In this article you will find the top three most common SEO myths debunked. Search engine optimization has gotten very popular over the years because of the heavy usage of search engines in everyday-tasks. For small businesses, there has been a great amount of confusion regarding SEO/search engine optimization, its services, what is possible and what is impossible.
Myth #1: I Can Out-Do a Competitor with Prominent Rankings on Search Engines with a Small Investment
This is one of the most common misconceptions. It’s almost like thinking “I can buy my way to the top of search results with little money and I can do it quickly”. Real SEO work (and we emphasize the word “real”) consist of two things: work and time.
Think of the reverse, what if you are an established business that has been around for a long time and had invested a lot of money in advertising, marketing, and SEO and a new business comes along, spends a few dollars and beats out your rank on the search results? It’s not a comforting thought is it? Nor is this a realistic one. Some search categories are easier to optimize for than others but the moral is there is no short-cutting it to the top.
From a business-perspective, there are a few ways or a combination of ways you can beat out well-ranked competitors on search:
- You invest more money in SEO than they do
- You invest more time in SEO than they do
- You invest more time and money in SEO than they do
- You are more creative and tactful at SEO than they are
Myth #2. Pre-Definied SEO Packages Will Do the Job and Do it Cheap
If you’ve searched for SEO services, you have probably seen them. They are the SEO packages that begin at a fixed price and go up as their pre-definied features increase. Pre-definied SEO packages often do little to help search engine rankings. Pre-definied SEO packages use a “cookie-cutter” approach to “solving” small business owners’ SEO problems. (The word “solving” is in quotations because these packages rarely “solve” any SEO problems and rarely do they offer much SEO benefits.) Imagine if sick patients visit a doctor for their different illnesses and problems and the doctor would just use the same “cookie-cutter” treatment for every single patient. That is how pre-definied SEO packages work. Real SEO work is not a one-size-fits-all solution.
How can you spot pre-definied SEO packages? Look for these signs:
- They have a preset, tiered pricing packages
- The sellers of these tiered SEO packages have charted out what each package cost and what features it includes
(We’ve include some screenshots of pre-defined SEO packages below.)
Myth #3: I Can Do SEO for a Few Months and My Website Rankings Will Shoot to the Top and Be Good Forever
SEO is a continual process and we often advise that SEO should be apart of every business marketing budget. If you stop marketing, people start forgetting. (This past article helps contrast the idea.) There are many reasons as to why SEO must be a continual process and here are three important ones:
- The Internet is always changing – new website come out every day, current and existing website change their content every day. This affects search engine results.
- Search engines are always changing – search engines are businesses themselves and they are constantly changing their search engine algorithm for their own benefit and as a result, this affects search results and the businesses that are listed in search results.
- Internet users and their habits change too – search engines like Google also pay attention to what users are interested in and what they are not interested in. As a result, Internet users’ behavior indirectly shape search rankings.
In summary, there is no short-cutting SEO. Real SEO work involves the continual investment of real-work and time. As you often hear, if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.
We have posted some sample screen-shots of pre-definied SEO packages that were discussed in this article. You can see how they offer a “cookie-cutter” approach and treat every client (“patient”) the same way:
Click to see larger image.
Click to see larger image.
Click to see larger image.
