Something I get asked about all the time is the seeming argument that has come to be called the “PPC vs. SEO” debate, as if the two are antitheses or enemies. That’s not really the case.

Comparing PPC to SEO really is like comparing apples to oranges. It is always best to supplement PPC campaigns (ads) with SEO (organic results), because that way you can cast a larger net to a somewhat broader audience. With PPC, you’re paying for every single click. With SEO, visitors essentially don’t cost anything. Moreover, competition for those ad spots grows every day, which constantly drives up the cost per click for the keyword phrase or phrases you want to target. Consequently, SEO will usually have a much higher ROI.

Also, more importantly, numerous consumer research and eye tracking studies have shown that most people simply don’t trust paid ads as much as organic results, and that users’ eyes have become accustomed to simply skipping right over and ignoring the highlighted ads sections at the top and right side of the search results. This again compliments the ROI of SEO.

The fact of the matter is that most people would rather trust and click on an organic search result that Google has verified to be relevant to their search than an advertisement that has simply paid to be there, as they consider a site/company at the top of the organic results to be an authority in that particular market. Due to the consumer’s perception of paid listings, the number of clicks in the main/organic listings vastly outweighs that of the ads sections for virtually any online search.

That’s not to say that PPC shouldn’t be used at all, it’s just best to supplement it with SEO. Many companies get by with just SEO and don’t worry about PPC, because for some industries the ROI just isn’t there in terms of the value per customer. What I firmly believe that I tell most businesses is that you’re doing your business and your income a huge disservice if you’re employing PPC marketing without also utilizing search engine optimization efforts.

Everyone knows the YellowPages isn’t as popular as it once was, but most people don’t realize how bad the situation really is. Not only do their print ads do absolutely nothing for your business now, but even their online ads and canned websites that they try to sell everyone don’t really do much.

The image below is from a small business whose thousands of dollars in YellowPages advertising costs brought in a whopping 21 visitors for the entire year of 2009. Not only that, but not one single person of those 21 actually contacted this particular business, thus no conversions were made – zero new customers. Needless to say, this business no longer pays for YellowPages advertising.

This raises a noteworthy question:  Why does anyone still pay for YellowPages advertising, whether in print or online? The answer to this seems to be consistent across the board, as I can’t tell you how many times I have listened to business owners sadly say “We’re just not sure if it brings in any new customers or not, so we’re too afraid to cancel the subscription.”

Also keep in mind that the image is from 2009. Prospective buyers, clients, and customers are even more geared toward online search now, and this trend will continue to grow with every passing year. Check out the video below.

There are several lessons to be learned here:

• Don’t pay for anything the YellowPages sales reps try to sell you, no matter what sort of bogus figures and stats they throw at you.
• Your business desperately needs to be on the first page of Google. If you’re not on the first page, you have a very slim chance of ever being found.
• Know where your prospects are coming from. This means employing Analytics tracking, knowing how to analyze the data, and actually understanding what you’re looking at.

The internet may be called the “information superhighway” but that doesn’t always mean the information is correct!

This is especially true when it comes to SEO. Sometimes, the information may have been valid in the past but is no longer relevant today, and sometimes it was never valid to begin with.

Here are eight common SEO myths and their corresponding “truths”:

1. Having an XML sitemap will boost your rankings in the SERPs.

It is wise to create an XML sitemap but don’t expect to see any rank improvements. The sitemap is useful to the search engines and will help them crawl your site more efficiently so as to index all of your pages that they might otherwise not find.

2. Stuffing “meta keywords” will improve your SEO.

Most search engines disregard the “meta keyword” information altogether, and while it doesn’t hurt to include a handful of relevant terms, the search engines will see “stuffing” (putting more than 4 or 5 different keywords in the field) as spam, and your rankings will suffer because of it.

3. It’s imperative to update your homepage frequently.

If changing your homepage content is good for your visitors and business model, then have at it. Otherwise, just leave it as is.
That’s not to say that your entire site should be stagnant, but there’s no evidence to conclude the necessity of updating your homepage’s content on a regular basis.

4. SEO is a “set and forget” activity.

Most webmasters (and business owners) wish this were true but it’s simply not the case. Effective Search Engine Optimization is an ongoing activity and if you’re not going forward, you’ll find your rankings drop over time.

How many times have you heard someone say “We actually just finished SEOing our site”? It makes me want to scream “No!”

5. Using Heading Tags is crucial to your SEO.

The use of Heading Tags (i.e. H1, H2, etc.) is useful to define your site’s content but don’t expect them to make marked improvements in your rankings.

6. Hiding a bunch of links on your pages is a good idea.

Google, and the other search engines, are incredibly smart and can spot the occurrence of “spammy links” quite easily. Whether you’re using a teeny-tiny font size to display them, coloring them the same as your page background or using CSS to move them so far off the page they can’t be seen by visitors… the search engines know! This practice is foolish and trust me on this — no good will come from it!

7. There is an optimum keyword density for your on-page content.

This may have been true in the past but it’s no longer relevant. It’s wise to ensure that your targeted keyword phrases appear somewhere on your page but don’t bother calculating the density percentages.

It’s much better to write content that will be found valuable by the humans reading your content than to concentrate writing for the robots.

