Search Engine Optimization Myths and Legends.

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO is an industry full of facts, fictions and mysteries. It is regarded as something of a dark art by those who don’t fully understand it, and complicated by those who do.

Here we will attempt to dispel many of the fallacies that surround SEO and put right some of the wrongs of understanding.

• I have to submit my site to a search engine to get it listed. False. The search engine will find the site when it crawls the internet, or when another site links to it. Search engines crawl the net all the time in order to keep abreast of what’s happening. They will find you eventually.
• Using META TAGS will improve my SERP. False. These tags are largely ignored by search engines. They aren’t likely to take a webmasters word for his site being worthwhile or not.
• Ranking or SERP is everything. False. While you won’t get so many customers if SERP is ignored, the first consideration for any web site owner is providing a good quality site with informative content. If the site doesn’t engage visitors it certainly isn’t going to sell to them.
• There are plenty of tricks to get my site ranked well. True. Yes there are plenty of tricks, most of them regarded as “black hat” and will get the site blacklisted if you’re caught. While I have a healthy disregard for authority, you have to play by the rules here. There are plenty enough legitimate ways of improving your sites ranking.
• Link trading is good. True. As long as the links are relevant. I bet you aren’t friends with everyone you meet in real life. Why should the internet be any different. Your site is judged on how many relevant links it has, not how many.
• Single keywords will bring me a wider scope of visitors. True. But most of those visitors won’t want what you provide. Single word terms are too broad and the conversion rate is low. Better to use long tail or specific keyword phrases instead.
• A site with a higher PageRank will appear higher on SERPs. False. The most relevant site will appear highest on SERP, PageRank is not the deciding factor here.
• If my rankings change or go down, I’m doing something wrong. False, maybe. The rankings are fleeting and change all the time. Some of it will be down to what you’re doing, what the search engine is doing, and what you competitors are doing. Expect them to change on a weekly basis. It is worth checking if you have made significant change to the site just before the change. Chances are, unless there have been radical shifts in the site it won’t be down to your actions.

Those are some of the most common misconceptions in Search Engine Optimization. A good SEO Consultant will go through these with you if you speak to one.

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