Keyword stuffing is no longer a strategy that works. It can lead to Google penalizing your site, resulting in the opposite effect you were looking to achieve. Instead, focus on natural keyword placement and high-quality content.

Backlinks are important, but quality links matter more than the quantity. A few high-authority links are better than thousands of low-quality ones. Look for links from sites you know (ie. directory sites like chambers of commerce, local news sites, nonprofit or community organizations sites that you support, etc.)

While longer content can perform well, relevance and value to the reader are more important than word count. Short, well-structured content can outrank long, unfocused articles. Focus on your human readers as the primary audience. If the content is compelling to them, it will be compelling to the search engines.

Paid ads don’t directly impact organic rankings. SEO and PPC are separate, though PPC can gap-fill for SEO and help you show up for keywords you really want before the SEO side kicks in.

Optimized images and videos improve engagement and page load speed, both of which are important ranking factors. Adding alt text descriptions to your videos and images not only helps search engines understand your page, it enables site readers to help navigate visually impaired site visitors through your site. This is especially important as accessibility becomes more of an expectation than a bonus.

Not all products or services have inherent search volume. If you are an innovative new product or service that no one is aware of yet, it would be a waste of time. You should focus on other tactics and layer in SEO when you’ve built more awareness around your offerings.

When it comes to SEO, this just isn’t true. Search engines can discern the difference between original content and AI-generated content. Currently search engines rank AI-generated content below original content, so don’t add pages of AI-generated content to your website. (However, some legitimate SEO applications have AI assistants that can help with keyword recommendations and page analysis.)

Not everyone is going to rank for their primary keywords; it’s just not possible, especially in highly competitive industries. Instead, focus on making improvements on priority keywords month over month and using tools like Search Console to understand which search terms are driving the most visibility and which are driving the most clicks.