Twelve Myths of SEO
Myth #1: "Search engine optimization does not yield results."
Probably the biggest SEO myth of all is that SEO campaigns do not have noticeable effects on a company’s bottom line. This is simply not true. Search engines have become the primary method of finding products and services on the Internet. Furthermore, according to more than one study, approximately 62% of web users don’t look past the first page of engine results. And approximately 81% don’t look past the second page. Therefore, the impact to your business cause by being on the first page cannot be overstated.
SEO has been around for as long as search engines. However, the field of SEO has only matured in recent years. Old SEO simply dealt with content keywords, meta-keywords, and search engine submissions. Today’s SEO, if done correctly, involves keyword research, on-site optimization, and off-site optimization.
A good SEO company will start by using multiple keyword research tools to uncover phrases with a high search frequency to search competition ratio (phrases that are searched for often but are not too competitive). Researched keywords are then grouped into a handful a themes that guide on-site optimization. Finally, once a webpage is “ready to go,” it is promoted on relevant locations throughout the Internet, namely on directories, blogs, social bookmarking sites, press releases sites, article sites, videos sites, RSS feed directories, and product indexes. Search engines raise your rankings when they see all these quality, relevant websites linking back to your website.
Myth #2: "I can do SEO myself." Or the opposite: "Good SEO will cost me tens of thousands of dollars."
Alright fine, the first statement is technically true. You can do SEO yourself—as soon as you sign up with the hundreds of websites where you plan submit promotions; and as soon as you commit yourself to six months of submitting material steadily and manually to those websites. Not to mention, you’ll need to know a little bit about keyword research and on-site optimization. Essentially, doing search engine optimization by yourself is time-consuming, monotonous, and not even economically sound. The time would be better spent tending to your business. Leave SEO to the people that make a living doing it.
The second statement, that all good SEO is expensive, is a falsehood circulated by many SEO companies, often large well-known ones. These companies will claim that only 150 West 36th Street Fifth Floor New York, NY www.usaseoservices.com Phone: 800-557-6932 Fax: 646-619-4391
they can provide your site with high-quality incoming links because only they have established relationships with enough webmasters willing to link to your site. Although it’s probably true that these companies have some unique associations, the benefits of such associations to your search engine rankings are negligible. Such assertions by SEO companies are really just an excuse to charge you more. The truth is that an SEO company making smart use of relevant and credible directories, article sites, press release sites, social bookmarking sites, and blogs can accomplish as much as a “well-connected” company.
Myth #3: "The best SEO companies guarantee a 1st page position on search engines."
Guarantees are tricky. Although every SEO company wants to guarantee search engine positions to their clients, the vast majority of serious companies choose not to. This is because of the constant possibility that search engines will make sudden dramatic changes to their search ranking algorithms. The chance of this happening is slim, but if it ever did occur, the cost to an SEO company offering position guarantees could be devastating.
Therefore, rather than look for a company that guarantees search positions, look for a company that promises to use a wide range of valid and unambiguous SEO techniques. SEO is not rocket science, so with a little research you can figure out what a company should (and should not) be offering. Some of what a good SEO company should offer is below.
- A good company will conduct keyword research that results in a list of phrases that are relevant to your website. The company should provide you with hard data about each keyword’s search frequency and level of competitiveness.
- A good company will be very transparent about the SEO methods that it plans to use. More specifically, a company should be clear about the amount of on-site and off-site optimization that you will receive. Many companies may even promise you a definite number of one-way links.
- A good company will have testimonials, references, or case studies demonstrating a history of helping clients reach the 1st page on search engines.
Myth #4: "SEO is a short process."
Perhaps its wishful thinking, but many people believe that SEO is something that can be done in a few days. Although it’s true that much on-site optimization is finished in the early stages of an SEO campaign, off-site optimization must be spread out over many months. This is mainly because any good link-building campaign will involve the time-consuming process of getting your website quality, highly-relevant incoming links.
Any SEO company that promises to instantly provide your website with 500 incoming links is not providing a very valuable service. Even if those 500 links are not coming from link farms (and you better hope they’re not, since involvement with link farms can get your site banned), they’re still probably coming from obscure sites that have little or no reputation.
Furthermore, when incoming links are created gradually, search engines view their formation as a sign that your website’s popularity is naturally increasing over time. This gradual increase in link popularity will result in higher search engine rankings than would be the case if your website’s incoming links were formed all at once.
Myth #5: The more incoming links, the better.
While it’s true that more incoming links never hurt (unless they’re from link farms), the quality of your incoming links is much more important. Indeed, it’s entirely possible for a website with fifty incoming links to be more highly ranked than a competitor with literally thousands of links.
Want to know the approximate quality and quantity of your current incoming links? Check out Yahoo’s Site Explorer (siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com). Type your website address and then click “Show In-links except for this domain” (this discounts links from your own site). The number in the upper left hand corner will tell you your current number of incoming links. Click on a bunch of them to scan for quality. If most of them look like they’re coming from insignificant or irrelevant sites, then its time to conduct a link building campaign that will get you some new, high-quality links.
