ranking power of a website often in conjunction with its backlink profile.

This too is known as the domain’s authority.

You can see where the confusion lies.

Google representatives have dispelled the notion of a domain authority metric used by them.

Gary Illyes once again debunking myths with “we don’t really have “overall domain authority.”

tweet confirming overall domain authority myth

Verdict: SEO myth

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8. Longer Content Is Better

You will have definitely heard it said before that longer content ranks better.

More words on a page automatically make yours more rank-worthy than your competitor’s.

This is “wisdom” that is often shared around SEO forums without little evidence to substantiate it.

There are a lot of studies that have been released over the years that state facts about the top-ranking webpages, such as “on average pages in the top 10 positions in the SERPs have over 1,450 words on them.”

It would be quite easy for someone to take this information in isolation and assume it means that pages need approximately 1,500 words to rank on Page 1. That isn’t what the study is saying, however.

Unfortunately, this is an example of correlation, not necessarily causation.

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Just because the top-ranking pages in a particular study happened to have more words on them than the pages ranking 11th and lower does not make word count a ranking factor.

John Mueller of Google recently dispelled this myth:

tweet on content length myth

Verdict: SEO myth

9. LSI Keywords Will Help You Rank

What exactly are LSI keywords?

LSI stands for “latent semantic indexing.”

It is a technique used in information retrieval that allows concepts within the text to be analyzed and relationships between them identified.

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Words have nuances dependent on their context. The word “right” has a different connotation when paired with “left” than when it is paired with “wrong.”

Humans can quickly gauge concepts in text. It is harder for machines to do so.

The ability for machines to understand the context and linking between entities is fundamental to their understanding of concepts.

LSI is a huge step forward for a machine’s ability to understand text.

What it isn’t is synonyms.

Unfortunately, the field of LSI has been devolved by the SEO community into the understanding that using words that are similar or linked thematically will boost rankings for words that aren’t expressly mentioned in the text.

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It’s simply not true. Google has gone far beyond LSI in its understanding of text, for instance, the introduction of BERT.

For more about what LSI is, and more importantly, what it isn’t, take a look at Clark Boyd’s article

Verdict: SEO myth

10. SEO Takes 3 Months

It helps us get out of sticky conversations with our bosses or clients.

It leaves a lot of wiggle room if you aren’t getting the results you promised.

“SEO takes at least 3 months to have an effect.”

It is fair to say that there are some changes that will take time for the search engine bots to process.

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There is then, of course, some time to see if those changes are having a positive or negative effect. Then more time might be needed to refine and tweak your work.

That doesn’t mean that any activity you carry out in the name of SEO is going to have no effect for three months. Day 90 of your work will not be when the ranking changes kick-in.

There is a lot more to it.

If you are in a very low competition market, targeting niche terms, you might see ranking changes as soon as Google recrawls your page.

A competitive term could take much longer to see changes in rank.

A study by Ahrefs suggested that of the 2 million keywords they analyzed, the average age of pages ranking in position 10 of Google was 650 days. This study indicates that newer pages struggle to rank high.

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However, there is more to SEO than ranking in the top 10 of Google.

For instance, a well-positioned Google My Business listing with great reviews can pay dividends for a company.

Bing, Yandex, and Baidu might be easier for your brand to conquer the SERPs in.

A small tweak to a page title could see an improvement in click-through rates. That could be the same day if the search engine were to recrawl the page quickly.

Although it can take a long time to see first page rankings in Google, it is naïve of us to reduce SEO success just down to that.

Therefore, “SEO takes 3 months” simply isn’t accurate.

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Verdict: SEO myth

11. Bounce Rate Is a Ranking Factor

Bounce rate is the percentage of visits to your website that result in no interactions beyond landing on the page. It is typically measured by a website’s analytics program such as Google Analytics.

Some SEOs have argued that bounce rate is a ranking factor because it is a measure of quality.

Unfortunately, it is not a good measure of quality.

There are many reasons why a visitor might land on a webpage and leave again without interacting further with the site. They may well have read all the information they needed to on that page and left the site to call the company and book an appointment. In that instance, the visitor bouncing has resulted in a lead for the company.

Although a visitor leaving a page having landed on it could be an indicator of poor quality content, it isn’t always. It, therefore, wouldn’t be reliable enough for a search engine to use as a measure of quality.

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“Pogo-sticking,” or a visitor clicking on a search result and then returning to the SERPs, would be a more reliable indicator of the quality of the landing page. It would suggest that the content of the page was not what the user was after, so much so that they have returned to the search results to find another page or re-search.

John Mueller cleared this up in a Google Webmaster Hangout in July 2018 with:

“We try not to use signals like that when it comes to search. So that’s something where there are lots of reasons why users might go back and forth, or look at different things in the search results, or stay just briefly on a page and move back again. I think that’s really hard to refine and say, “well, we could turn this into a ranking factor.”

Verdict: SEO myth

12. It’s All About Backlinks

Backlinks are important, that’s without much contention within the SEO community. However, exactly how important is still debated.

