Separate facts from fiction.....
With the search engine evolving, there are changes in strategies. Some businesses stick to just one strategy for years and hence there is a change of getting mislead. Due to some misconceptions many businesses fail to realize the benefits of search engine marketing. Let’s go through the myths online businesses make in search engine marketing.
1. The myth of the word “Free” in search engine marketing.
In today’s word nothing comes for free, everything requires hard work and time to achieve an objective. If you decide to list your site in free search engine, there will be a price tag on time and human resources. Do not expect to put advertising on the search engine sites for free. Plan your marketing goals and set a budget, with the estimated budget research for options or you can consult a search marketing agency to put the best of it forward. It is possible to get ranked without paying, but it still requires investing time and evaluating your website’s performance.
2. It will be easy to just pay to be on the first page in pay-per click ads.
It sounds effortless, but when visitors clicks on your ad, you have to pay for every click to the search engine site. Only 25% people click on sponsored ads. To rank higher in the paid search results is always the best, but it is even more important for your website to have intent keywords for visitors to make purchases on your site. Keep monitoring your traffic reports and work on your site on a regular basis to achieve the best quality results.
3. Search engine optimization and website optimizing are one and the same.
Firstly, most of the online marketers are confused with search engine optimizing and website optimization. These two are two different concepts. In order to enhance the user experience website optimization deals with optimizing the web pages. Therefore, website optimization is a part of SEO. And both, website optimizing and search engine optimization are a part of search engine marketing.
4. After reaching at the top of the SERP, the website has been accomplished.
To achieve positive results it takes time and a lot of hard work in SEO as well as PPC campaigns. It requires an intensive search engine optimization and pay per click efforts to achieve your set targets and goals. After your website gets listed in the top ranks of the search result page, to remain in the top position, as a marketer you need to work harder. There could be a possibility for other websites to use unique techniques and get to the top.
5. Relying on a software is easy and the best way to achieve all the SEM goals.
Only relying on software won’t help. Search engine marketing involves a lot of manual work. An online business needs to focus on the right keywords and contents. It is important to optimize the content for every keyword. It involves submitting links to various websites, analyzing your website and coming up with new strategies to improve your website. Devoting a lot of time and efforts will definitely make your online business prosper.
6. A ready website will eventually draw visitors to the site.
This concept is false. After having a fully fledged website you need to focus on drawing the right set of audience to your website. Search engine marketing services provide the right approach to optimize your page. To start selling your products you need to know what your audiences want from you, and the current market scenario. SEM provides a comprehensive view of the overall market to set your campaign in the right direction.
7. Paying to search engines will work out faster for your website to get higher ranking.
It would have been a lot easier, wouldn’t it? But the fact is you need to be search engine friendly. Search engines can’t find you on its own. The search engines seek new websites by crawling. Inbound links and search optimization helps search engine crawlers to reach your website. A search engine friendly website gets more visibility. You need to be qualified and specific about your keywords.
8. Hiring the best SEM agency will work entirely on my online website.
It’s easy to hire an agency to help you with all the online techniques and strategies. But if you are looking to achieve a long term goal, you cannot rely on the agency for life long. No SEM agency can guarantee your rankings and positions; you need to make self efforts for your website. As an online marketer you need to be tech savvy and study online marketing strategies, the new trends in the market and the growing demands of consumers and most importantly, new areas of digital marketing such as the social networking sites (SNS).
9. Stuffing the web pages with targeted keywords will avoid bounce rates.
Bounce rates occur when your keywords do not match the users’ expectations. Too many repeated keywords will harm your rankings and stop visitors from coming to your site. This technique is called the black-hat technique. This technique is unacceptable for both search engine optimization and pay per click. Be clear and precise with your website contents and keywords. Put yourself in the audience place and decide what keywords one would type to reach to your website.
10. Placing an ad only on one particular search engine is more than enough.
Few online marketers believe that placing an ad only on one search engine say Google is more than enough since the majority of audiences use Google. To make it clear, we all tend to research on the topic of our interest, apart from Google we also search for answers and other information on Yahoo, Bing and other search sites. Thus, it is essential for an online marketer to invest in every search engine site.
