The SEO Myths Report. Are you wasting your time and money on stupid SEO? (Read on and see if you agree )

Transcription

1 The SEO Myths Report Are you wasting your time and money on stupid SEO? (Read on and see if you agree )

2 The SEO Myths Report How to make your websites far more valuable to users and search engines by discovering things NOT to do Ah, the wonderful world of SEO. So much to do, so much to gain. Do you understand all the different search engine optimization options? What are the myths? What you have found out there is not all true. There are a lot of rumors and short term tricks, and you ve probably seen the classic SEO is dead, and Google Instant is killing SEO as we know it, and many others. Add to that - SEO snake oil being sold every day. Yeah, I d be confused too. Good SEO worked in the 90 s, and it works now. Sure, Google changes (often), the industry, the marketplaces but you should test what works for you. Don t try just one single thing and be done. It s a dynamic place. SEO is, and always has been centered on content, links and architecture. If you have a solid inbound, outbound and internal link structure, coupled with keyword centered (no stuffing), compelling, helpful content, and running on a solid platform, you ll do well over time. Yes, we like to test for results from our search engine optimization efforts and so should you. You should not trust one person, not even me in that regard. However, there are some things we believe NOT to be true. See if you agree. Ask questions next time you are hiring an SEO consultant or company. Most importantly, test them and find out what works for you. At the end I provide further resources that should be helpful for you. Thanks in advance to the contributors below, and especially Stephan Spencer on which this report was based. (Thank you). Comments?

3 GREAT CONTENT EQUALS GREAT RANKINGS No. Sure, great content can get you more links, by a natural attraction of incoming links, but content alone will not help your rankings. META TAGS WILL BOOST YOUR RANKINGS Meta keywords, Meta description - will not help you, and if you stuff it with keywords, it's considered spammy. You don't want to give keywords away to your competitors either, so don t focus on that KEYWORD tag. DEFINE A DESCRIPTION, AND GOOGLE WILL USE IT IN SNIPPET. No, Google may use it, may not. It will use copy from the page, description from open directory/dmoz, it s not a 100% sure thing. You should tweak meta description to conversion potential (for clicks). It varies on search terms you type KEYWORD DENSITY IS A VALUABLE METRIC No! You may use it to look at the outer bounds, either too much or nothing. But, nothing in the middle. You can look at competitors, but this can only be a guide, not a hard rule. Test it and find out for yourself. Clearly you must have keywords on the page that matches the search request. TINY FONTS IN THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE FOR RAISING No, it's not good, and can be considered spammy. This has been overdone. Think about the user first. Does it make sense, even? ;-) GOOGLE PENALIZES FOR DUPCLIATE CONTENT. It's a filtering model, but not a penalty. A website with pages that contains session ids, tracking parameters, etc - can serve up the same content - that could be a problem. H1 TAGS ARE CRUCIAL FOR SEO Used to be much more important. Does not show correlation heavily with higher rankings. Using a keyword in there is good, but the differentials from H1 to H3 doesn't make a big difference. H1 is a best practice thing. You could use CSS to style to look like and H1, and the result will be the same.

4 BOLDING OF WORDS WILL BE CONSIDERED FOR Visual effect only, user experience, helps the searcher, not the search engines. No. TARGETED KEYWORDS IN THE HTML COMMENTS TAGS AND TITLE ATTRIBUTES OF IMG AND HREF TAGS. Not considered. Could be penalized for this activity. VALIDATE AND CLEANUP HTML WILL DRASTICALLY INCREASE SPEED OF PAGE. No. Reorder external code, and watch for code bloat, try to load all in parallel. Can affect conversion rates for poor rendering pages. Most about user experience. It's a signal, but it is a small/minor signal. For geeks, it s a pride thing so go ahead, if you have extra time too. COUNTRY SPECIFIC SITES CREATE "DUPLICATE CONTENT" ISSUES IN GOOGLE. UK version versus.au - they are country focused websites, Google knows about this, and no issue. Use a ctld and don t worry about it. UPDATE THE HOME PAGE FREQUENTLY - IMPORTANT FOR No. Changing the date on home page, press releases, etc - it will not help. USING FLASH WILL RUIN YOUR SEO. No. Not optimal for SEO, great for demos, interactive slides, don't use this with navigation (unless links elsewhere). Flash will act like a one page website - all embedded in flash movie file. INCLUDE A META ROBOTS TAG SPECIFYING INDEX, FOLLOW. Not a required tag, and search engines use this by default. I see this a lot why?

