Search Engine Marketing Misconceptions

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There are often many false, misleading claims made about search engine optimization and the power it can offer a web project. In the section below we will clarify these misconceptions in an effort to redirect our audience to a better understanding.


	1. Doing search engine optimization to a site is an easy task. 2. A product that submits my site to all of the search engines will ensure that I get an adequate level of traffic. 3. My brand name can not cripple my ability to get good search engine results. 4. The only concern I have, when purchasing a domain name, is the price it will cost to buy it. 5. Each web project can only sit on one domain name. 6. Our company has let an important domain name expire. Retrieving it shouldn't be a problem. 7. A web project/web site should be built first before we look into optimizing it for search engines. 8. Once my website is built and put online I can expect adequate traffic levels. 9. Web designers told me my web project will be built for search engines so I can trust that it will be properly created. 10. If I make sure my web project/website has the Meta tags correctly added I will rank well on search engines. 1. Doing search engine optimization to a site is an easy task. It is very common to hear inexperienced people in search engine optimization making this comment. Since there is room for only one web project at the top of each search engine key word search, I think it is safe to say SEO is a highly competitive field. Most search engines such as Google are dictated by rank algorithms consisting of dozens of variables. These rank algorithms over time have been getting more and more complex in an effort to produce more accurate results. As the variables within the algorithm change so too do search results disqualifying websites from being on the top two pages. A good search engine optimization team must not only have team members that know all of the variables, but must also be able to correctly predict future changes in these variables. 2. A product that submits my site to all of the search engines will ensure that I get an adequate level of traffic. Submitting your site to all of the search engines is not a recommended route. Instead, it is preferable to let the spiders from each search engines find your site. This is recorded by the search engines when your site is indexed. In addition to this it is important to note that 98% of all internet users make searches using one of four search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL). A further statistic shows that anything past the first two pages on a search engine gets very little traffic. In conclusion, focusing on getting your page on the first two pages of the main search engines should be the goal of search engine optimization. 3. My brand name can not cripple my ability to get good search engine results. Web Traffic Consultants has documented that over 85% of existing companies that inquire about our services have a brand problem. Of these 85%, most do not realize the problems until the severity increases from the growth of the brand they have created. Your brand can definitely affect your ability to get on top of search engines. It can also lead to a good portion of your advertising revenues going to your competitors crippling your web project. For this reason Web Traffic Consultants highly recommends its clients to leave this step until after a proper domain name analysis and keyword discovery are conducted. For a free consultation on this issue contact our trained consultants today. 4. The only concern I have, when purchasing a domain name, is the price it will cost to buy it. Incorrect. An issue that has not been widely publicized is that purchasing a domain name is very similar to purchasing a house. A domain name can be completely destroyed in various different ways. Examples would include: The domains emails were previously used in a reckless manner i.e. Spam email. You may set up the domain and then the emails attached to the domain to find your mail box is flowing with angry emails or spam. The domain name was previously used for illegal activities. These activities may be documented on the internet giving your web project a bad name. The domain may have been banned from cash parking restricting your ability to monetize down the road. 5. Each web project can only sit on one domain name? Completely false. A web project sits on a server/hosting. A domain name or multiple domain names can point to the same server space that holds this web project. Web Traffic Consultants properly assists companies in pointing multiple domain names to their web project so that they can prevent traffic leakage and the benefits each domain can provide. 6. Our company has let an important domain name expire. Retrieving it should not be a problem. False. Even if it is a name the company suspects no one will want quite often it is a problem. The reason this is true is that once a domain name expires it is moved from pending to a deleted status allowing it to be showcased on deleted domain name lists. Many domain investors will analyze/mine these deleted lists for domain names that have expired and will sometimes look at the histories of who let these domains expire. If this domain name is purchased it will be very difficult for a company to recover this asset. Web Traffic Consultants recommends that all companies that lose an expired domain, avoid contact with the new owners since this can lead to a rapid price escalation. It is best to contact our professionals for free consultation on your particular situation. 7. A web project/web site should be built first before we look into optimizing it for search engines. This is one of the biggest misconceptions in search engine optimization. Although this is often the route most companies take, it is more time and cost efficient to start with a search engine optimization marketing plan before construction. With that being said Web Traffic Consultants can still change a website to make it equally as optimized but it usually takes additional time and the recreation of some existing work. 8. Once my website is built and put online I can expect adequate traffic levels. The majority of the time websites get very little traffic without some effort into search engine optimization or the expensive alternative of offline marketing. The internet is too competitive to ignore optimization. Any site that ranks past the second pages on search engines get next door to nothing for traffic results. Even worse is the fact that the competition that is on the first two pages benefits from the additional business. 9. Web designers told me my web project will be built for search engines so I can trust that it will be properly created. Most web designers will tell you they know how to create a site for search engine optimization. What they are really telling you is that they can do some of the smaller optimization activities correctly. This mistake often results in disappointing search engine expectations and results. Contact Web Traffic Consultants today and we'll give you a free consultation on what design questions you should be asking. Let our team offer you free advice so that you can be confident your development team will construct your web project correctly. 10. If I make sure my web project/website has the Meta tags correctly added I will rank well on search engines. In the past the Meta tag variables held heavy precedence on how a site was ranked. Due to the fact that most people have cheated the Meta tags most search engines have changed their algorithms, giving less weight to these variables. Search engine algorithms contain hundreds of variables that can add or subtract weight to where you stand. These variables are studied by the experienced team at Web Traffic Consultants.