SEO Myths and Realities

Three basic things can help Joe the Plumber with search engine optimization: consult a specialist, give internet users and search engines what they want, and perhaps invest in premium placement.

1. A specialist with direct log on access to your site can make improvements aimed at increasing your searches and search engine placement.
2. Both search engines and humans want original, relevant, dynamic content. Blogging is at the heart of this. Do you blog? If not, you’re missing out on free marketing.
3. You can also contact the search engine itself and pay for a service like Google Adwords to ensure high placement in particular searches.

All of these are recommended.

Myths to Watch Out For

What about services that promise to increase your rankings but don’t need username/password access to your xsite to do it, and don’t plan to make changes to your site? Frankly, for the most part, these are just smoke and can actually reduce the human traffic to your site, while increasing hits from automated software robots, and even driving spam. All these telephone representatives can really do is type your domain into a software program, let a computer submit your pages to hundreds of search engines (most of which aren’t even relevant), and submit individual pages to the big ones like Google and Yahoo (which actually can cause your rankings to be lowered).

Companies that pretend they don’t need administrative access to your XSite:

• cannot optimize your content
• cannot building a truly competitive set of meta-tags (the hidden tags behind each of your pages),
• cannot insert the special file and header that are required for Google and Yahoo to map your site

Take a fraction of the expensive money fees you’d spend on these promises and have a web builder (like us) do a one-time customization/optimization of your site. Then invest in the far less expensive Google Adwords service and, in our experience, you’ll really get your money’s worth.

What about services that promise to get you on the front page, or guarantee a certain ranking?

It’s mythology. Anyone can get you on the front page if you search under your own company name. How many companies are named exactly the same thing? But that’s for people that already know you. If you’re trying to grow your business, what matters is coming up at all in a variety of searches that real prospects will do, like “Macon, Georgia Home Loan” or “Condo in South Beach” or “Appraiser Las Vegas”. That’s a whole different ball game. And the truth is that no one except the Search Engine Itself can guarantee you a certain ranking in a certain search, because no one controls that except the Search Engine Itself. In fact, Google so closely guards it’s formulae for determining rankings that anyone who promises to have it down pat would have to stolen the most closely guarded secret of our time, and how long do you think they’d really be in business?

The truth is there is a lot of MYTHOLOGY out there, and a lot of outdated knowledge. It’s important to have someone who stays up to date and doesn’t promise you the moon, but still can deliver a high level of optimization and make valid recommendations for what changes need to be made.

Real Help with SEO

• Content is King. The more unique, relevant, original written content (text) you have, the better. This is an area we have a lot of experience to advise and help you.
• Blogging generates content. Getting your blog off the ground is a powerful way to improve search engine optimization, and attract people to your services. We can help get you started.
• Social networking. If you’re blogging, you’re creating short snippets of original content on a regular basis. We can start the ball rolling with getting you some social networking placement – and you can keep it rolling with little enough maintenance after that.
• Conversion. It’s not just getting people to your site (traffic), it’s turning those site visits into contacts (calls, emails, online applications, etc). That’s a matter of site organization, navigation, content placement, standards, lead capture, and other areas with which can help.
• Photos actually can help. In the case of photos with links, there are three hidden tags that can actually help it improve search engine optimization. We know how to maximize each image on your site.
• Inbound links (people linking to you) helps tremendously. We provide a confidential report to clients who opt for our customization/optimization package that provides a plethora of simple things you can do without any technical knowledge, to generate tons of inbound links.