5 KEEP SEARCH ENGINES FROM INDEXING PAGES THAT ARE LINKED-TO WITH JAVASCRIPT LINKS. Google can parse links out of javascript. Use regular links for spidering. If not wishing spidering, use rel=nofollow, etc. (contact me if you have questions) YOU SHOULD END URLS IN.HTML,.ASP, HTM, ETC Doesn't matter. HYPHENATED DOMAIN NAMES ARE BEST FOR SEO, OR PREFERRABLE. Not true. Too many hyphens can work against you. It looks a bit spammy. I use no more than one (if ever). HAVE AN XML SITEMAP WILL BOOST YOUR GOOGLE No. Not a signal that Google uses for relevance, importance, etc. Can help Google discover files, but not for ranking. No link authority with that. If you want to rank, flow Pagerank to it, internally & externally for that page. Regular link building. MINIUM TAGS PER BLOG POST WILL HELP INCREASE YOUR RANKINGS Not only not true, it's spammy. Not relevant, and to come up with so many, it's a stretch too. Tag clouds (widgets) can be good, but all in moderation. NO NEED TO LINK TO ALL YOUR PAGES FOR THE SPIDER. Just list all URLs in the XML sitemap. Covered this already, but it's not true. GOOGLE WILL NOT INDEX PAGES THAT ARE ONLY ACCESSIBLE BY A SITE'S SEARCH FORM. Not true. Google can fill out forms. But do not expect it, it's not a great standard. If the page is "open" in the back, it could be linked to by others, and discovered that way too. Don t think of it as a security measure.

6 CONSIDERED "CLOAKING" TO CLEAN UP THE URLS IN YOUR LINKS SELECTIVELY AND ONLY FOR SPIDERS. No, not at all. Cloaking means different URLs for spiders versus humans. High risk! Tip: You can detect the google-bot, and canonicalize around urls with sessions id's, etc. BOOST GOOGLE RANKINGS FOR YOUR HOME PAGE FOR A TARGETED TERM BY INCLUDING THAT TERM IN AN ANCHOR TEXT OF EXISTING LINK. Example: Change a footer link from "home" to blue widgets in the footers. Expect to now rank. Doesn't work. External factors are better things to focus on. (However, an in-line body keyword anchor text link can be very good for ranking self-ranking, done naturally) A SITEMAP IS NOT FOR PEOPLE. A good HTML sitemap is a great index/shortcut to pages and navigation. CANONICAL TAG IS JUST EFFECTIVE AS 301 REDIRECTS FOR FIXING CANONICALIZATION. Not always the case. 301 s are best. canonical" is useful though. FLAWLESS HTML VALIDATION CAN IMPROVE YOUR If Google used this as a signal, lots of pages would be "nowhere"...most of the web would "fail", and not valid XHTML code. They don't want to penalize high quality pages that just happened to be OLD. How many pages have you seen with bad code and are ranked well? (Yes, a lot!) TRADING LINKS EN MASSE HELPS BOOST PAGERANK AND No. Focus on high quality, earned by merit. This, versus link trading.

7 HOME PAGE PAGERANK ON A DOMAIN MEANS SOMETHING (IMPORTANT). Google toolbar can be an indicator. Doesn't mean that internal pages will rank well. Internal pages may not be ranking. Pagerank may not be flowing correctly through the architecture. Pagerank is about the page, not the site. OUTSOURCING LINK BUILDING TO A FAR-AWAY, HOURLY CONTRACTOR WITH NO KNOWLEDGE OF YOUR BUSINESS IS A GOOD LINK ACQUISITION SOLUTION. It can get you the low quality, spammy stuff you don't need. Insist on training, and don t hire a US firm that only farms it out abroad without understanding the process. LINKING OUT TO GOOGLE.COM (AND OTHERS) HELPS Don't hoard your Pagerank, be natural. Link out to related sites. It's about earning the authority, trust and importance from others. Linking to Google doesn t help rankings. TOOLBAR PAGE RANK IS HIGHLY CORRELATED TO THE GOOGLE Not the case, not the same numbers used in the Google ranking algorithm. I HAVE A LOT OF LINKS, I CAN STOP NOW. Competitors are moving and improving all the time. The algo is constantly shifting, and don't rest on your laurels. TOOLBAR PAGERANK IS ACCURATE. No. GOOGLE CANNOT DETECT LINK WHEELS, BLOG LINK NETWORKS, 3-WAY LINKS, ETC. Google can figure this out. Good Rule: if you cannot show your SEO work to Google, then don't do it. Would you be embarrassed if you did?