Some SEOs will tell you that backlinks are one of the many tactics that will influence rankings and not the most important. Others will tell you it’s the only real game-changer.

What we do know is that the effectiveness of links has changed over time. Back in the wild pre-Jagger days, link-building consisted of adding a link to your website wherever you could.

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Forum comments spun articles, and irrelevant directories were all good sources of links.

It was easy to build effective links.

It’s not so easy now. Google has continued to make changes to its algorithms that reward higher quality, more relevant links, and disregard or penalize “spammy” links.

However, the power of links to affect rankings is still great.

There will be some industries that are so immature in SEO that a site can rank well without investing in link-building, purely through the strength of their content and technical efficiency.

That’s not the case with most industries.

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Relevant backlinks will, of course, help with ranking, but they need to go hand-in-hand with other optimizations.

Your website still needs to have relevant copy, and it must be crawlable.

Google’s John Mueller recently stated, “links are definitely not the most important SEO factor.”

link not being the most important SEO factor

If you want your traffic to actually do something when they hit your website, it’s definitely not all about backlinks.

Ranking is only one part of getting converting visitors to your site. The content and usability of the site are extremely important in user engagement.

Verdict: SEO myth

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13. Keywords in URLs Are Very Important

Cram your URLs full of keywords. It’ll help.

Unfortunately, it’s not quite as powerful as that.

make URLs for users tweet

John Mueller has said several times that keywords in a URL are a very minor, lightweight ranking signal.

If you are looking to rewrite your URLs to include more keywords, you are likely to do more damage than good.

The process of redirecting URLs en masse should be when necessary as there is always a risk when restructuring a site.

For the sake of adding keywords to a URL? Not worth it.

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Verdict: SEO myth

14. Website Migrations Are All About Redirects

It is something that is heard too often by SEOs. If you are migrating a website, all you need to do is remember to redirect any URLs that are changing.

If only this one was true.

In actuality, website migration is one of the most fraught and complicated procedures in SEO.

A website changing its layout, CMS, domain, and/or content can all be considered a website migration.

In each of those examples, there are several aspects that could affect how the search engines perceive the quality and relevance of the pages to their targeted keywords.

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As a result of this, there are numerous checks and configurations that need to occur if the site is going to maintain its rankings and organic traffic.

Ensuring tracking hasn’t been lost. Maintaining the same content targeting. Making sure the search engines’ bots can still access the right pages.

All of this needs to be considered when a website is significantly changing.

Redirecting URLs that are changing is a very important part of website migration. It is in no way the only thing to be concerned about.

Verdict: SEO myth

15. Well-Known Websites Will Always Outrank Unknown Websites

It stands to reason that a larger brand will have resources that smaller brands do not. As a result, more can be invested in SEO.

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More exciting content pieces can be created, leading to a higher volume of backlinks acquired. The brand name alone can lend more credence to outreach attempts.

The real question is, does Google algorithmically or manually boost big brands because of their fame?

This one is a bit contentious.

Some people say that Google favors big brands. Google says, otherwise.

In 2009, Google released an algorithm update named “Vince.” This update had a huge impact on how brands were treated in the SERPs.

Brands that were well-known offline saw ranking increases for broad competitive keywords.

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It’s not necessarily time for smaller brands to throw in the towel.

The Vince update falls very much in-line with other Google moves towards valuing authority and quality.

Big brands are often more authoritative on broad-level keywords than smaller contenders.

However, small brands can still win.

Long-tail keyword targeting, niche product lines, and local presence can all make smaller brands more relevant to a search result than established brands.

Yes, the odds are stacked in favor of big brands, but it’s not impossible to outrank them.

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Verdict: Not entirely truth or myth

16. Your Page Needs to Include ‘Near Me’ to Rank Well for Local SEO

It’s understandable that this myth is still prevalent.

There is still a lot of focus on keyword search volumes in the SEO industry. Sometimes at the expense of considering user intent and how the search engines understand it.

When a searcher is looking for something with “local intent,” i.e., a place or service relevant to a physical location, the search engines will take this into consideration when returning results.

With Google, you will likely see the Google Maps results as well as the standard organic listings.

The Maps results are clearly centered around the location searched. However, so are the standard organic listings when the search query denotes local intent.

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So why do “near me” searches confuse some?

A typical keyword research exercise might yield something like the following:

  • pizza restaurant manhattan – 110 searches per month
  • pizza restaurants in manhattan – 110 searches per month
  • best pizza restaurant manhattan – 90 searches per month
  • best pizza restaurants in manhattan – 90 searches per month
  • best pizza restaurant in manhattan – 90 searches per month
  • pizza restaurants near me – 90,500 searches per month

With search volume like that, you would think “pizza restaurants near me” would be the one to rank for, right?

It is likely, however, that people searching for “pizza restaurant manhattan” are in the Manhattan area or planning to travel there for pizza.

“pizza restaurant near me” has 90,500 searches across the USA. The likelihood is that the vast majority of those searchers are not looking for Manhattan pizzas.

