Webmaster Pro Guide

Top 10 Myths About Search Engine Optimization

1. Multiple Website Domains for Multiple Products- More and more, people are being told to create multiple domains for the different areas of their business to create more recognition amongst search engines. WRONG! This is a bad practice for multiple reasons. First of all, it can be expensive, very time-consuming to maintain, and totally unnecessary. Second, search engines can pick up on the attempt to trick them and decrease your rankings on all pages. Also, all incoming links to all these sites are spread very thin. The best option would be to put all the time, money, effort, and link-building into one site and reap the benefits of having a stream-lined, collaborative site.

2. Loading Meta Tags With Keywords- These are special HTML tags that provide information about a Web page. Unlike, normal HTML tags, meta tags do not affect formatting but provide hidden information like keywords and author information. Ten years ago, when the Web was gaining popularity, meta tags were used frequently by developers to let search engines know what subjects were on their sites. In the last few years, due to abusive practices, this form of SEO is now ignored completely by most major search engines.

3. Submitting URLs to Multiple Search Engines- Most Web sites are found whether they want to be or not. Even if you do not have one incoming link to your site, chances are that there is a search spider that will find your site. Although they might find the site, it doesn’t mean that it will help rank your site even if your URL is submitted to the search engine. The only type of search engine that you must submit your URL to is a subject directory. Subject directories are search engines that manually place Web sites by category.

4. Using Keywords Abundantly- Keywords are important in the rank of your Web site, but not the sole factor. The use of keywords is recommended to be 3-6% of your page’s content. However, it has to be used in combination with other SEO efforts.

5. Having Reciprocating Links on Your Site- Links to and from related and unrelated sites are factored into page ranking. The more quality or pertinent incoming links to your site are very good ways to boost page ranking. However, a plethora of reciprocating links from unrelated sites will have the opposite effect.

6. You Don’t Need to Update Content- Strictly updating content on a regular basis may not have an effect on page ranking. However, routine maintenance to check for outdated content and broken links is mandatory. Not only will search crawlers be encouraged to roam your site more often, site visitors will want to return to your site more often for fresh information. Not only that, but it is a great way to tweak and measure your SEO efforts.

7. Flash Components are Not Recognized by Search Spiders- A Flash component on a Web site generally pertains to a graphic animation or video. It has been rumored that search engines cannot index Flash components on a site. This is simply untrue because search engines can index Flash text in the HTML. Therefore, any information included in the HTML about the movie can be indexed, therefore ranked.

8. Pay to be Listed- This is an expensive scam that some SEO newbies fall for. Although it was a more sought-after practice years ago, today it is unnecessary. There are only a handful of search engines that are used frequently and you can submit yourself if you really want to. However, as noted in Myth # 2, URL submission is really not that helpful anyway. Save your money!

9. You Must Resubmit Your URL- Not true. Submitting links is time-consuming and not all that helpful anymore. Having to resubmit your link on a regular basis is just an extra step that isn’t needed. The time you could save by not worrying about resubmission could be used to research how else to help your ranking.

10. Money Spent on SEO is A Waste- Are you serious? Many corporations and small businesses alike have a hard time appropriating funds for search engine optimization strategy. It is justified in the minds of business owners and senior marketing professionals that money spent on traditional media like direct mail, print ads, and television commercials drive in mostly untargeted, general traffic to your site. Search engines drive people that are already looking for your products. How can that be an unimportant practice?

Author: Heather Jewel