Myth #6: The best SEO companies will submit your site to hundreds of search engines.
This might have been necessary in the past, but these days search engine “spiders” are capable of finding your website on their own. Instead of submitting to search engines, a good SEO company will submit your website to relevant directories, article sites, blogs, press release sites, RSS feed directories, and social bookmarking sites.
Myth #7: "Keyword density rules are written in stone."
Although keyword density rules are important, their influence should not cause your website’s content to appear in a manner that seems awkward to visitors. Repetitive use of words and phrases will come across as amateurish to most people, and will cause visitors to leave your site. Visitors leaving your website is bad on its face, but it’s even worse if you consider that search engines likely take in to account your website’s “bounce rate”—the rate at which people immediately leave your site—when determining your overall rankings.
It’s best to write quality content first, without worrying about keyword density. Afterwards, use a free keyword density checker (i.e. www.keyworddensity.com) to view densities for phrases of interest. If the density is around 10%, then there is no reason to make changes. If it is below 5%, then you can consider making changes, but only in a way that does not affect your content’s overall readability. Remember: quality content is king.
Myth #8: "Update your site frequently in order to gain and retain high rankings."
Some people allege that search engines view websites as original and up-to-date only if they are frequently altered and expanded. Although it’s true that many major websites are updated on a regular basis, there is no evidence showing that static websites suffer at a disproportionate level. Indeed, many of the most popular websites on Google have not been touched in years.
The truth is that you risk diluting the impact of your quality content if you start adding content that is redundant or barely related to your website. As long as each page on your site is focused around the clearly defined themes for which you’re optimizing, no content changes need to be made.
Myth #9: "The more meta-keywords, the better."
In the old days of SEO, website owners employed a “kitchen sink” strategy when inserting meta-keywords into their HTML code: throw in every word you can think of and hope that at least few improve your website’s rankings. This strategy worked only until search engines became smarter.
Nowadays, search engines look to see whether a website’s meta-content matches its actual content. Furthermore, meta-content that succinctly summarizes a website’s content is viewed more favorably.
Meta-content should be used wisely, not excessively. Keyword insertion should be based on professional keyword research and general knowledge about your website. What are you optimizing for? Your meta-content should only include keywords for which you have a realistic chance of getting ranked. For instance, if you want to get ranked for the phrase “wooden handcrafted pens,” then it’s smart to include that exact phrase as part of your meta-content. But also adding words like “wood” and even “pens” is not a good idea since both are too vague and competitive.
Myth #10: "PPC ads will help/hurt your organic rankings."
Although some people claim otherwise, pay-per-click advertisements have no effect on your website’s natural search engine rankings.
If you think about it, why would Google and other search engines allow such a connection to exist? On the one hand, if PPC ads hurt your organic rankings, then no one would use the advertising services from which search engines make money. On the other hand, if PPC ads helped your rankings, then natural search results would lose their credibility, which is also detrimental to search engine companies’ bottom line.
Myth #11: "If I do PPC, then I don’t need SEO."
Although PPC is well suited to complement SEO, it is not a substitute for SEO. Firstly, SEO gets you higher rankings in organic search results, which are always believed to be more credible to web surfers than sponsored search results. Secondly, although SEO costs more in the short term, once your website’s rankings stabilize on page 1 they’re likely to stay there for month or years to come, possibly without you ever paying another a cent.
Myth #12: "Your Google ‘Page Rank’ is critical to your site’s success."
Page Rank is a numeric value that Google assigns to every page indexed by its search engine. A website’s Page Rank “score” theoretically represent its overall importance on the Internet. There are two versions of Page Rank. There is your actual Page Rank, which is not public and can range anywhere between a decimal and a number in the billions. There is also your “Google Toolbar” Page Rank, a number between 1 and 10 displayed to web users that have installed the Google Toolbar browser plug-in.
Many people look at their website’s Google Toolbar Page Rank and believe that it is the clearest indicator of their website’s online visibility. However, they don’t understand that Page Rank is only one factor in host of factors that Google considers when deciding where to rank your website on search results.
Not only is Page Rank just one factor, it is a very general factor, and therefore plays little role in determining where a website ranks for specific keywords. For instance, try Googling the word “newspaper.” You might expect to retrieve a list of newspaper sites all having a Page Rank of eight or nine. However, you’ll discover that many of the websites positioned on this keyword’s top ten list have a lower Page Rank than many major newspaper websites (is the Washington Post in this top ten?). This is because people that type in the word keyword might not want specific newspapers. They might also want general information on newspapers, a list of newspapers, the ability to search multiple newspapers, etc.
The main point is that you should not let Page Rank distract you from your primary objective: ranking for keywords that will generate business for your website.
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