The sad truth about SEO is that most people do it the wrong way. Then they don’t get the desired results. And then they complain, “SEO is dead.”

But search engine optimization, if done the right way with an SEO expert or digital marketing agency, can still work wonders for your online presence. So what do the experts do differently? In most cases, what sets them apart from others is their ability to avoid certain SEO myths. Without further ado, let’s debunk some of those myths.

1. The title and meta-description don’t really matter
A title tag is exactly how it sounds like. It is the headline of a search result. On the other hand, a meta description is a short summary of the web page that appears just below the link of a search result. In theory, the title tag and meta description do not influence search rankings, but they still matter.

For instance, if you insert the main keyword in the title tag and meta description, it helps Google know what information is available in the webpage/website. Plus, a well-written meta description could help persuade the reader to click and visit the webpage. That way, it also helps with SEO.

2. SEO is a one-time venture
On the contrary, SEO is actually a long-term game. Granted, SEO can sometimes help improve your search ranking within a few weeks. However, if you want to sustain the good results, you need to put constant efforts that’s what an SEO consultant do.

For instance, not refreshing your content for some time can result in link rot and hamper your overall search ranking.

3. Keyword research is not important
Keywords are still important for SEO, although the way you use keywords should change. Without proper keyword research, you may end up optimizing your content with wrong keywords – the ones that have low search volumes or are difficult to rank for.

However, just using the right keyword isn’t enough. You should also consider the search intent behind a keyword or key phrase.

Quality content is the foundation of quality SEO. The more consistent you’re in adding high-value content to your website, the better for SEO.

However, just posting content isn’t enough. Otherwise, no one would need an SEO consultant or SEO expert.

The job of these professionals is to optimize your content for search engines. Ideally, SEO works should start from the planning stage of content creation. However, if you already have loads of content on your website, you can still take some steps for better SEO.

Here are 3 more ways to improve SEO of your existing content.

1. Improve click-through rate
Even when your webpage shows up on the first page of Google search results, not every searcher is going to click on it. Your click-through rate is the measure of how many searchers actually clicked through to your page, this is one of the secrets of a digital marketing agency.

Needless to say, the whole purpose of SEO is to get more people to visit your website or webpage. So, improving your click-through rate is the ultimate goal.

Interestingly, it is also one of the factors that Google considers when ranking your webpage in search results. So, how can you improve your CTR? There are many ways but mainly try to improve your title tag and meta-description for the page. If possible, insert the main keyword in the title tag and make it useful for the reader.

The description should clearly mention the purpose of the page in maximum 150 characters.

2. Update old content with declining traffic
Evergreen content is a myth. A piece of content that users absolutely loved two years back could see almost no traffic now. That happens all the time. With time, the information becomes outdated.

Or sometimes you simply need to upgrade the format or structuring of the content to make it relevant for today.

In most cases, you don’t have to rewrite the whole content. Just updating the outdated sections would suffice. In any case, updating your existing content is a great way to boost your traffic.

Don’t get this wrong! Publishing new content to your website has no alternative. SEO is a long-term game; and seeing your efforts come to fruition could take months, if not years. To that end, you must keep adding new content to your website at regular intervals.

However, the top SEO expert or SEO consultant also use certain quick-fix techniques to boost website traffic. These techniques, if employed the right way, can help improve the search ranking of your existing content within weeks. Here are some ideas.

Optimize page loading speed
By now you know that user experience is critical to good SEO.

Imagine someone clicking on your page but the page won’t load (or take forever to load). That’s bad user experience, right? And that is exactly why Google factors in the loading speed of a webpage when ranking it. As a digital marketing agency, the first thing we check in a website is its loading speed.

For that, we use tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights. Once you identify slow speed issues, you can take a few steps to increase your page speed. For instance, if your content has images, consider reducing their size.

WordPress users can easily do that using the ShortPixel plugin. Another good idea would be to enable browser caching, using tools like W3 Total Cache.

Use internal linking to your advantage
Internal linking is when you link one page in your website to another relevant page in your site.

But how does that help boost your SEO? Let’s explain. Simply put, when a webpage has a lot of relevant internal links, Google boosts it PageRank. If you don’t know what PageRank is, it is a complex calculation, which helps Google identify high value pages by looking at the number of quality pages linked to it.

Because Google considers PageRank as an important ranking factor, internal linking would be a great way to boost your SEO, without having to add new content to your website.

Let’s face it. SEO techniques that used to work a few years ago, do not work any longer. However, SEO still works. It is still the main source of organic traffic. So, what has changed? Essentially, SEO now has to take into consideration the user intent more than ever before.

Now an SEO expert or SEO consultant are using smarter techniques than simply stuffing a high-volume keyword into the average content. The process of improving SEO starts with choosing the right keywords and topic for content creation. Whether you do your own SEO or hire a digital marketing agency for the job, consider using the below strategies for finding the right topic.

1. Identify search volume
First things first, you need to choose a high-volume keyword or key phrase. You can easily do that by using a keyword research tool, such as SECockpit, Moz Keyword Explorer, Google Keyword Planner, Jaaxy, and Ahrefs Keywords Explorer. Just type a relevant keyword into your chosen keyword explorer and you’ll find hundreds of ideas within seconds. Now your job is to sort those keywords in terms of monthly search volume. Most of the keyword research tools come with a filter to a set minimum monthly search volume. For instance, you can search for keywords with a minimum search volume of 500. However, just choosing any high-volume keyword isn’t enough. You should also consider the competition level of that keyword.

2. Consider keyword difficulty
Most keyword explorer tools give you an estimate of the difficulty level for ranking a particular keyword. In other words, the keyword difficulty filter allows you distinguish high-competition keywords from the low-competition ones. At this stage, try to find a keyword that has high or decent search volumes but low competition.

3. Look for relevance
Finally, narrow down your search based on how relevant the topic is for your audience. You want to choose a topic that relates directly with the problem you are solving. That way, you’ll have a high chance of turning the website traffic into revenues.

When you create content for SEO purpose, you use keywords or key phrases. But did you know that those words or phrases can tell you a lot about the user’s search intent? In fact, Google ranks content on its search results based on keyword intent or search intent. That is exactly why an SEO expert or SEO consultant should consider the search intent of a keyword when creating content around it.

Simply put, keyword intent helps you understand why someone has conducted an online search, what type of content they are looking for, etc. Keyword intent could be 1) informational, 2) commercial, 3) transactional, and 4) navigational, among others. We already touched upon the first two types of keyword intent. So let’s take a close look at the next two types.

Transactional intent
Transactional intent sits between commercial intent and informational intent. Keywords with a transactional intent could make you a little confused about the real intention of the searcher. It could be buying a product. But it could also be reading reviews before buying a product. For instance, let’s say the key phrase is “Women’s formal trouser.” Now the person conducting an online search for that keyword could be looking to buy a formal trouser. But some users can use that search term to make an informed buying decision. For the second type of searchers, you can create review articles or “Top-10-style” articles.

Navigational intent
Keywords with a navigational intent usually contain the name of a brand or company. The searcher knows exactly what website they want to visit. For instance, if someone types “Facebook login”, they are looking for the Facebook login page and nothing else. So your digital marketing agency probably won’t waste time and effort trying to rank higher on those keywords. One way to know the intent of a keyword is by doing a Google search for that keyword. The search results will give a fair idea of what type content the search giant is ranking on the first page of its search results.