The Deadly Myth about Search Engine Optimization and Google

By Alex Roderick

In the present time, we are so obsessed with Search Engine Optimization and Google Page Rank that many of the webmasters tend to think that SEO and Top Positions in Google would lead them to a hidden treasure and would immediately result in Tens of Thousands of dollars of business flowing into their bank.

They are wrong, Top Rankings wouldn’t be your best bet always, I’ve seen websites in Top Positions in Google for the worlds most competitive keywords, sustaining there for a considerable time and then eventually, falling down, changed their business methodology, or changing their business plans altogether.

Apologies for my Grammatical Errors, but I’m only a techie trying to share my experience but not a Web Copywriter or a linguistic.

I wouldn’t name the website here, but I know well about them because I was trying to compete with them for two most competitive keywords “web design company” and “web designing company” If you doubt that these keywords are so competitive, I would like you to have a look at this great tool which would tell you how competitive a keyword and a phrase is, it’s fun to play with.

This website was on top for a long time, their portfolio was nice, their site design and layout was brilliant and there prices were very competitive, but suddenly one fine day I saw their business methodology totally changed, they were now selling an online casino package and have shut down their web design operations and kept them on a low profile (at least on their website it seems that way). After a month their rankings fell and they were virtually non existent on that keyword term, but of course they are on prominent position for their targeted keywords now once again, but the keywords are different obviously.

So why did they do that, If they were willing to foray into a different field, why did they leave their existent business, I would think because their existent business was not very profitable so they decided to shut it down and do something which is more worthwhile for them to do.

So, Top Rankings do not guarantee Mind Blowing Profits, If your Industry is over saturated, then you can’t count on Top Rankings for a pool of money flowing in to your business.

The idea is that Webmasters should not keep trying to compete on competitive keywords and spend all their valuable time and resources there, Top Rankings could help your business grow but it’s not the only way where you can grow your business, I was able to get top rankings on keywords “web design company” in Yahoo & MSN, so did it help my business?? The answer is – Not Much. Much of the Business (90% of it), I’m generating is from direct marketing, emailing and other traffic building activities. This is not good considering that 40% of Search Traffic comes from Yahoo & MSN, 50% from Google, and 10% from other search engines, so where did I go wrong. The answer is no where, I didn’t do anything wrong, It’s a fact that only 10-20% of your customers come from Search Engines by searching your most optimized keywords even if you are on Top 10 Positions on them. Of course if you solely don’t rely on Search Engines for your Business.

Opt in E-Mail Marketing is the cheapest media to grow your business, Currently I’m getting 150-200 inquiries from customers interested in my products and services, out of which only 5% of these inquires are coming from Yahoo & MSN Searches, so if I somehow manage to get top positions on my favorite keywords on Google also, would my inquiries increase considerably? I doubt that, it would surely help, but it’s not worth the sleep less nights I was devoting earlier for SEO.

I would now rather create a great looking website, launch brilliant products, develop more and more stuff in Flash, of course if it’s user friendly to my visitors and loads quickly, develop better advertising channels and wouldn’t care a damn about Search Engine Rankings, It would be better if I concentrate to convert my traffic better than creating textual ordinary looking pages for Search Engines or pray for Google’s Mercy on my website and awake countless nights for it, at least I learned the Lesson Quick.

The Lesson learned by me is to concentrate more on bringing visitors to your site and converting them well by giving them a sense of personal touch and value rather then only try and compete on Google Rankings and Page Rank.

Give them stuff for free, which is useful for them, provide them resources which are lying with you on your website for free, create a nice looking website, which interacts with your clients well, show your skills and the customers would love you, Merely getting a Top Ranking in Google and a Page Rank 7 won’t do wonders.

I have seen Page Rank 7 websites getting less than 50 visitors per day and Page Rank 4 Websites getting more than 500 visitors per day, So if you concentrate only giving your customers a value, it will automatically allow people to talk about you and give you your desired position, if you create a new site, provide valuable services, links will automatically flock to you and so do the visitors by word of mouth. It’s better to create a valuable site for your visitors then compete for the Page Rank 7.

Websites like Paypal.com, myspace.com, cnn.com, orkut.com etc didn’t have to spend very heavily on Search Engine optimization, where they did spend was on advertisements, pay per click, News and convert their customers well by providing exceptionally valuable and unique services, which lead to natural link building.

I doubt any link Building or SEO company would have built the 363, 000 links to paypal.com, or Yahoo would have hired 50 Search Engine Professionals to build their mammoth 1,990,000 links.

These companies concentrated on bringing more visitors to their site from every known channel and making them stick to their business rather than compete for Page Rank and top positions on a given keyword and they succeeded well.

While many sites which achieved Page Rank 7, by only competing for keyword position fail in the end, since they didn’t have an alternate sustainable business model or were not able to get their customers to buy their products.

One more myth that many people have is that if a given keyword is getting X amount of searches a month on Overture, they would perhaps receive the same amount of visitors on ther site too if they succeed in getting top rankings. That’s a myth.

For an example, my website is ranking No. 8 most of the times for the keyword “web design company” on Yahoo Search, According to Overture Keyword research tool the monthly searches done on this keyword are 13,000 for the month of January, 2007.

But according to my Webalizer stats, I’m getting not more than 100-120 visits per month from the given keyword, which is far less compared to the total number of visitors coming on my site ever month which is currently around 9000.

This website was on top for a long time, their portfolio was nice, their site design and layout was brilliant and there prices were very competitive.

I wouldn’t be concluding anything here, since it’s up to the readers to decide how they want to perceive and act upon my experience, However I welcome everyone reading this article to contact me anytime if they think I’m not correct on some facts, or if they wish to clarify their doubts, Please feel free to contact me my clicking the below link and filling the feedback form on my website.

I would be more than happy to assist you.

The Author is the owner of a web site design Company, and providing Web Design and Development Solutions to clients across USA and UK for affordable and sensible prices.

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