SEO myths small businesses still believe
SEO has been around long enough to collect a lot of folklore. Some of it was once true. Some never was. Here are the ones I hear most, and what I’d say instead.
Written by Thys du Plooy. I’ve been doing this since 2001, and I’ve believed a few of these myself.
The myths
1. “Someone can guarantee you number one”
What’s true: Nobody controls Google’s results, so nobody can promise a position. What an honest agency can promise is its work, its communication and steady effort against your competitors.
2. “SEO is a one-off job”
What’s true: Competitors keep working, search results keep changing and your business changes too. SEO is steady, ongoing work. A one-off project can be a good start, but it decays.
3. “More pages always means better rankings”
What’s true: More useful pages can help. Padding, repetition and thin pages don’t. Fewer, better pages beat many weak ones.
4. “Stuff in your keywords”
What’s true: Repeating a phrase doesn’t help, and it makes pages hard to read. Write for the person, use the words they’d use, and cover the topic properly. I made a version of this mistake myself, writing the same idea in many keyword variations, and it didn’t help.
5. “Meta keywords matter”
What’s true: Google has ignored the old meta keywords tag for many years. The title and the visible content matter far more.
6. “Google Ads improve your organic rankings”
What’s true: Paid ads and organic results are separate. Ads can bring traffic quickly, but spending on them doesn’t push you up the organic results.
7. “More links is always better”
What’s true: Quality matters, not count. A few links from real, relevant sites help. Bought or spammy links can do harm.
8. “Schema, or an llms.txt file, will boost your rankings”
What’s true: Structured data helps search engines understand a page, and it can make some results richer. It isn’t a ranking boost on its own. An llms.txt file has no reliable record of improving visibility in AI answers. Useful, clear pages matter more than either.
9. “You can track exactly where AI tools mention you”
What’s true: Today, tracking is patchy and unreliable. Be wary of anyone selling precise AI-visibility numbers.
10. “Local SEO is only for shops with a high street premises”
What’s true: Service-area businesses can show up too. An address helps, but there are options if you work from home.
11. “If you rank for your name, you’re fine”
What’s true: People who already know you will find you anyway. The aim is to be found by people who don’t know you yet.
12. “SEO is dead because of AI”
What’s true: AI tools still rely on clear, trustworthy information about your business. Sound basics, such as a consistent profile, useful content and honest reviews, help in both.
13. “Reviews don’t affect SEO”
What’s true: They influence both visibility and whether someone picks you. Honest, steady reviews help. Paid or fake ones can harm you.
14. “A new site fixes everything”
What’s true: A new site can fix real problems, but a rebuild can also lose rankings if it’s done carelessly. Plan the move, keep what works and test it.
What to do instead
Make it easy for customers to reach you. Keep your profile, site and listings consistent. Write helpful pages. Ask for honest reviews. Keep going. It isn’t exciting, and it works.