Google knows this and, therefore, will use location detection and serve pizza restaurant results relevant to the searcher’s location.

Therefore, the “near me” element of the search becomes less about the keyword and more about the intent behind the keyword. Google will just consider it to be the location the searcher is in.

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So, do you need to include “near me” in your content to rank for those “near me” searches?

No, you need to be relevant to the location the searcher is in.

Verdict: SEO myth

17. Better Content Equals Better Rankings

It’s prevalent in SEO forums and Twitter threads. The common complaint, “my competitor is ranking above me, but I have amazing content, and theirs is terrible.”

The cry is one of indignation. After all, shouldn’t the search engines be rewarding their site for their “amazing” content?

This is both a myth and, sometimes, a delusion.

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The quality of content is a subjective consideration. If it is your own content, it’s harder still to be objective.

Perhaps in Google’s eyes, your content isn’t better than your competitors’ for the search terms you are looking to rank for.

Perhaps you don’t meet searcher intent as well as they do.

Maybe you have “over-optimized” your content and reduced its quality.

In some instances, better content will equal better rankings. In others, the technical performance of the site or its lack of local relevance may cause it to rank lower.

Content is one factor within the ranking algorithms.

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Verdict: SEO myth

18. You Need to Blog Every Day

This is a frustrating myth because it is one that seems to have spread outside of the SEO industry.

Google loves frequent content. You should add new content or tweak existing content every day for “freshness.”

Where did this idea come from?

Google had an algorithm update in 2011 that rewards fresher results in the SERPs.

This is because, for some queries, the fresher the results, the better likelihood of accuracy.

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For instance, search for “royal baby” in the UK in 2013, and you would be served news articles about Prince George. Search it again in 2015, and you would see pages about Princess Charlotte.

In 2018, you would see reports about Prince Louis at the top of the Google SERPs, and in 2019 it would be baby Archie.

If you were to search “royal baby” in 2019, shortly after the birth of Archie, then seeing news articles on prince George would likely be unhelpful.

In this instance, Google discerns the user’s search intent and decides showing articles related to the newest UK royal baby would be better than showing an article that is arguably more rank-worthy due to authority, etc.

What this algorithm update doesn’t mean is that newer content will always outrank older content. Google decides if the “query deserves freshness” or not.

If it does, then the age of content becomes a more important ranking factor.

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This means that if you are creating content purely to make sure it is newer than competitors’ content, you are not necessarily going to benefit.

If the query you are looking to rank for does not deserve freshness, i.e., “who is Prince William’s second child?” a fact that will not change, then the age of content will not play a significant part in rankings.

If you are writing content every day thinking it is keeping your website fresh and, therefore, more rank-worthy, then you are likely wasting time.

It would be better to write well-considered, researched, and useful content pieces less frequently and reserve your resources to making those highly authoritative and shareable.

Verdict: SEO myth

19. You Can Optimize Copy Once & Then It’s Done

The phrase “SEO optimized” copy is a common one in agency-land.

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It’s used as a way to explain the process of creating copy that will be relevant to frequently searched queries.

The trouble with this is that it suggests that once you have written that copy, ensured it adequately answers searchers’ queries, you can move on.

Unfortunately, over time how searchers look for content might change. The keywords they use, the type of content they want could alter.

The search engines, too may change what they feel is the most relevant answer to the query. Perhaps the intent behind the keyword is perceived differently.

The layout of the SERPs might alter, meaning videos are being shown at the top of the search results where previously it was just web page results.

If you look at a page only once and then don’t continue to update it and evolve it with user needs, then you risk falling behind.

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Verdict: SEO myth

20. There Is a Right Way to Do SEO

This one is probably a myth in many industries, but it seems prevalent in the SEO one. There is a lot of gatekeeping in SEO social media, forums, and chats.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

There are some core tenants that we know about SEO.

Usually, something is stated by a search engine representative that has been dissected, tested, and ultimately declared true.

The rest is a result of personal and collective trial and error, testing, and experience.

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Processes are extremely valuable within SEO business functions, but they have to evolve and be applied appropriately.

Different websites within different industries will respond to changes in ways others would not. Altering a meta title, so it is under 60 characters long might help the click-through rate for one page, and not for another.

Ultimately, we have to hold any SEO advice we’re given lightly before deciding whether it is right for the website you are working on.

Verdict: SEO myth

Conclusion

Some myths have their roots in logic, and others have no sense to them.

Now you know what to do when you hear an idea that you can’t say for certain is truth or myth.

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Featured Image Credit: Paulo Bobita

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2024 WordPress Vulnerability Report Shows Errors Sites Keep Making

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2024 Annual WordPress security report by WPScan

WordPress security scanner WPScan’s 2024 WordPress vulnerability report calls attention to WordPress vulnerability trends and suggests the kinds of things website publishers (and SEOs) should be looking out for.

Some of the key findings from the report were that just over 20% of vulnerabilities were rated as high or critical level threats, with medium severity threats, at 67% of reported vulnerabilities, making up the majority. Many regard medium level vulnerabilities as if they are low-level threats and that’s a mistake because they’re not low level and should be regarded as deserving attention.

