Top 5 SEO Myths People Still Believe in 2025

The most peculiar thing about SEO is that, at first, it sounds so simple. There are some people who understand what Google is looking for when assigning a priority to results that people get after using the search box. These people can help you get to the top of SERPs.

However, once you dig deeper and inquire about the exact practices or (in the worst case) why these practices work, some of these “experts” who spoke so confidently will start mumbling and try to distract you with complex “technical” terms.

One of the easiest ways to recognize these types of “experts” is to hear them support some of the most common SEO myths. Here are five such myths that a lot of them still believe in 2025.

The first of many SEO myths is the one about SEO directly boosting sales. In reality, SEO is there only to improve your Google rank and, with it, visibility.

Will this increase your sales and revenue? Definitely!

However, the cause-effect relation here is much harder to establish. It’s like going to the gym and doing strength exercises. Will this result in you looking better? Absolutely, however, this will only be a side effect, and the result won’t be as if you were just training your glam muscles and focused on hypertrophy.

As a result of better SEO, you’ll have more visitors to your site, and even with the same conversion rate, you’ll have more sales. After all, the math is pretty simple - 5% of 100 is five people, and 5% of 1,000 is 50 people. This means ten times more conversions even if the percentage doesn’t budge.

Moreover, your SEO will improve the perceived authority of your site, which means that people won’t have trouble ordering more often or placing bigger offers. In other words, even your conversion rate will improve.

This is one of the biggest SEO misconceptions that causes problems in client communication. As an SEO expert, you can promise them more visits, but you can’t promise them better sales. If their product is ridiculously overpriced, more visits mean more people will see that it is just not worth it.

An SEO expert must understand how important it is to explain this to a client. It’s not a layman's job to know this before reaching out to you. It’s your job to explain it. Explain that you’ll improve their rank and that, as a result, all the other aspects of their business will advance. Also, point out what you can and cannot do.

Make no mistake, DIY SEO is better than no SEO whatsoever; however, the difference between professional SEO projects and DIY SEO is just incomparable. 

First, it’s important to mention that there are some clear advantages to DIY SEO. For instance, it’s a lot cheaper. Also, seeing as how this is an ongoing process. It’s not like you can just “complete” your SEO efforts, assume the top spot in SERPs and never have to worry about it again. 

The problem is that SEO takes more time and effort than you think. So, unless you intend to drop every other aspect of your business and do your own SEO, it might be better to delegate this task.

Still, who are you going to delegate it to?

Will you hire someone with experience in SEO? If so, what kind of experience? Will you get an SEO strategist, link builder, content writer, or editor? Will you hire all of them and start your in-house SEO team? Well, if you do decide to take this route, you’ll find the costs to be astronomical (far higher than you would pay to an agency).

There’s a reason why massive businesses, even ones who could (unlike you) actually be able to afford it, prefer to outsource their SEO.

Even if you were able to start a department, who is going to supervise it? Do you know enough about SEO to do it yourself? If not, how much would it cost you to hire an expert to put in charge of your newly-founded SEO department?

The reason why we went so deep into this topic is to show you what it would take to get the same results with DIY SEO. Unless you’re just trying to get minimal results with no investments, outsourcing is the way to go.

When it comes to content, everyone is talking about quality. Deservedly so; after all, the quality of your content is one of the most important things when it comes to your rank; however, you also need a decent content output. You also need the right content strategist to see it through.

Let’s say you’re working on your blog (since your site’s main content can be seen as one-and-done). Even if you write the best piece ever, will it make that much of a difference in the bigger picture if you publish once every two to three months?

The truth is that you need a decent content output to keep up with these demands. The algorithm favors sites that publish frequently and, even more importantly, your audience needs to see yoru content on a regular basis (in order to stay in touch).

This can also be a problem since, on average, it takes roughly four hours to produce a blog post. You don’t want your blog post to be average, which means that it will take you even longer than that (unless you’re really inspired or talented). Also, since you need to publish regularly (at least once per week), you need to come up with new topics constantly.

All of this is just the on-site aspect of your business. What about link building and its various practices? Here, you need so many (quality) articles. 

So, does quality matter? Absolutely, but unless you can produce the right quantity, it won’t matter much. It’s like having a job that pays $200, but you only have to work for two hours per month. It’s a sweet deal, but it won’t solve your problems. 

So, content quality over quantity is just one of those big virtue-signalling statements that don’t mean a thing. In reality, you need both.

This is not just one of the biggest SEO myths; it’s one of the biggest myths of the business world, in general. Take any useful marketing method or sales practice that big businesses are using and try to suggest it to a small business owner or a manager of a small team. You’ll immediately hear that a small business cannot afford it or that it won’t benefit from it to a degree where it’s justified.

So, is SEO worth it for a small business?

Not only is it worth it, this is where it’s the most impactful.

Do you think Coca-Cola needs SEO? What about Nike or Volkswagen? These are brands that everyone has heard of; their brand names are keywords with an amazing search volume, and their websites are looked up even by those who aren’t interested in buying. By the very merit of name value, their content generates backlinks, and algorithm changes never endanger their presence.

Small businesses, on the other hand, rely on SEO for business growth.

As a small business, you don’t have brand name value or audience. You need to build it from scratch. An SEO will make you findable by those who don’t know your business by name. With long-tail keywords, you’ll position yourself for someone who’s looking for the exact product/services you provide to find with ease.

Even better, you’ll convince them that this was their own idea from the start. 

This way, you can use SEO to increase revenue. After all, you can’t sell something to a person who can’t find you.

Ultimately, there’s so much talk about effective content. While looking for writing tips, you’ll often end up more confused than you were originally. 

What you have to understand is that while there are some great practices, they’re all common sense and not some sort of hard technical rule. 

For instance, is an 800-word post better than one with 2,000 words? If you read a guide, the answer is always negative; however, a well-written compact piece of content with no filler is always better, even if it’s shorter. There are some topics that you just can’t stretch out to fit a certain word count, no matter what.

Trying to cram more words because the last guide on content writing tips told you that your post needs to be 1,200+ words is a horrible idea.

The most important thing you need to do with your content is make it organic. Whatever you do, make it feel natural.

Moreover, make sure that your content provides value. 

Be informative, entertaining, and educational. If you provide your readers with enough value, they don’t care about your shameless self-promotion throughout the text.

The only way to avoid being wrong all the time is to focus on the principles of SEO, not try to learn its rules. This is how you dispel all the SEO myths. The principles, however, are quite simple - you need to create content that Google will see as useful to its users and your potential clients. In order to get quality service, you need professionals. Most importantly, you need to understand what is it that SEO actually does and convey this to a client.