SEO Blog

A common misconception with SEO, particularly when talking to businesses looking for an SEO agency, is that it’s all about the on-page factors. People seek tangible inputs – they want to see their page titles optimised and their meta-descriptions dealt with. They believe the addition of more keywords in their content will be their gateway to SERP success.

But they’re not. In fact, these days the on-page factors we would previously have championed bear little relevance to our positioning on search engines like Google.

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Whenever you market something, be it a home, a product or a service, you need to be reliant on more than visibility alone to ensure success. What if the product is unsafe or unusable, the home is run down and in a bad neighbourhood or the service offers poor value for customers? Well, you’re never going to be able to convert the interest generated by the advertising.

Therefore you always need to ensure that there is substance behind your marketing efforts. What does your website and business really offer? Why have you decided to go online in the first place? What image are you trying to project? If you can’t answer these kinds of questions or your answer is simply to ‘make money’ then you might as well give up now.
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SEO is far from black and white. There are so many nuances and subtle tweaks that can make all the difference. There are also those techniques that are slightly risqué; not black hat, but certainly not white hat either. In short, there is a lot to learn about SEO other than what is immediately on the surface.

Let’s look at reciprocal linking. It is frowned upon by search engines, especially when it is done with the passing of money or other benefits. A site owner with numerous domains should certainly think twice about linking them all together, especially if they are hosted on the same server, under the same name. Search engines aren’t stupid and this kind of activity will lead to penalties.

But what about where it is a little less cut and dry? Is it possible to gain from reciprocal linking? Well, as we know, links are the lifeblood of search engines. They need them to navigate the maze of websites and to effectively index each page they encounter. So we know that having a strong link from a relevant source will bring authority with it.
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I was doing some research on Yahoo yesterday and it got me thinking does anyone really use yahoo that seriously for business?

I have 2 of my own sites that rank really well on Yahoo for terms that convert well on Google yet I recall 1 conversion in say the last 2 years that came from Yahoo.

I know the stats will say 7% of UK search traffic is going through Yahoo but does it really convert well for business? I would answer my own question with a “no it doesn’t”

I think the more popular belief that if you want to get good traffic to your business then you need to be ranked well in Google is very much true.

I would like to note that I believe that there must be businesses out there doing very well out of Yahoo I just don’t happen to operate in those sectors I guess!

But if you do please let me know because id love to prove that business online is just coming down to your Google position as that would put us in a very vulnerable position.