8 AGENCY CAN OFFER SEO WITHOUT LINK BUILDING EFFORT. Link building is part of the equation. If not done, you will have sub-optimal SEO. Example scenarios: You could have great links, but the site sucks, complex site full of weird URLs, etc - you will not rank. If you have lots of great content, no links, you will not rank. If you have great architecture, links and no content, you will not rank (easily). You need all three. Balance it out. SEO IS BLACK ART. No. But some pursue Black Hat SEO you may be thinking that, since you asked? SEO IS A ONE-TIME THING, YOU'RE DONE. Well, you ll be finished, alright. It s not a set it and forget it thing. You will be overtaken, and your competitors will get you. AUTOMATED SEO IS BLACK HAT. If you are not cloaking, using sneaky redirects, but implementing tools for scaling SEO, it can be powerful and ok. REGISTER 100'S OF SEARCH ENGINES ARE GOOD. No. CTR ON SERPS MATTER (FOR RANKING). Empirical data doesn't show any correlation. People would click on search results, all day long then. No. GOOGLE USES THE BOUNCE RATE AS RANKING SIGNAL. No evidence as used as a ranking signal. NUMBER OF TOP 30 RANKINGS FOR YOUR SITE IS GOOD METRIC FOR SUCCESS. Interesting data points, but not use as the main / only metric. Popularity of keywords and additional factors should be considered. Keep testing.

9 GOOGLE USES DATA FROM TOOLBAR, CHROME, ETC - AND USING FOR RANKINGS & TRACKING. Conspiracy, not true. SPEND LOTS OF MONEY IN PAID SEARCH WILL IMPROVE ORGANIC. No. (The legal department at Google would be over-flowed with calls and visits!) IT'S EITHER SEO OR PPC. Do both. It can synergize and augment each other. Use PPC for keyword markets, do some broad matching, add some negative keywords, identify keywords that are high converting. Add these to your SEO. Repeat. SEO IS OWNED AND MANAGED BY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY GROUP ( IT ). Very scary! IT folks look at it as a project: get it in, get it out. SEO is ongoing, and it's never finished. Marketing must own this. SEO IS SUBSET OF SOCIAL MEDIA. SM + SEO are interrelated. Very cool, nice link authority for both activities. SEO IS STANDALONE ACTIVITY. Use with paid search, social media, others. Look at your goals. What will get you there multiple marketing channel opportunities. FIRST ADD SITE, GET IT LAUNCHED, THEN YOU ADD THE SEO. It s like building a house, and you forgot the electrical. Now, let s tear out the drywalls, and go back to fix it. No, get SEO in early. Develop wireframes, content plan, mockups, and keyword research.

10 JUST HIRED A KILLER SEO AGENCY, THEY'LL HIT IT HOME FOR ME. It costs money, time. Check references. SEO IS FREE No. (Your time or a consultant s is not free) DON'T USE GOOGLE ANALYTICS BECAUSE GOOGLE WILL SPY ON YOU AND USE THE INFORMATION AGAINST YOU. Google is committed to NOT using that data, that's a violation of their ethics. Conspiracy theorists. I LEARNED A NIFTY SEO TIP FROM SMX (SEARCH MARKETING EXPO), AND NOW I HAVE THE KEY TO VICTORY. No. There are a lot of moving parts, not one thing will do it. But, some can be fast. Site architecture issues can be solved quickly. SEO is a major, time-intensive, costly business initiative. WE ARE AN SEO FIRM ENDORSED/APPROVED BY GOOGLE. No. SEO IS ONLY ABOUT RANKINGS, NOT TRAFFIC (OR CONVERSIONS). No. It s about traffic and conversions really. (Are you making more money, or worrying about rankings?)

11 FURTHER READING, RESOURCES & (HEATED) DISCUSSION: