SEO Rumors, Myths, and Fabrications

To read the previous parts go to: SEO Myths - Part One and SEO Myths - Part Two

The "optimization" in search engine optimization (SEO) implies the application of the best possible methods to ensure the success of a given goal without wasting resources on issues that are actually important. On that note, this article will cover and debunk some of the common myths about SEO as well as clarify what you should really do in order to gain better SEO for your website.

Linking with Non-Ideal Anchor Text

A non-ideal anchor text is text that's not user-friendly or appears manipulative or spam-driven. With that said, you shouldn't worry too much about the anchor text (although it's always best to have a well-written, non-spam-like anchor text just in case).

As long as your non-ideal anchor text fits well with the user experience, it shouldn't be considered a problem at all. As a rule of thumb, anchor text must be easy to understand, has few to no grammatical errors, encourages the user to click the link without the intent to mislead or deceive, and is completely unambiguous in its message.

Just as the belief that keyword density can affect your search engine results page (SERP) rankings is a myth, so is the impact of non-ideal anchor text on SEO. It's important to make your anchor text understandable for the sake of the user experience, but you shouldn't be too worried about it on the grand scheme of things.

Links on the Footer

Another thing that's not worth worrying about is having links on your footer. This will not negatively impact your SERP rankings in the least. There are a lot of people who believe footer links are a surefire way of being flagged as spam by search engines like Google. However, more often than not, the footer links aren't the problem.

In the end, good user experience is always the key. By good user experience, we mean doing things that won't annoy your visitors and having web design and SEO practices that don't make them feel like they're being manipulated for the sake of extra views or clicks for pay-per-click (PPC) ads.

A good footer is lengthy but contains entertaining content that will make the reader like the company behind the website even more. Of course, if you're stuffing links inside your footer left and right, you should be careful to avoid making it look like spam. However, as long as you're making the footers look natural and user-friendly, it shouldn't matter in the end.

URLs with No Keywords

There are people out there who believe that URLs with no keywords can prevent sites from ranking well. That's actually sounds like a legitimate concern, because users are less likely to click a link that's just full of random symbols or numbers compared to a relevant link containing keywords regarding the latest trend, headline, or search item.

Certainly, creating static URLs that are keyword friendly is the best practice. Having a URL that can be read offline such that it's easy to understand its content just by looking at it is also ideal. However, search engines like Google don't consider keyword-free URLs a major problem when it comes to gaining a decent SERP ranking

As long as the content of your URL is in itself interesting and as long as it's gaining positive feedback from the people who visit the page itself, your keyword-lacking URL won't stop your page from ranking. The user-friendliness of the URL is less of a concern than the user-friendliness of the page that the said URL refers to.

This blog post has been inspired by SEOMOZ Whiteboard Friday Video.

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