 Hi, everyone. This is Sarah from System Dynamics. And today I want to go over some common misconceptions about SEO. Now, if you don't know, SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the process of optimizing a website to maximize its visibility in your search engine results. So this involves a couple different elements like keyword research, link building, content optimization, page speed optimization, and a lot more. So today I just want to go over a couple of myths and misconceptions. That way you can start to optimize your website better. In the old ways of SEO, quantity used to be a lot more important than quality. However, that is just not the case anymore. There's this common misconception that if you have more pages on your website, you'll get more traffic. But just having more pages isn't enough. If you don't have good content, if you don't have something that is purposeful to your user or that they need or want, you're not going to rank as well. That also goes for your home page. Just having a boatload of content on your home page is not going to get you ranked well on the Google search. If it's littered with copy or if it honestly, if it has nothing at all, it's just it's not going to rank well. Think of your home page as like your business card, as the opening page to your business. It's the first impression that your potential clients are going to see. It's your chance to make a really good first impression and convey who you are and what your business is about. It should display your values in its simplest form. It has to have some content, but not an overflow of content that it's going to become overwhelming. And this goes for links as well. Having inbound or outbound links in excess without good content to back it up is not going to get you ranked well on Google. So overall, it's about quality and not quantity. Another common misconception is that usability is secondary and this is just not the case. And this goes for the entirety of your website. If it's not user accessible, if it's not easy to use, it's not going to rank well because people aren't going to want to visit your site. This goes for your meta descriptions, which is going to be that little blurb that you see right under the URL when it pops up in a Google search. You want this to be as simple and as effective as possible. So you want to keep it short, you want to keep it simple, and you want to keep it clear and concise. This way, people know exactly what they're getting when they click on your website. The other thing that's important with usability is going to be local SEO. You want to make sure that your content is ranking locally as well as globally. This way, when you get that near me that pops up in the Google search, your content is going to pop up. It just makes it easier for your website to be accessible for users, and it makes it easier to find you when it comes to local searches. Mobile optimization is also super important when it comes to usability. 60% of Google users use search on their mobile devices, which means if your website isn't compatible with mobile or with cell phones, if your website doesn't have a mobile version, if it's just the desktop version, it's not going to rank as well with Google because they're going to want to show their users websites that will work for them on a mobile device. So it's really important that when you're designing your website, you're also designing a mobile optimized version of it. That way, Google will be more likely to rank your website well. Obviously, images and videos are super important content to have on your website, but they're also really important to SEO. So it's important to know how to optimize your images and videos. For example, your image formats should be optimized. They should be PNGs or JPEGs or something along those lines. You don't want something super complicated that isn't going to be recognized well by the Google algorithm. The other thing that's really important for images is that alt text. Now, the problem with alt text is a lot of times people will just load up their alt text with keywords, which actually isn't helping you rank in the algorithm. The alt text is supposed to be used for accessibility purposes. So if your alt text isn't actually accessible, it's not going to help you rank. For example, if you have a picture of a red backpack and it's on a black background, instead of putting backpack in the alt text, you would put red backpack against the black background. That way, your users who need to use that alt text for accessibility know exactly what they're looking at and it will help you rank well in the Google algorithm. The last thing is for videos is YouTube. Now, YouTube is a whole monster in and of itself as far as keywords and descriptions and trending, but if you're including YouTube links in your website, it's going to do better than just embedding a video because it'll also start tracking on YouTube. So it's just something to keep in mind with images and videos. If you're going to use videos on your website, which you should, it's better to use a Google or a YouTube link than just a regular embedded video. Obviously, there's a lot of information out there about SEO. SEO is a long game and it can take up to three years to really break through and start ranking really high, but the ROI can be upwards of 500% and it can even increase from there the longer you keep up with SEO. It's just really important to stay consistent and keep up with the constant changes. But if you can do that, then you'll be able to optimize your website super easily. That's all I have for this week's video. If you want more tips and tricks about online marketing, social media marketing, be sure to subscribe to us down below. Leave a like, leave a comment, and yeah, and I will see you next time. Bye.