The WPScan report advised:

“While severity doesn’t translate directly to the risk of exploitation, it’s an important guideline for website owners to make an educated decision about when to disable or update the extension.”

WordPress Vulnerability Severity Distribution

Critical level vulnerabilities, the highest level of threat, represented only 2.38% of vulnerabilities, which is essentially good news for WordPress publishers. Yet as mentioned earlier, when combined with the percentages of high level threats (17.68%) the number or concerning vulnerabilities rises to almost 20%.

Here are the percentages by severity ratings:

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  • Critical 2.38%
  • Low 12.83%
  • High 17.68%
  • Medium 67.12%

Authenticated Versus Unauthenticated

Authenticated vulnerabilities are those that require an attacker to first attain user credentials and their accompanying permission levels in order to exploit a particular vulnerability. Exploits that require subscriber-level authentication are the most exploitable of the authenticated exploits and those that require administrator level access present the least risk (although not always a low risk for a variety of reasons).

Unauthenticated attacks are generally the easiest to exploit because anyone can launch an attack without having to first acquire a user credential.

The WPScan vulnerability report found that about 22% of reported vulnerabilities required subscriber level or no authentication at all, representing the most exploitable vulnerabilities. On the other end of the scale of the exploitability are vulnerabilities requiring admin permission levels representing a total of 30.71% of reported vulnerabilities.

Permission Levels Required For Exploits

Vulnerabilities requiring administrator level credentials represented the highest percentage of exploits, followed by Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF) with 24.74% of vulnerabilities. This is interesting because CSRF is an attack that uses social engineering to get a victim to click a link from which the user’s permission levels are acquired. This is a mistake that WordPress publishers should be aware of because all it takes is for an admin level user to follow a link which then enables the hacker to assume admin level privileges to the WordPress website.

The following is the percentages of exploits ordered by roles necessary to launch an attack.

Ascending Order Of User Roles For Vulnerabilities

  • Author 2.19%
  • Subscriber 10.4%
  • Unauthenticated 12.35%
  • Contributor 19.62%
  • CSRF 24.74%
  • Admin 30.71%

Most Common Vulnerability Types Requiring Minimal Authentication

Broken Access Control in the context of WordPress refers to a security failure that can allow an attacker without necessary permission credentials to gain access to higher credential permissions.

In the section of the report that looks at the occurrences and vulnerabilities underlying unauthenticated or subscriber level vulnerabilities reported (Occurrence vs Vulnerability on Unauthenticated or Subscriber+ reports), WPScan breaks down the percentages for each vulnerability type that is most common for exploits that are the easiest to launch (because they require minimal to no user credential authentication).

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The WPScan threat report noted that Broken Access Control represents a whopping 84.99% followed by SQL injection (20.64%).

The Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP) defines Broken Access Control as:

“Access control, sometimes called authorization, is how a web application grants access to content and functions to some users and not others. These checks are performed after authentication, and govern what ‘authorized’ users are allowed to do.

Access control sounds like a simple problem but is insidiously difficult to implement correctly. A web application’s access control model is closely tied to the content and functions that the site provides. In addition, the users may fall into a number of groups or roles with different abilities or privileges.”

SQL injection, at 20.64% represents the second most prevalent type of vulnerability, which WPScan referred to as both “high severity and risk” in the context of vulnerabilities requiring minimal authentication levels because attackers can access and/or tamper with the database which is the heart of every WordPress website.

These are the percentages:

  • Broken Access Control 84.99%
  • SQL Injection 20.64%
  • Cross-Site Scripting 9.4%
  • Unauthenticated Arbitrary File Upload 5.28%
  • Sensitive Data Disclosure 4.59%
  • Insecure Direct Object Reference (IDOR) 3.67%
  • Remote Code Execution 2.52%
  • Other 14.45%

Vulnerabilities In The WordPress Core Itself

The overwhelming majority of vulnerability issues were reported in third-party plugins and themes. However, there were in 2023 a total of 13 vulnerabilities reported in the WordPress core itself. Out of the thirteen vulnerabilities only one of them was rated as a high severity threat, which is the second highest level, with Critical being the highest level vulnerability threat, a rating scoring system maintained by the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).

The WordPress core platform itself is held to the highest standards and benefits from a worldwide community that is vigilant in discovering and patching vulnerabilities.

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Website Security Should Be Considered As Technical SEO

Site audits don’t normally cover website security but in my opinion every responsible audit should at least talk about security headers. As I’ve been saying for years, website security quickly becomes an SEO issue once a website’s ranking start disappearing from the search engine results pages (SERPs) due to being compromised by a vulnerability. That’s why it’s critical to be proactive about website security.

According to the WPScan report, the main point of entry for hacked websites were leaked credentials and weak passwords. Ensuring strong password standards plus two-factor authentication is an important part of every website’s security stance.

Using security headers is another way to help protect against Cross-Site Scripting and other kinds of vulnerabilities.

Lastly, a WordPress firewall and website hardening are also useful proactive approaches to website security. I once added a forum to a brand new website I created and it was immediately under attack within minutes. Believe it or not, virtually every website worldwide is under attack 24 hours a day by bots scanning for vulnerabilities.

Read the WPScan Report:

WPScan 2024 Website Threat Report

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Featured Image by Shutterstock/Ljupco Smokovski

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An In-Depth Guide And Best Practices For Mobile SEO

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Mobile SEO: An In-Depth Guide And Best Practices

Over the years, search engines have encouraged businesses to improve mobile experience on their websites. More than 60% of web traffic comes from mobile, and in some cases based on the industry, mobile traffic can reach up to 90%.

Since Google has completed its switch to mobile-first indexing, the question is no longer “if” your website should be optimized for mobile, but how well it is adapted to meet these criteria. A new challenge has emerged for SEO professionals with the introduction of Interaction to Next Paint (INP), which replaced First Input Delay (FID) starting March, 12 2024.

Thus, understanding mobile SEO’s latest advancements, especially with the shift to INP, is crucial. This guide offers practical steps to optimize your site effectively for today’s mobile-focused SEO requirements.

What Is Mobile SEO And Why Is It Important?

The goal of mobile SEO is to optimize your website to attain better visibility in search engine results specifically tailored for mobile devices.

This form of SEO not only aims to boost search engine rankings, but also prioritizes enhancing mobile user experience through both content and technology.

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While, in many ways, mobile SEO and traditional SEO share similar practices, additional steps related to site rendering and content are required to meet the needs of mobile users and the speed requirements of mobile devices.

Does this need to be a priority for your website? How urgent is it?

Consider this: 58% of the world’s web traffic comes from mobile devices.

If you aren’t focused on mobile users, there is a good chance you’re missing out on a tremendous amount of traffic.

Mobile-First Indexing

Additionally, as of 2023, Google has switched its crawlers to a mobile-first indexing priority.

This means that the mobile experience of your site is critical to maintaining efficient indexing, which is the step before ranking algorithms come into play.

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Read more: Where We Are Today With Google’s Mobile-First Index

How Much Of Your Traffic Is From Mobile?

How much traffic potential you have with mobile users can depend on various factors, including your industry (B2B sites might attract primarily desktop users, for example) and the search intent your content addresses (users might prefer desktop for larger purchases, for example).

Regardless of where your industry and the search intent of your users might be, the future will demand that you optimize your site experience for mobile devices.

How can you assess your current mix of mobile vs. desktop users?

An easy way to see what percentage of your users is on mobile is to go into Google Analytics 4.

  • Click Reports in the left column.
  • Click on the Insights icon on the right side of the screen.
  • Scroll down to Suggested Questions and click on it.
  • Click on Technology.
  • Click on Top Device model by Users.
  • Then click on Top Device category by Users under Related Results.
  • The breakdown of Top Device category will match the date range selected at the top of GA4.
Screenshot from GA4, March 2024

You can also set up a report in Looker Studio.

  • Add your site to the Data source.
  • Add Device category to the Dimension field.
  • Add 30-day active users to the Metric field.
  • Click on Chart to select the view that works best for you.
A screen capture from Looker Studio showing a pie chart with a breakdown of mobile, desktop, tablet, and Smart TV users for a siteScreenshot from Looker Studio, March 2024

You can add more Dimensions to really dig into the data to see which pages attract which type of users, what the mobile-to-desktop mix is by country, which search engines send the most mobile users, and so much more.

Read more: Why Mobile And Desktop Rankings Are Different

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How To Check If Your Site Is Mobile-Friendly

Now that you know how to build a report on mobile and desktop usage, you need to figure out if your site is optimized for mobile traffic.

While Google removed the mobile-friendly testing tool from Google Search Console in December 2023, there are still a number of useful tools for evaluating your site for mobile users.

Bing still has a mobile-friendly testing tool that will tell you the following:

  • Viewport is configured correctly.
  • Page content fits device width.
  • Text on the page is readable.
  • Links and tap targets are sufficiently large and touch-friendly.
  • Any other issues detected.

Google’s Lighthouse Chrome extension provides you with an evaluation of your site’s performance across several factors, including load times, accessibility, and SEO.

To use, install the Lighthouse Chrome extension.

  • Go to your website in your browser.
  • Click on the orange lighthouse icon in your browser’s address bar.
  • Click Generate Report.
  • A new tab will open and display your scores once the evaluation is complete.
An image showing the Lighthouse Scores for a website.Screenshot from Lighthouse, March 2024

You can also use the Lighthouse report in Developer Tools in Chrome.

  • Simply click on the three dots next to the address bar.
  • Select “More Tools.”
  • Select Developer Tools.
  • Click on the Lighthouse tab.
  • Choose “Mobile” and click the “Analyze page load” button.
An image showing how to get to Lighthouse within Google Chrome Developer Tools.Screenshot from Lighthouse, March 2024

Another option that Google offers is the PageSpeed Insights (PSI) tool. Simply add your URL into the field and click Analyze.

