Website Myths Debunked

 

You can't buy visitors Period!  There are lots of sites that say they will drive visitors to your website for as little as a penny per visitor.  One of my clients recently fell for this.  He paid $50 for 20K visitors.  He did get 20K visitors, but not a single one went past his homepage, nor did they click any of his PPC ads.  The fact is they didn't even see his website, as these schemes often work using pop under ads, or bots.  They might ping your homepage giving you the illusion of traffic, but they don't load any of the graphics, or text.  

 

Google doesn't care how many domains you point at your website. Then again they do care.  If you point multiple domains at the same website and don't use a 301 Redirect to redirect all of them to the main domain, then you will be penalized in search rankings.  Multiple domains that pull up the same content is considered duplicate content and google does penalize for this.  Multiple domains does not make your site better, nor does it get you any points with the search engines.

 

Incorrect.  Just buy one. Unless you have some kind of brand you are protecting, where your enemies would scoop up the alternate domains and attempt to setup copy cat websites, all you need is a single domain.  It doesn't matter if its a .net, .com, or .org.   I typically recommend my clients get the .com, as that is what most people will type in by habit into the address bar.  But then again most people will likely google your company name, so it really doesn't matter.

 

It makes sense.  A website that once had a 1000 visitors per day goes under and you are able to scoop up that domain.  So now you will get 1000 vistiors per day.  This might work for the first day, but over time this domain will eventually be worth nothing.  The loyal vistors are not going to start patronizing your site, and the google ranking this domain once enjoyed was due to the content on the subpages, and not the domain itself.  When google realizes that all the pages that were originally indexed for this domain no longer exist, then will pull them from the Index.  The only value this domain might have is any backlinks. This might have some SEO value, but remember there is more to google ranking than just backlinks.

 

This depends.  If you are solicited by email about some company that wants to raise your search rankings its a scam!  99% of the time these emails original via an Asian IP address, and always use a gmail account for the return address.  Don't respond, just delete the email or talk to your server administrator about blacklisting the IP of the user or country.  Before you hire out your SEO work. Understand what SEO is.  Educate yourself.  Else you have no way to judge the results the potential company gives you.  Most of what they are going to do you could easily do yourself.  If you have more money then time, they hiring it out is not a bad idea.  If you have more time than money, but its best to do it yourself.

 

Actually google does measure the bounce rate of your website.  When a person searches for a particular term, and they select your link from the google search results, google tracks this.  If a person goes to your site then hits the back button, and selects something else from google this will hurt you.  The goal is to have people not return to google for something else. Over the past couple years Google has been increasing the weight of visitor behavior in their algorithms.  Quality content that will engage the visitors is more imporant now than ever.

 

Companies seem to think there is some mystery behind getting higher search engine ranking.  As tempting as it might be to pay a bunch of strippers visit Google's CEO, its unlikely to have any return on investment.  There are natural ways to increase your traffic.  Back Link building is one of the most misunderstood ways to get this done.  Back Links will drive more traffic to your website plus they increase your search rankings.

 

Being Halloween is just over a month away, every seasonal vendor is planning their 2012 marketing efforts.  One of my clients this year is a local haunted house.  Considering that anyone who is planning on visiting a haunted house this year is likely to search for them on google. Search ranking means a lot.  Being on the first page of Google search results is a must, and being in the top 5 is preferred.  Granted being #1 is ideal, but for most niche markets this is not realistic.  If you have unlimited resources getting the #1 spot is possible, but it still takes time.  

 

My Client is on a tight budget.  The website is already in place ( same site from 2011 ).  We just make a few small updates to the layout and photos.  Last year we barely made the first page of results.  After doing some searching I realized that they were not listed on all the directory sites.  There are dedicated haunted house sites, Halloween sites, and your usual public directories ( Yelp, yahoo directory, yellow pages, citysearch, ect ).  Before submitting their website to the directories we were ranked #8 on google.  Within a week to submitting the website to about a dozen directories ( and getting listed ), we moved up to #5.  

 

For most brick and mortar businesses, the key to higher ranking is getting your website submitted to every related directory you can find.