Fact or Fiction: SEO Myths Debunked

While Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman won’t be joining us, Little Bird Marketing CEO, Priscilla McKinney, rises to the challenge of being the official SEO MythBuster.

People have pulled Priscilla aside on numerous occasions to ask her to confirm or deny SEO rumors and gossip. Enough people were asking. It was time for her to get talking. As always, she pulls back the curtain and starts from square one, eliminating jargon and outlining what all the acronyms actually mean. 

The reason people have so many legitimate questions is that in this incredibly noisy market of tons of websites, it’s a struggle to be seen. How do we get your website to rank high and be optimized for search engines? It all starts with Google thumbs, and with knowing that Google wants to deliver a “wow” experience to their users. 

Google Thumbs
See, we left behind jargon and then created some ourselves. But this is an important acknowledgement that how anyone (your 13 yo son, or your 83 yo mom and even your most ideal client buyer) is using their thumbs on Google to find answers to life’s more pressing questions (and where to get the best pizza…) 

How Google Works
Knowing how Google and other search engines really look at your content is absolutely vital to your SEO strategy. This comes down to the trifecta: Experience, Authority, and Trustworthiness. Expertise is Google crawling your website and taking a look at everything that you have to say. You want to talk about your key topic clusters “six ways to Sunday,” as Priscilla says. Authority deals with hyperlinks — other websites linking to your website and your own website linking to itself. Trustworthiness also deals with links, but it’s about the links that you share, also called outbound links. Google checks to see if the websites you are linking to are reputable and high-quality. 

Time to get myth-busting?

MYTH: Google only ranks new content.
TRUTH: There is a difference between new content and the “freshness” of content. 

MYTH: Longer content has more value.
TRUTH: More does not always equal more.

MYTH: Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising helps ranking.
TRUTH: False. PPC and SEO and SEM are different and we break them down. 

MYTH: SEO takes at least 90 days to have an effect.
TRUTH: Changes take time for the search engine bots to process, but there is no magic to day 90 of your work. We break down what happens quickly and what can take a long time. 

SEO strategy is not one-size-fits-all, and there are a lot of nuances to the ever-changing, alive and kicking algorithm. Need a little help? We’re happy to be of service: https://littlebirdmarketing.com/work/

Shoutout to this episode’s sponsors: Fieldwork and The Insights Association 2023 Conference.
We're looking forward to being in glorious Hilton Head, South Carolina, April 24th through the 26th for the Insights Association Annual Conference. Known for providing exclusive research and objective brand presented content. The agenda for this year's IA Annual has been expanded to deeply examine four important disciplines: qualitative research, experience management, data analytics and quantitative, and behavioral research. Within each, we'll explore immerging trends, quality advancements, DEI progress and tangible business impact. More information on the agenda, which includes presenters from TD Bank, Mondelez, Masonite, Delta Faucet Company, Fidelity Investments, AARP and many other leading brands can be found at insightsassociation.org Use promo code ACBird to get 15% off your registration. We hope to see you there.

While Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman won’t be joining us, Little Bird Marketing CEO, Priscilla McKinney, rises to the challenge of being the official SEO MythBuster.

People have pulled Priscilla aside on numerous occasions to ask her to confirm or deny SEO rumors and gossip. Enough people were asking. It was time for her to get talking. As always, she pulls back the curtain and starts from square one, eliminating jargon and outlining what all the acronyms actually mean. 

The reason people have so many legitimate questions is that in this incredibly noisy market of tons of websites, it’s a struggle to be seen. How do we get your website to rank high and be optimized for search engines? It all starts with Google thumbs, and with knowing that Google wants to deliver a “wow” experience to their users. 

Google Thumbs

See, we left behind jargon and then created some ourselves. But this is an important acknowledgement that how anyone (your 13 yo son, or your 83 yo mom and even your most ideal client buyer) is using their thumbs on Google to find answers to life’s more pressing questions (and where to get the best pizza…) 

How Google Works

Knowing how Google and other search engines really look at your content is absolutely vital to your SEO strategy. This comes down to the trifecta: Experience, Authority, and Trustworthiness. Expertise is Google crawling your website and taking a look at everything that you have to say. You want to talk about your key topic clusters “six ways to Sunday,” as Priscilla says. Authority deals with hyperlinks — other websites linking to your website and your own website linking to itself. Trustworthiness also deals with links, but it’s about the links that you share, also called outbound links. Google checks to see if the websites you are linking to are reputable and high-quality. 

Time to get myth-busting?

MYTH: Google only ranks new content.

TRUTH: There is a difference between new content and the “freshness” of content. 

MYTH: Longer content has more value.

TRUTH: More does not always equal more.

MYTH: Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising helps ranking.

TRUTH: False. PPC and SEO and SEM are different and we break them down. 

MYTH: SEO takes at least 90 days to have an effect.

TRUTH: Changes take time for the search engine bots to process, but there is no magic to day 90 of your work. We break down what happens quickly and what can take a long time. 

SEO strategy is not one-size-fits-all, and there are a lot of nuances to the ever-changing, alive and kicking algorithm. Need a little help? We’re happy to be of service: https://littlebirdmarketing.com/work/

Shoutout to this episode’s sponsors: Fieldwork and The Insights Association 2023 Conference.

We're looking forward to being in glorious Hilton Head, South Carolina, April 24th through the 26th for the Insights Association Annual Conference. Known for providing exclusive research and objective brand presented content. The agenda for this year's IA Annual has been expanded to deeply examine four important disciplines: qualitative research, experience management, data analytics and quantitative, and behavioral research. Within each, we'll explore immerging trends, quality advancements, DEI progress and tangible business impact. More information on the agenda, which includes presenters from TD Bank, Mondelez, Masonite, Delta Faucet Company, Fidelity Investments, AARP and many other leading brands can be found at insightsassociation.org Use promo code ACBird to get 15% off your registration. We hope to see you there.