PSI will integrate any Core Web Vitals scores into the resulting view so you can see what your users are experiencing when they come to your site.

An image showing the PageSpeed Insights scores for a website.Screenshot from PageSpeed Insights, March 2024

Other tools, like WebPageTest.org, will graphically display the processes and load times for everything it takes to display your webpages.

With this information, you can see which processes block the loading of your pages, which ones take the longest to load, and how this affects your overall page load times.

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You can also emulate the mobile experience by using Developer Tools in Chrome, which allows you to switch back and forth between a desktop and mobile experience.

An image showing how to change the device emulation for a site within Google Chrome Developer ToolsScreenshot from Google Chrome Developer Tools, March 2024

Lastly, use your own mobile device to load and navigate your website:

  • Does it take forever to load?
  • Are you able to navigate your site to find the most important information?
  • Is it easy to add something to cart?
  • Can you read the text?

Read more: Google PageSpeed Insights Reports: A Technical Guide

How To Optimize Your Site Mobile-First

With all these tools, keep an eye on the Performance and Accessibility scores, as these directly affect mobile users.

Expand each section within the PageSpeed Insights report to see what elements are affecting your score.

These sections can give your developers their marching orders for optimizing the mobile experience.

While mobile speeds for cellular networks have steadily improved around the world (the average speed in the U.S. has jumped to 27.06 Mbps from 11.14 Mbps in just eight years), speed and usability for mobile users are at a premium.

Read more: Top 7 SEO Benefits Of Responsive Web Design

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Best Practices For Mobile Optimization

Unlike traditional SEO, which can focus heavily on ensuring that you are using the language of your users as it relates to the intersection of your products/services and their needs, optimizing for mobile SEO can seem very technical SEO-heavy.

While you still need to be focused on matching your content with the needs of the user, mobile search optimization will require the aid of your developers and designers to be fully effective.

Below are several key factors in mobile SEO to keep in mind as you’re optimizing your site.

Site Rendering

How your site responds to different devices is one of the most important elements in mobile SEO.

The two most common approaches to this are responsive design and dynamic serving.

Responsive design is the most common of the two options.

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Using your site’s cascading style sheets (CSS) and flexible layouts, as well as responsive content delivery networks (CDN) and modern image file types, responsive design allows your site to adjust to a variety of screen sizes, orientations, and resolutions.

With the responsive design, elements on the page adjust in size and location based on the size of the screen.

You can simply resize the window of your desktop browser and see how this works.

An image showing the difference between Web.dev in a full desktop display vs. a mobile display using responsive design.Screenshot from web.dev, March 2024

This is the approach that Google recommends.

Adaptive design, also known as dynamic serving, consists of multiple fixed layouts that are dynamically served to the user based on their device.

Sites can have a separate layout for desktop, smartphone, and tablet users. Each design can be modified to remove functionality that may not make sense for certain device types.

This is a less efficient approach, but it does give sites more control over what each device sees.

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While these will not be covered here, two other options:

  • Progressive Web Apps (PWA), which can seamlessly integrate into a mobile app.
  • Separate mobile site/URL (which is no longer recommended).

Read more: An Introduction To Rendering For SEO

Interaction to Next Paint (INP)

Google has introduced Interaction to Next Paint (INP) as a more comprehensive measure of user experience, succeeding First Input Delay. While FID measures the time from when a user first interacts with your page (e.g., clicking a link, tapping a button) to the time when the browser is actually able to begin processing event handlers in response to that interaction. INP, on the other hand, broadens the scope by measuring the responsiveness of a website throughout the entire lifespan of a page, not just first interaction.

Note that actions such as hovering and scrolling do not influence INP, however, keyboard-driven scrolling or navigational actions are considered keystrokes that may activate events measured by INP but not scrolling which is happeing due to interaction.

Scrolling may indirectly affect INP, for example in scenarios where users scroll through content, and additional content is lazy-loaded from the API. While the act of scrolling itself isn’t included in the INP calculation, the processing, necessary for loading additional content, can create contention on the main thread, thereby increasing interaction latency and adversely affecting the INP score.

What qualifies as an optimal INP score?

  • An INP under 200ms indicates good responsiveness.
  • Between 200ms and 500ms needs improvement.
  • Over 500ms means page has poor responsiveness.

and these are common issues causing poor INP scores:

  1. Long JavaScript Tasks: Heavy JavaScript execution can block the main thread, delaying the browser’s ability to respond to user interactions. Thus break long JS tasks into smaller chunks by using scheduler API.
  2. Large DOM (HTML) Size: A large DOM ( starting from 1500 elements) can severely impact a website’s interactive performance. Every additional DOM element increases the work required to render pages and respond to user interactions.
  3. Inefficient Event Callbacks: Event handlers that execute lengthy or complex operations can significantly affect INP scores. Poorly optimized callbacks attached to user interactions, like clicks, keypress or taps, can block the main thread, delaying the browser’s ability to render visual feedback promptly. For example when handlers perform heavy computations or initiate synchronous network requests such on clicks.

and you can troubleshoot INP issues using free and paid tools.