8. Paying a firm to “register” your site with “hundreds of search engines” is a wise investment.

This type of offer may sound appealing, but it will do little, if anything, to improve your search engine rankings or generate meaningful website traffic.

If you believe that, then you may also be aware that there is a Nigerian prince who desperately needs your help to get a large sum of money smuggled out of his country, for which you will be richly rewarded.

9. SEO is a black art.

Sure, and it’s done in a dark room underground by rogue SEO agents.

10. Great Content = Great Rankings.

Just like great policies equals successful politicians, right?

The bulk of the SEO process involves off-page factors that have nothing to do with the content on your website.

Sometimes, the truth hurts.

The problem is that the “left hand” generally has no idea what the “right hand” is doing and as a result, important details are left undone. In this case, the left hand represents the web designer and the right hand represents the client.

Most client’s assume that their web designer will be SEO’ing their website. Most web designers assume that the client will hire a specialist to handle the SEO. Aside from that, web designers usually aren’t experts on SEO, they’re experts on web design! And those are 2 completely different things.

Do you see where this is going?

After the web designer has finished their part, they publish the site. The client reviews the work, marvels at the beauty, and makes the final payment. The problem is that the site has not been SEO’d at all and the client is completely unaware of this fact; thus they have no idea why they’re not getting any visitors from the search engines. Sound familiar?

We’ve seen sites that have been live for years that still have “meta titles” that read, “Untitled Document.” This is a sure sign that no SEO work has even been done and the site’s traffic rankings are usually hideous.

Granted, it’s not a web designer’s place to SEO the sites they build in the first place. I do, however, believe that they should communicate that fact with their clients. Some web designers perform basic SEO to the sites they are building, but it’s never anything extensive.

Regardless of what is done in terms of SEO, the topic should be discussed with the client. This way, the client will understand what it is they’re paying for and will know to hire an SEO consultant.

Every successful SEO plan is designed around the keyword phrase(s) that will be targeted for a particular website. Do the right preliminary keyword research, and you’ll likely get the results you are looking for: improved rankings in the SERPs for the term(s) you’ve optimized for and an increase in targeted traffic. Do this wrong, however, and you will have wasted a whole lot of time (and possibly money, too!).

Keyword research is what separates novice SEO’s from true professionals. Anyone can find keywords using a tool like that provided by Google, but few know how to sift through the results to find the right keywords.

It would take all day to detail the intricacies of effective keyword research, but here are some of the main areas of focus:

Search Volume

Behind every individual keyword phrase, there is an associated “search volume.” The search volume is an approximation of how many times the keyword phrase is searched for each month in the search engines. It’s important to know the number of monthly searches for a keyword to decide whether or not it is worth targeting.

Keyword Intentionality

When choosing keywords, it’s important that you try to get inside the mind of the person doing the search. With localized searches, it’s usually pretty obvious (i.e. “dentists in Charlotte NC”).

Sometimes the search results may not exactly be what you would expect, though. If you search in Google for the keyword phrase “how to save a life,” you might expect to see listings about first aid, CPR, the Heimlich Maneuver, etc. Instead, however, you will find information on the song, “How To Save A Life,” by The Fray.

Evaluating the Competition

The sad truth is that if you want to rank on the first page for a particular keyword phrase, you are going to have to kick one of the current listings off!

Because of this, it’s important to know what it is going to take to accomplish this before deciding to optimize for the term, or if you can even realistically expect to rank well for the keyword. In some cases it can be nearly impossible to rank for a desired keyword.

There are literally hundreds of SEO-related factors that come into play when determining your competition. Again, SEO consultants should be experts on evaluating the competition in the SERPs, and further, how the optimization of your website compares to that of the competition. Shoot us a message using our contact form or the form at the bottom of the SEO page for a free evaluation of a keyword or keywords that your website could potentially rank for, and what the competition looks like.

As search engine optimization is highly technical, there are many specialized terms used when discussing the topic. Here are some of the most commonly misunderstood terms, starting with SEO/SEM (and the difference between them).

SEO / SEM

SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It’s a set of techniques used to improve your website’s rankings in the search engines for a particular keyword, or set of keywords (more on keyword phrases in a bit). SEO is widely used as both a noun (to describe a person or the process of optimization) and a verb (to optimize a site).

SEM, on the other hand, stands for “search engine marketing.” While SEM technically includes SEO, SEM refers more to things like:

• Creating Pay-Per-Click advertising campaigns (such as Google Adwords) on the search engines of your choice… primarily Google, Yahoo and Bing.

• Video marketing through sites such as YouTube.

• Social marketing through social networking sites such as Facebook.

SERPs

SERPs stands for “search engine results pages.” It’s the page that is returned whenever someone conducts an online search through a search engine.

SEO techniques are used to improve your web page’s ranking amongst the other “organic” listings in the SERPs with the ultimate goal of increasing targeted website traffic.

Keyword Phrase

It’s extremely important that you grasp the concept of the “keyword phrase” as it is the backbone and foundation of the entire SEO process. A keyword, or keyword phrase, is the word(s) entered into the search box by an internet user.

As the search engines return the web pages they believe to be most relevant for the keyword phrase entered, it’s vital that you do your best to optimize your website for the specific keyword phrases you want to be found for. SEO consultants are usually experts on preliminary keyword research to find keyword phrases that you could potentially rank well for in the SERPs.