SEO Isn't a Unicorn – Although Sometimes It Feels Like It.

There are almost as many myths about SEO as there are about unicorns – except when it comes to unicorns it is easy to rationally dismiss them. Even so, there are many people that buy into some of the grandest of SEO myths day after day only to be disappointed when the “magic” they are promised never materializes. One of the reasons why people believe these myths is the desperation to fight off their online competition and at least hold their ground. They are ready to buy anything as long as it promises them good PageRank and good SERP position. Sadly, there are companies more than willing to take advantage of this.

One of the biggest SEO myths is that Meta tags will work the magic for your website and make it rank high in search engines all by them self. Meta tags can have a  positive effect on SEO, but you cannot rely totally on meta tags for your websites ranking. Moreover, you cannot deceive the search engines by adding loads and loads of keywords in the Meta tags. It didn’t work a decade ago and it doesn’t work now. It’s a total myth!

The second myth centers around multiple submissions to search engines on regular basis. There are plenty of companies who insist that in order to keep the listing fresh in search engines you need to submit our sites even after it is indexed. You do not need make multiple submissions to search engines – not for any reason. You don’t even need submit your website to search engines. . Search engine algorithms are written in such a way that the search engine spiders follow links whether you like it or not; you can however block your site voluntarily using robot.txt. If it is not blocked, your site will certainly receive the spiders to index you and depending on your site’s quality and other parameters, ranking will be assigned for your website. Repeating the process is just wasting time and improves nothing.

The guarantee of a top 10 result in Google in a very short period for a highly competitive keyword phrase is another myth. No one can actually guarantee results in top 10 position in search engines as popular as Google for popular keyword phrases. There are far too many variables that are beyond the control of any individual to make that promise. Getting a top ten position is not impossible, it just isn‘t going to happen overnight – and if by fluke it does, you still need to hold that position. The real challenge is in getting to the top positions for the most competitive keywords and remaining there.

The next myth is that Flash is totally bad for our site. Actually it is not Flash that is bad for a site, but the absence of text is what is bad. However do not make your site 100% Flash. Without text, you have nothing but pretty pictures that cannot be crawled. Flash is okay as a very tiny portion of what you have on your site – and it has to be surrounded by text.

There are number of other myths, which can be easily warded off by using a bit of common sense approach. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Ask questions and expect real answers. Listen to your gut, odds are it will steer you right.