SEO Industry Survey Reveals Misconceptions About SEO

SEO is more than a buzzword. It is a key part of doing business that is here to stay. The business you do on and off the web is affected by how much effort you put into your online marketing efforts.SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization”. Search engines like Google and Bing are mathematical algorithms that like to see web content laid out a certain way and rank the relevancy of that content based on a variety of factors. Not all search engines are created equal however. For the most part you want to get the attention of big search engines such as Google, but it does not hurt to be aware of the other search engines out there.Metasearch engines With a metasearch engine (Dogpile, Webcrawler), you can search more than one search engine at a time. Many experts will tell you that metasearch engines really do not give better results than looking up a term in just one search engine. Web users figured this out even without expert advice and just tend to go straight to their favorite search engine (Google, Yahoo!, etc.). We mention metasearch engines to tell you that they are not an area where you need to focus since the replicate the results of the search engines you are already wooing.Local search engines On the other end of the spectrum, are search engines that do not aggregate results from different sources, but instead concentrate on one specific region. An example of this would be the Yahoo! Yellow Pages, which will look up terms as they relate to a particular area and not do a worldwide search for a particular term. Some global search engines have the technology in place to incorporate the location of the web user into the search, so someone in the United States looking for a tailor in Birmingham, will not be given listings for tailoring shops in Birmingham, England, but shops in Birmingham, Alabama.Specialty search engines Various industries have their own search engines as well, narrowing down the field of possible results. One rather prominent example of this is Technorati, which is a search engine for blog content.One industry survey found that a very large percent of the respondees did not really understand the purpose of search engine optimization. At the same time a overwhelming majority said they used SEO techniques despite the fact that they really do not understand it and that SEO accounts for a larger percentage of the traffic they get on their websites.It was also eye-opening to read that more that half of the respondees thought that practices that industry insiders consider to be unethical would bring results. Trying to trick search engines into boosting your rank will not have long lasting results. At the same time, they were also able to recognize ethical and effective SEO practices as well. So this points to a problem of distinguishing between honest SEO practices and ones that are underhanded.Then again, maybe we should take heart: a good number of business owners actually know what SEO is. Now it is time for our industry to work on educating them about the best ways to increase visibility on the web. If they were totally unaware of any SEO techniques, then we would have that much more work to do. With this news, we have to say that here are Increase Visibility, although we are the experts, we want you to understand what is going on as we help you plan and administer your online marketing plan. AS our slogan says, we provide SEO you can understand and results that you can see.One of the reasons that you do not want to fall for an SEO scam is that not only will you not get results, you will not be any further ahead than you were before. In fact, you may actually be behind because you will have wasted valuable time and money. Signing on with a dishonest SEO firm may also cause you to enact marketing practices that could possibly offend your clients and colleagues.The other part of the survey that disheartened us was learning that some survey respondees felt they could not afford to get help from an SEO firm. At Increased visibility, we offer different levels of SEO plans and will work with you to tailor a plan to suit your needs.