Top 10 SEO Myths What You Need to Know Before Your Boss Asks A Point It! Brief

What You Need to Know Before Your Boss Asks A Point It! Brief 3131 Western Ave. Suite 428 Seattle, WA 98121 206-525-3000

Whether you re an experienced marketing manager or just starting your career, it s imperative that you know the fundamentals of search engine optimization (SEO). Making the wrong decisions about your web site can cost your company time, money and lost business. Although SEO continues to change over time, there are myths and half truths that just need to be put to rest forever. I ve researched what I believe are ten of the most egregious offenders for your reading pleasure. Let s get started, shall we Myth #1: SEO is free/cheap This myth is promoted by companies offering a cut-rate, cookie-cutter approach to SEO. Their SEO packages offer every tactic under the sun to make it appear like you are getting a good value. Their tactics often include outdated techniques such as directory submissions, article submissions, and other free for all submissions. As you can guess, the quality of the websites that accept these submissions vary from completely awful to absolutely terrible. And if you can see this, so can search engines The truth is that these tactics are so outdated and offer so little value that there will be no real impact on your overall business goals. The old saying you get what you pay for absolutely applies to SEO. Myth #2: SEO is spam When done correctly, SEO is definitely not spam. But don t take our word for it: I don t believe all search engine optimization (SEO) is spam. Plenty of SEOs do a great job making their clients websites more accessible, relevant, useful, and fast. Matt Cutts, Head of Google s Webspam team Myth #3: SEO is a function of IT Since SEO typically requires web site development and modification, it certainly requires support from IT. As a critical marketing channel, however, SEO should be driven by the goals, budgets and strategies of marketing. The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization s (SEMPO) research indicates that companies are no longer borrowing from non marketing budgets to fund their search efforts. Myth #4: SEO techniques are closely guarded secrets 2011 Point It! Inc. All rights reserved. 2

Truth is that a reputable SEO agency should be able and willing to fully explain their process and techniques in detail before beginning any client work. Without transparency into the process, there is no way that you as a client can understand how the agency will represent your company online. The risks of letting an agency run wild with your brand are far too great to allow for secret SEO techniques. Myth #5: Link Building Any link is a good link Links are a critical piece of the SEO pie. Therefore it sounds reasonable that getting any link to your website will help your SEO, right? Unfortunately, not all links are created equal. Search engines evaluate the value and trustworthiness of every individual link to create an overall link profile for your website. If your profile shows primarily mass quantities of low value, low trust links, then search engines will assume that your website is also low value/trust and rank it accordingly. Myth #6: SEO is a one-time task I updated my page titles and meta tags 2 years ago, why should I do SEO again? 20-25% of search queries we see today, have never been seen before. Udi Manber, Head of Search at Google At Point It, we see search trends changing all the time in response to new market forces. Major influences like the growth of Mobile Search and numerous algorithm updates with weird code names like Mayday, Caffeine, and Panda continue to affect both how people search and also which sites rank well for those searches. Companies that aren t paying attention will fall behind. Myth #7: User-friendly, well-designed websites don t mix with SEO With modern SEO and Web Development tactics, you can have your cake and eat it too! A gorgeous, easy-to-use website that is full of SEO goodness. But this doesn t happen all by itself. Make sure to get your SEO and Web Development teams working together on Day 1 of a new web project. It is much easier and cheaper to get it right from the start than to tack it on at the end. Myth #8: Meta tags are important for higher rankings 2011 Point It! Inc. All rights reserved. 3

This used to be the case in the early years of SEO but no longer! All major search engines have stated definitively that Meta Keywords and Meta Description tags are not used at all for ranking web search results. Today we still use the Meta Description tag and often still include relevant keywords, but only because it helps with encouraging people to click on our search listings. We do not recommend using Meta Keywords for most clients since it allows competitors to quickly rip off valuable keywords for your business. Myth #9: SEO is a solo effort Depending on the size of the business, SEO often involves several teams to be most successful. When beginning an SEO engagement, go in with the expectation that Senior Leadership, Marketing, IT, Copywriting, and Communications & PR teams will all have a role to play in ongoing SEO success. Myth #10: Great content is all you need Great content is simply the first step in SEO, just like having a great product or service is the first step in creating a business. Once you have great content, you have to spread the word and get people to read and link to your content. The better the content, the more effective this outreach effort will be. About Point It: Point It is Seattle's largest independent search marketing agency; managing over $30,000,000 in paid search media in 2008. We specialize in Pay Per Click (PPC), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media, Landing Page Optimization and Web Analytics. Point It simplifies digital marketing with smart strategy, intelligent execution and thoughtful communication. For More Information, please contact: Preston Parshall prestonp@pointit.com 206-812-0918 Point It! Inc. 3131 Western Avenue Seattle, WA 98121 2011 Point It! Inc. All rights reserved. 4