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Common Myths and Fallacies about Search Engine Optimization Debunked

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Like the original vendors of quack patent medicines, there are a lot of less than honest companies in the business of trying to help sites improve their search engine visibility. Some of the more common myths and fallacies you may come across follow.

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Common Myths and Fallacies about Search Engine Optimization Debunked

Sites need to submit to thousands of search engines

There are very few search engines which matter today –– in most markets, less than 5 (i.e. Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask). Many local search engines are just re-badged versions of Google (powered by...). Examples include AOL (USA, UK, France, Germany), Arianna, Tiscali, Virgilio (Italy).
All significant search engines will find sites through an automatic discovery process as they perform regular crawling activity. Rather than submitting a site, ensure other sites offering content related to your subject domain have linked to you. Note that some links are ignored by search engines –– Antezeta can help you understand why.
Sites without inbound links from other sites will generally perform poorly in the Internet ecosystem.

You should not pay for a submission service. Nor do you need to “resubmit” every so often.

HTML meta tags are very important

When people talk about HTML Meta Tags, they usually mean the keyword meta tag and the description meta tag.

Keyword Meta Tag

Better search engines, such as Google, ignore them as they have been so abused.
They tell your competition the results of your keyword research.
The tags add extra weight to your HTML without providing clear benefits.

Description Meta Tag

The description is often used by search engines to display results for pages without a lot of text, such as a graphics only page. The description probably carries little if any weight. Use it, but don't expect an increase in your search engine results based on it.

Robots “revisit-after” Meta Tag

Seen less often, the revisit-after tag, popularized by Vancouver Webpages Meta Tag documentation, is thought to tell search engine crawlers when to revisit a page. In reality, crawlers use other information such as http header data, to determine crawling frequency.

SEO is all about obtaining a top position in search engines for my keywords

Actually Merit-based™ Search Engine Optimization is about driving qualified traffic to your website –– traffic which goes on to complete an activity aligned with your business objectives. Such objectives might include downloading a brochure, requesting a sales contact, completing an on line purchase. This activity completion, called conversion, is what really counts. A number 8 listing in a search engine for a keyword phrase which leads to highly qualified, converting traffic is worth more than a number 1 listing which fails to bring and convert traffic.

A search engine marketing firm can guarantee placement in search engine listings

A Search Engine Marketing (SEM) firm can help you insure your site:

has compelling content which speaks to your target audience
has properly coded web pages to insure search engines “see” and properly determine the subject of you content, the keyword phrases users search on
becomes a recognized authority, leading to traffic from other sites as well.

Merit-based search engine listings, often called organic or natural, are determined by on-line and off-line factors. Estimates, based on studies of search engine behavior and readings of patent applications, have placed the number of determining on-line factors at over 100. On-line factors further break down to on-site, those controlled by the site itself, and off-site. Some of the reasons a positioning guarantee is disingenuous include:

Search Engine algorithms are proprietary –– they cannot be “reverse engineered” as only the search engines have all the data necessary. Thus no Search Engine Marketing Professional has a magic recipe. They work by adhering to the principles indicated at the beginning of this section.
Two users performing exactly the same search in a search engine, such as Google, at the same moment in time may get different results.
- Major search engines have multiple data centers or copies of their database. Due to the massive size of search engine databases, these are usually a little bit out of sync from one another.
- During major search engine algorithm changes, a site may even disappear completely from a search engine, only to return a few days later.
A competitor may launch an off-line promotion. The subsequent buzz will lead to more searches for and clicks on the competitor's listing(s) in a search engine. Other sites will link to your competitor as news worthy.
- Better search engines track user behavior via their browser toolbars. User behavior information is most likely used as an input in improving search results. It already shows up in Google's Sitemaps dashboard - data tracked from the toolbar and/or by tracking exit clicks via JavaScript.

While a professional Search Engine Marketing Company will improve your business results from improved Search Engine visibility, the exact results will vary day to day, sector to sector. A true professional will tell you this. We just did.

Search engine optimization is black magic

Less reputable Search Engine Marketing firms try to present their work as a type of black magic –– incomprehensible to the uninitiated. While it is true that Search Engine Optimization requires significant Marketing and Technical knowledge usually gleaned from years of experience, Search Engine Marketing firms should be willing to offer training courses as part of their optimization projects, allowing medium to large size companies to perform future SEM activity in-house should they have available resources.

Such knowledge transfer will come at a cost –– beyond the training fees, a SEM professional is dedicated to staying on top of developments in the dynamic Search Engine Optimization and Marketing field. A company should ask themselves if in-house resources will be able to keep up to date with Search Engine algorithm changes, or will they be caught with a nasty surprise as their Search Engine traffic drops off due to unanticipated algorithm changes?

Search engine optimization is inexpensive

It can be. But the results might not be up to expectations. Successful Search Engine Marketing projects require a significant investment of time by an experienced professional to understand the client's business, objectives, competitors and current web presence –– all before the actual optimization work begins! Get a real deal with the guy who will set up those meta tags for you –– or pay for a professional.

To better understand the nuances of Search Engine Optimization, let Antezeta help you with your Search Engine Marketing Needs!

Contact us today to find out more about this topic and the rest of the Web Ecosystem.

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