The search engine optimization myths in web design

I have found a lot of misunderstandings surrounding the concept of search engine optimization as it relates to web design and how it works. Like as with many others things in life.  In this article I  am going to give my 2 cents in explaining some and dispelling others.

Let’s start out with what you cannot accomplish with search engine optimization and bust a few myths while we at it.

1. You will not have a successful website purely because you have large volumes of traffic.  Large volumes of traffic do not imply large volumes of sales.  Therefore the alpha and omega of your website should never be to get that top 1 Google ranking only.
2. You can be at the top 1 slot on Google and not receive good amounts of traffic.  SEO simply targeted for internet traffic only does not imply and guarantee large volumes of traffic. 
3. You will not reach the top spot on Google search rankings in 30 minutes. ( I can hear you laughing, but I actually did find SEO software for sale that promises exactly that)
4. Have your website optimized once for life.  It is a continual, never ending process.
5. Have software that does a all round good optimization job for you.  Software could give you valuable data, but that data needs to be interpreted and applied correctly.
6. Page rank is not the alpha and omega of search results.
7. SEO is not the beginning and end of internet marketing, it is a good start but 70% of the work still needs to be done thereafter.
8. Have your website’s seo successfully done without you understanding your client base first. 

 

SEO versus Conversion

Off the bat, there is 2 concepts that directly influence your sales on a website.  The first is the amount of traffic you receive, then there is what you do with that traffic.

Search engine optimization should in principle assist you in obtaining large quantities of RELEVANT traffic.
Conversion should assist you in principle in converting relevant traffic into actual sales.

It is a real bore reading about the incessant “getting to the top of Google” topic and articles.  Having that as your primary and only goal is exactly the concept Google has been fighting and working against.

Let’s look at Google’s definition: they define a search engine as “something that understands exactly what you mean and gives you back, exactly what you want”

Google has one loyalty and one only – and that is to the searcher.  Give him what he is looking for.  Understanding that will make your seo work or not.

 

A brief look at relevancy.

Google’s definition: they define a search engine as “something that understands exactly what you mean and gives you back, exactly what you want”

Taking a careful look at that definition will save you a lot of misunderstandings and trouble.  They key word is relevancy.   I will in time deal in detail with search engine technology and how it is that Google amongst others work the way they do, but for now it will surface to say that their prime goal in life is to give the searcher exactly what he is looking for.

Remember earlier I was talking about relevant traffic? Think for a moment, if you sell car parts would people searching for plants be interested in, or be buying car parts from your site at the time they are searching for plants – in reality?  I know it sound ridiculous, well the question I asked at least does to me.  NO!! Off course not.  These people searching for plants will never buy a thing from you, well not now anyway!  They want plants not car parts!

I know this is an extreme example but it is about the principle.  In reality when you do go after traffic for plants, to use that example, you would also want to be very specific.  What about plants did you want to target?  Are you selling flowers, or flower seeds.  Are you selling plant fertilizer or books on how to grow your own vegetable garden?  If you have all these items in store you need to have them on different pages and target their audiences respectively.

So when you read about these linking schemes, promising large volumes of traffic what did you think they mean?  They mean large volumes of traffic searching for anything, or almost anything.  Large volumes of traffic in itself will not help you much, it needs to be relevant – very relevant.

Relevancy goes back to how Google sees your pages, the more relevant the higher your standing on the page results.
Please understand that making a page seem relevant while in fact it is completely useless on the topic in questions is not going to help you.  If you are lucky enough to get anywhere in the search results you will have 2 distinct problems:

1. The traffic you receive will not buy anything from you – You will not be able to convert that traffic.
2. You will eventually drop out the search results pretty fast, even if you did manage to get good standings initially.

I trust you understand that acting relevant while you are not, is going nowhere fast.

 

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