SEO Maxim: Don’t believe everything you read

Every single day, there are 1000s of new pages written about SEO. People reveal hidden strategies guaranteed to get you to the top of the SERPs. Matt Cutts will tell you how to do well in Google. Anonymous tipsters will reveal their best link tactics. Industry leaders will push their content marketing agendas.

The challenge for SEOs isn’t finding content to read…it’s deciding what to believe.

True SEOs don’t rely on the written word of anybody, however. Just because a case study says that Google +1’s helped a site drastically increase search traffic doesn’t mean it is universally true and doesn’t mean it will work for your website. Just because a popular post suggests creating a certain type of content doesn’t mean you’ll see spectacular results following that same strategy.

Most content written by SEOs has an agenda. They want to attract links. They want you to subscribe to their newsletter. They want you to buy their software.

It’s important for SEOs to keep up with what people are sharing in the industry so you can use it to create new hypotheses that you can test for yourself.

Don’t mistake the value of one case study or one man’s opinion for hard data or experience.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *