Our next few posts will dispel a number of SEO myths that have been plaguing our efforts to teach and educate America to have a transparent and clear understanding of what SEO is really all about.  Additionally, let me also take a moment to encourage you to pick up the phone, and ask one of our search engine optimization experts about anything here, or anything else you might have heard regarding search engine optimization.     

• Any agency can truly offer quality SEO without including some form of link building effort within the project.

Well, just the heading of this one makes me want to start an epic rant.  Despite the fact that possibly the majority of agencies and web design companies out there, state that and claim to offer superior expert seo service, while not requiring a link building campaign, or using some sort of link farm to achieve ‘the same’ results.  It’s horrible, because the bottom line is, no link building, no high level of visibility.  SEO analyzers and countless SEO articles have proven this one to be true time and time again.  Remember, links are thought to account for more than 50% of the algorithm…so always remember…link building is crucial!  Our best SEO strategies and services are designed to build your site and its visibility in a natural and organic way…so you’re not at risk of losing everything minutes after you get it.  Look to the future, our seo experts can show you how.

• SEO is about rankings, not conversion.

This one drives me nuts, because people as it is don’t even look at the analytics Google has now made easy and exceptionally user friendly.  So this rumor just makes it even worse, because with it, people think they can overlook their conversion rate almost completely, but it does of course play a factor.  Conversion is a critical component to SEO. At New Pulse Management, we’re big supporters of optimizing the elements that will improve click through from the SERPs, getting bolded words (KWiC) into your listing, shortening the URL lengths, refining the title and snippet copy to include responsive calls-to-action and value propositions (specifically at the beginning of the title & snippet which are the most viewed pieces of the listing). There’s real money to be had in that end of SEO, if you know how and where to apply it.  If you’re unfamiliar with what we’re referring to hear, ask an optimization expert or someone from our web design firm to examine your page, provide a free website analysis for you, as well as propose a good potential campaign that will ultimately bring more targeted traffic to your homepage, or landing page.   

• Google gives extra weight to links from a few certain, more trustworthy top-level domain extension — specifically .edu, .gov, and .mil.

There is nothing in the algorithm that says: Excellent, an ‘.edu’–give that link more weight. It is just .edu links tend to have higher PageRank, because more people link to .edu’s or .gov’s.  Why?  Because they’re trusted and widely used/accepted by a huge audience, so it’s a reliable place to link that will provide both rich content, correct info, and…most importantly, isn’t going anywhere.  These tend to be highly valuable places to place links as a result.  Our SEO experts and web designers can help to improve your visibility, but always remember that an .edu or .gov address isn’t getting better position than you because of their extension.