As a good starting point I would recommend to check your INP scores by geos via treo.sh which will give you a great high level insights where you struggle with most.

INP scores by GeosINP scores by Geos

Read more: How To Improve Interaction To Next Paint (INP)

Image Optimization

Images add a lot of value to the content on your site and can greatly affect the user experience.

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From page speeds to image quality, you could adversely affect the user experience if you haven’t optimized your images.

This is especially true for the mobile experience. Images need to adjust to smaller screens, varying resolutions, and screen orientation.

  • Use responsive images
  • Implement lazy loading
  • Compress your images (use WebP)
  • Add your images into sitemap

Optimizing images is an entire science, and I advise you to read our comprehensive guide on image SEO how to implement the mentioned recommendations.

Avoid Intrusive Interstitials

Google rarely uses concrete language to state that something is a ranking factor or will result in a penalty, so you know it means business about intrusive interstitials in the mobile experience.

Intrusive interstitials are basically pop-ups on a page that prevent the user from seeing content on the page.

John Mueller, Google’s Senior Search Analyst, stated that they are specifically interested in the first interaction a user has after clicking on a search result.

Examples of intrusive interstitial pop-ups on a mobile site according to Google.

Not all pop-ups are considered bad. Interstitial types that are considered “intrusive” by Google include:

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  • Pop-ups that cover most or all of the page content.
  • Non-responsive interstitials or pop-ups that are impossible for mobile users to close.
  • Pop-ups that are not triggered by a user action, such as a scroll or a click.

Read more: 7 Tips To Keep Pop-Ups From Harming Your SEO

Structured Data

Most of the tips provided in this guide so far are focused on usability and speed and have an additive effect, but there are changes that can directly influence how your site appears in mobile search results.

Search engine results pages (SERPs) haven’t been the “10 blue links” in a very long time.

They now reflect the diversity of search intent, showing a variety of different sections to meet the needs of users. Local Pack, shopping listing ads, video content, and more dominate the mobile search experience.

As a result, it’s more important than ever to provide structured data markup to the search engines, so they can display rich results for users.

In this example, you can see that both Zojirushi and Amazon have included structured data for their rice cookers, and Google is displaying rich results for both.

An image of a search result for Japanese rice cookers that shows rich results for Zojirushi and Amazon.Screenshot from search for [Japanese rice cookers], Google, March 2024

Adding structured data markup to your site can influence how well your site shows up for local searches and product-related searches.

Using JSON-LD, you can mark up the business, product, and services data on your pages in Schema markup.

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If you use WordPress as the content management system for your site, there are several plugins available that will automatically mark up your content with structured data.

Read more: What Structured Data To Use And Where To Use It?

Content Style

When you think about your mobile users and the screens on their devices, this can greatly influence how you write your content.

Rather than long, detailed paragraphs, mobile users prefer concise writing styles for mobile reading.

Each key point in your content should be a single line of text that easily fits on a mobile screen.

Your font sizes should adjust to the screen’s resolution to avoid eye strain for your users.

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If possible, allow for a dark or dim mode for your site to further reduce eye strain.

Headers should be concise and address the searcher’s intent. Rather than lengthy section headers, keep it simple.

Finally, make sure that your text renders in a font size that’s readable.

Read more: 10 Tips For Creating Mobile-Friendly Content

Tap Targets

As important as text size, the tap targets on your pages should be sized and laid out appropriately.

Tap targets include navigation elements, links, form fields, and buttons like “Add to Cart” buttons.

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Targets smaller than 48 pixels by 48 pixels and targets that overlap or are overlapped by other page elements will be called out in the Lighthouse report.

Tap targets are essential to the mobile user experience, especially for ecommerce websites, so optimizing them is vital to the health of your online business.

Read more: Google’s Lighthouse SEO Audit Tool Now Measures Tap Target Spacing

Prioritizing These Tips

If you have delayed making your site mobile-friendly until now, this guide may feel overwhelming. As a result, you may not know what to prioritize first.

As with so many other optimizations in SEO, it’s important to understand which changes will have the greatest impact, and this is just as true for mobile SEO.

Think of SEO as a framework in which your site’s technical aspects are the foundation of your content. Without a solid foundation, even the best content may struggle to rank.

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  • Responsive or Dynamic Rendering: If your site requires the user to zoom and scroll right or left to read the content on your pages, no number of other optimizations can help you. This should be first on your list.
  • Content Style: Rethink how your users will consume your content online. Avoid very long paragraphs. “Brevity is the soul of wit,” to quote Shakespeare.
  • Image Optimization: Begin migrating your images to next-gen image formats and optimize your content display network for speed and responsiveness.
  • Tap Targets: A site that prevents users from navigating or converting into sales won’t be in business long. Make navigation, links, and buttons usable for them.
  • Structured Data: While this element ranks last in priority on this list, rich results can improve your chances of receiving traffic from a search engine, so add this to your to-do list once you’ve completed the other optimizations.

