There are lies, damn lies and then there's SEO. Ok, so that's an exaggeration, but Internet Marketing is big business, and there are plenty of people out there looking to exploit your lack of knowledge.
So here are the top five worst pieces of advice you'll hear about Search Engine Optimisation. These "top tips" should be a warning to run for the hills. At best a company saying this doesn't know what they're talking about, at worst they may be trying to scam you.
5. Resubmit to the search engines regularly
Have you been offered an SEO package that includes a monthly resubmit to the search engine? Don't take it.
Search engines like to find your site through relevant and meaningful inbound links. They also prefer discovering new content themselves by regular crawling of your site. Simply put there is no need to submit your site to them, because they won't care.
Unless you have money to burn, don't do this. (Actually, even if you do have money to burn don't do this - there are better things to throw your money at).
4. Boost your rankings with Meta tags
It's easy to see why someone would think they could fool search engines with meta tags. It's an easy way to stuff keywords into your site without bothering your human visitors, right? Wrong.
Let me tell you something: search engine crawlers take no notice of the keyword and description meta tags.
The only meta tags you should concern yourself with are the description and robots.txt. The description meta tags are important because they can control what displays in the Google results page. Meanwhile, robots.txt can be used primarily to keep search engines spiders out of your website.
Don't confuse Title Tags with meta tags - your Title Tags are very important and will have an impact on your ranking.
3. Use invisible text to increase your keyword density
No, no, no! This is a trick where you hide text on your pages by putting white text on a white background.
It may have worked in the dark ages, but today you'd be stupid to cram invisible keywords into your websites. The human visitors may not notice, but believe me, the search engines will, and they don't like it.
In its Webmaster Quality Guidelines, Google is explicitly anti-invisible text, and as far back as 2005 Google's Jagger update slated websites using hidden words.
2. Number One Ranking Guaranteed
I'll be straight with you: Internet Marketing companies don't control the search engines. And they can't predict the changes that are happening on a regular basis. The upshot of which is that no search engine company can honestly guarantee you a number one ranking.
They can definitely improve your ranking, and maybe they will get you to the number one spot. But if they've promised that you'll rank at number one, you might find it's for an obscure or entirely unrelated phrase that won't help you to win customers.
1. Black Hat is the secret to success
This should start alarm bells ringing.
Black hat search engine optimisation is using a range of dirty tricks in your marketing strategy. It's cheating and crime doesn't pay. If you use black hat to get your ranking high when you start out then switch to accepted SEO techniques, Google will remember and penalise you.
It isn't hard to understand the principles of black hat SEO. Doorway pages. Keyword stuffing Spamming on blogs. Link farms.
Just say no, it isn't worth it.
Hopefully this will give you a taste of the Search Engine Optimisation techniques to avoid like the plague. As a simple rule of thumb remember, if something sounds too good to be true it probably is.
Want to find out the real secrets to Search Engine success? Go on this SEO training course to find out what you need to know.
So here are the top five worst pieces of advice you'll hear about Search Engine Optimisation. These "top tips" should be a warning to run for the hills. At best a company saying this doesn't know what they're talking about, at worst they may be trying to scam you.
5. Resubmit to the search engines regularly
Have you been offered an SEO package that includes a monthly resubmit to the search engine? Don't take it.
Search engines like to find your site through relevant and meaningful inbound links. They also prefer discovering new content themselves by regular crawling of your site. Simply put there is no need to submit your site to them, because they won't care.
Unless you have money to burn, don't do this. (Actually, even if you do have money to burn don't do this - there are better things to throw your money at).
4. Boost your rankings with Meta tags
It's easy to see why someone would think they could fool search engines with meta tags. It's an easy way to stuff keywords into your site without bothering your human visitors, right? Wrong.
Let me tell you something: search engine crawlers take no notice of the keyword and description meta tags.
The only meta tags you should concern yourself with are the description and robots.txt. The description meta tags are important because they can control what displays in the Google results page. Meanwhile, robots.txt can be used primarily to keep search engines spiders out of your website.
Don't confuse Title Tags with meta tags - your Title Tags are very important and will have an impact on your ranking.
3. Use invisible text to increase your keyword density
No, no, no! This is a trick where you hide text on your pages by putting white text on a white background.
It may have worked in the dark ages, but today you'd be stupid to cram invisible keywords into your websites. The human visitors may not notice, but believe me, the search engines will, and they don't like it.
In its Webmaster Quality Guidelines, Google is explicitly anti-invisible text, and as far back as 2005 Google's Jagger update slated websites using hidden words.
2. Number One Ranking Guaranteed
I'll be straight with you: Internet Marketing companies don't control the search engines. And they can't predict the changes that are happening on a regular basis. The upshot of which is that no search engine company can honestly guarantee you a number one ranking.
They can definitely improve your ranking, and maybe they will get you to the number one spot. But if they've promised that you'll rank at number one, you might find it's for an obscure or entirely unrelated phrase that won't help you to win customers.
1. Black Hat is the secret to success
This should start alarm bells ringing.
Black hat search engine optimisation is using a range of dirty tricks in your marketing strategy. It's cheating and crime doesn't pay. If you use black hat to get your ranking high when you start out then switch to accepted SEO techniques, Google will remember and penalise you.
It isn't hard to understand the principles of black hat SEO. Doorway pages. Keyword stuffing Spamming on blogs. Link farms.
Just say no, it isn't worth it.
Hopefully this will give you a taste of the Search Engine Optimisation techniques to avoid like the plague. As a simple rule of thumb remember, if something sounds too good to be true it probably is.
Want to find out the real secrets to Search Engine success? Go on this SEO training course to find out what you need to know.
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