Search Engine Submission

All the major search engines offer a URL submission page where you can tell the search engine a new site exists and you want them to visit and index its pages. Search engine submission is now futile – and has been for years –  as Google returns to your site every 4 days looking for changes! As soon as your site is linked from anywhere, it can be found.

Keyword Meta Tag

Is a little line of code in the header area of a web page. Widely abused and therefore no longer useful eg. spammed with “sex”, “free”, “Olympics”. It has been ignored by the major search engines for probably the last decade – yet many web site owners believe its the magic bullet and all you have to do to come up in the search results pages.

Paid search helps bolster organic results

Wishful thinking! Some people believe paying for Google ads boasts your organic results. This would be illogical: why would Google undermine their advertising revenue by giving away position to advertisers who are prepared to pay for it. Illogical. There is no relationship between paid and organic search results.

Domain names with keywords

Maybe this was a ranking factor 6-7 years ago and lead to some over registration activity with people registering 100s of names. No evidence today to suggest domain names with keywords works better than without.  However, having multiple domain names that resolve to a single web site IS a useful thing to have, but for non-SEO reasons.

Traffic gets traffic

“All I need to do is get my friends to click on my web site and Google will see how popular it is and move it up the page“. Complete rubbish. If it were only that easy!

Things my mate said I must have

Your mate doesn’t know, can’t know and following their advice will get you off to a bad start. The web and SEO practices are changing too fast for the opinionated amateur to keep a handle on it.

My kid/brother-in-law/neighbours dog said they could make my website

Very bad idea because:

1. They don’t get around to it… and while it remains unmade, you are losing potential business
2. Young people tend to be focused on form and not function, whereas purchasers – normally older – are focused on function. It’s the difference between your website being “cool or tool”.
3. They use free or very cheap services that are limited (eg. no email or storage space) and in far-off lands (ie. no support).
4. They are focused on making it work in a browser window and not making it work on a search engine, totally different skills sets.

Summary: you’re probably an expert in what you do right? Would you get an amateur to do your taxes, spray paint your car? No, you would take it to someone who knows.