Summary

From How Search Works, “Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

If Google’s primary mission is focused on making all the world’s information accessible and useful, then you know they will prefer surfacing sites that align with that vision.

Since a growing percentage of users are on mobile devices, you may want to infer the word “everywhere” added to the end of the mission statement.

Are you missing out on traffic from mobile devices because of a poor mobile experience?

If you hope to remain relevant, make mobile SEO a priority now.


Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal

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HARO Has Been Dead for a While

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HARO Has Been Dead for a While

Every SEO’s favorite link-building collaboration tool, HARO, was officially killed off for good last week by Cision. It’s now been wrapped into a new product: Connectively.

I know nothing about the new tool. I haven’t tried it. But after trying to use HARO recently, I can’t say I’m surprised or saddened by its death. It’s been a walking corpse for a while. 

I used HARO way back in the day to build links. It worked. But a couple of months ago, I experienced the platform from the other side when I decided to try to source some “expert” insights for our posts. 

After just a few minutes of work, I got hundreds of pitches: 

So, I grabbed a cup of coffee and began to work through them. It didn’t take long before I lost the will to live. Every other pitch seemed like nothing more than lazy AI-generated nonsense from someone who definitely wasn’t an expert. 

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Here’s one of them: 

Example of an AI-generated pitch in HAROExample of an AI-generated pitch in HARO

Seriously. Who writes like that? I’m a self-confessed dullard (any fellow Dull Men’s Club members here?), and even I’m not that dull… 

I don’t think I looked through more than 30-40 of the responses. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. It felt like having a conversation with ChatGPT… and not a very good one! 

Despite only reviewing a few dozen of the many pitches I received, one stood out to me: 

Example HARO pitch that caught my attentionExample HARO pitch that caught my attention

Believe it or not, this response came from a past client of mine who runs an SEO agency in the UK. Given how knowledgeable and experienced he is (he actually taught me a lot about SEO back in the day when I used to hassle him with questions on Skype), this pitch rang alarm bells for two reasons: 

  1. I truly doubt he spends his time replying to HARO queries
  2. I know for a fact he’s no fan of Neil Patel (sorry, Neil, but I’m sure you’re aware of your reputation at this point!)

So… I decided to confront him 😉 

Here’s what he said: 

Hunch, confirmed ;)Hunch, confirmed ;)

Shocker. 

I pressed him for more details: 

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I’m getting a really good deal and paying per link rather than the typical £xxxx per month for X number of pitches. […] The responses as you’ve seen are not ideal but that’s a risk I’m prepared to take as realistically I dont have the time to do it myself. He’s not native english, but I have had to have a word with him a few times about clearly using AI. On the low cost ones I don’t care but on authority sites it needs to be more refined.

I think this pretty much sums up the state of HARO before its death. Most “pitches” were just AI answers from SEOs trying to build links for their clients. 

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not throwing shade here. I know that good links are hard to come by, so you have to do what works. And the reality is that HARO did work. Just look at the example below. You can tell from the anchor and surrounding text in Ahrefs that these links were almost certainly built with HARO: 

Example of links build with HARO, via Ahrefs' Site ExplorerExample of links build with HARO, via Ahrefs' Site Explorer

But this was the problem. HARO worked so well back in the day that it was only a matter of time before spammers and the #scale crew ruined it for everyone. That’s what happened, and now HARO is no more. So… 

If you’re a link builder, I think it’s time to admit that HARO link building is dead and move on. 

No tactic works well forever. It’s the law of sh**ty clickthroughs. This is why you don’t see SEOs having huge success with tactics like broken link building anymore. They’ve moved on to more innovative tactics or, dare I say it, are just buying links.

Sidenote.

Talking of buying links, here’s something to ponder: if Connectively charges for pitches, are links built through those pitches technically paid? If so, do they violate Google’s spam policies? It’s a murky old world this SEO lark, eh?

If you’re a journalist, Connectively might be worth a shot. But with experts being charged for pitches, you probably won’t get as many responses. That might be a good thing. You might get less spam. Or you might just get spammed by SEOs with deep pockets. The jury’s out for now. 

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My advice? Look for alternative methods like finding and reaching out to experts directly. You can easily use tools like Content Explorer to find folks who’ve written lots of content about the topic and are likely to be experts. 

For example, if you look for content with “backlinks” in the title and go to the Authors tab, you might see a familiar name. 😉 

Finding people to request insights from in Ahrefs' Content ExplorerFinding people to request insights from in Ahrefs' Content Explorer

I don’t know if I’d call myself an expert, but I’d be happy to give you a quote if you reached out on social media or emailed me (here’s how to find my email address).

Alternatively, you can bait your audience into giving you their insights on social media. I did this recently with a poll on X and included many of the responses in my guide to toxic backlinks.

Me, indirectly sourcing insights on social mediaMe, indirectly sourcing insights on social media

Either of these options is quicker than using HARO because you don’t have to sift through hundreds of responses looking for a needle in a haystack. If you disagree with me and still love HARO, feel free to tell me why on X 😉



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