SEO work, when done right…DOES work. The internet gives even a small business the opportunity to interact with thousands of people. Each day!
Marketers know this, and online marketers know it better. You can, with a focused approach, build a web site that attracts visitors by simply giving them the answers they want. In a nutshell, your page contains content they are looking for, which is the keyword, or keyword phrase they initially typed in to search.
Not so mysterious; you then brand, build a presence, authority, or simply sell a product, get a lead, a 
reservation…"marketing" your products is HELPFUL to people. They want what you have.
Smarter marketing is done by helping the search engines, who are trying to find the most relevant pages and deliver them to searches. Helping the search engines includes optimizing the pages (including the proper keywords in the proper places), link building, whic is simply gaining keyword-containing links back to your page (these are considered "votes" by Google et al), and placing relevant content on other sites that link back to your page.
So why are there so many falsehoods regarding SEO? Talking to local business owners, I have found at least 5 key problems that are giving good SEO marketers a bit of a hissy fit. Hre are real statements I have heard around the Monterey Peninsula. Not naming names, but some of these comments may sound familiar.
- ‘Using keywords in meta descriptions is "black hat".’ Umm, …sorry? Using the relevant keywords that help a search engine "spider" or "bot" to properly index your page and deliver relevancy to searches is pure good SEO (that is search engine OPTIMIZATION).
- ‘I know people who work with Google, and they can get my web site at the top of Google. ‘ Google doesn’t play that way for one thing. The scariest words you SHOULD have heard are the ones that said your "web site" could be at the top of Google; no such thing. They return page results, not sites. Optimize keywords on pages, not ‘sites’.
- ‘Don’t ever buy a template; that’s duplicate content and you will be banned by Google.‘ Google has a lot of information about duplicate content on their blog. First, templates are really just themes, meaning they may have a pretty header graphic and sections to place your own content. They do not come with anything that Google would consider duplicate content. I love WordPress themes; they come with a great content management area and are naturally optimized to work well with Google. Duplicate content that Google hates aresites loaded with the same INFORMATION, verbatim…not templates. How do you think syndication works, or e-commerce sites with the same description? They are not banned.
- ‘I was told that with optimization, someone searching for the Monterey Aquarium could also see my site (an Inn) and I would get that traffic too.’ That is wrong on so many levels; I am sure the person trying to sell this hasn’t a clue. You of course would want to welcome out of town visitors to stay at your inn, but you want to be in the right place in their search/decision making process.
- ‘We will submit your site to the top search engines 4 times a month for 6 months.’ Please don’t do that; maybe it was acceptable years ago, but today would only be a way to be really annoying. By the way, do you get reports that show you this is helping? NikaBleu has a reputable search engine submission service that delivers results.
Monterey SEO is very do-able; we are so fortunate to live in a small area that has so much to offer. Try a keyword optimizer report; very eye-opening. Local Search; it’s what’s next. Most of the people looking for what you have are probably not far away from where you are right now!
Read more about duplicate content by Matt Cutts of Google.
