SEO is great, however does it come with any disadvantages? We have had a number of clients who were brand new to Search Engine Optimisation raise concerns about any potential downsides to SEO., and frequently heard common SEO myths.
While it is understandable for businesses to have some nerves and fears about adopting a new marketing strategy, it is important to understand that there is virtually no risk to using SEO, however that business will need to make some adjustments to deal with just how successful SEO can be.
Yes, Search Engine Optimisation does come with some risks and disadvantages, which are often forgotten by Australian website owners. Nonetheless, SEO on the balance is still one of the best ways to market, being the process of making a website achieves a high listing in search results.
So what are some common fears and disadvantages, and what are the drawbacks of Search Engine Optimisation?
Myth 1: Search Engine Optimisation increases hosting costs
This is a weird but common SEO myths. Only if you’re using outdated hosting servers. Highly ranked websites (the type you want yours to be) receive a significant amount of visitors, more visitors than those which are invisible to search engines.
If you website is large and has a lot of images, downloads and so forth it could experience an increase in their hosting provision needs. This can be problematic for websites running on older hosting servers. However the increased costs implications are minimal and easily offset.
This concern is often raised by Australian businesses that run very small websites who underestimate the amount of traffic that SEO providers can bring them.
Myth: Search Engines hate SEO
SEO has been accused decreasing the relevancy of search results, which is bad for the search engines credibility. This is simply untrue however, because search engines have in place numerous safeguards to ensure that only highly relevant and high quality websites rank highly on searches.
Search engines themselves do not help ease the relationship between them and SEO services, as they offer little in the way of guidelines for the practice, however this laissez faire approach is actually a good thing for SEO providers, as it offers them leeway to be creative in their SEO strategies.
This leads to inherent risk in optimising the search engine results of your website, as a Google update can suddenly harm your ranking without warning, however this is ONLY a danger to dodgy SEO businesses who aggressively flout the rules and cut corners to reduce their own workload.
No high quality SEO provider will experience a client being harmed by an unfriendly search engine, because they know what they are doing and follow the rules. This common SEO myths.
Does Search Engine Optimisation increase spam?
Another one of our six common SEO myths. If your website’s SEO strategy has been successful, it will become highly visible, bringing with it not only welcome visitors, however unwelcome ones too. This does not however result in markedly increased Email spam, or “time waster” phone calls from Australia locals.
Email spam is easily crushed by any good email provider such as Gmail, while SEO brings in far less time wasters than traditional forms of advertising. When bored Australia teenagers are looking to make prank calls, they’ll find their victims in a phonebook, off the radio or a billboard and the like, or a business they frequent however do not like.
Switching to SEO from traditional local advertising decreases admin costs and frees up valuable manpower time. You’d be surprised how many prank calls Australia pizza businesses would receive before they switched to SEO. When people search for a good pizza joint in Adelaide, they’re doing so because they’re hungry, not because they’re bored.
Myth: You Cannot Trust SEO Companies
This is completely false, as the vast bulk of SEO’s are highly professional and invests the time and effort needed to produce spectacular results. There are some negligent SEO providers out there, who will promise immediate results and charge exorbitant fees. Just like an any industry, there will always be a handful of bad eggs, however such providers have a short shelf life and will burn out quickly.
High quality takes time, at the minimum a few weeks and can be expensive. If you understand this reality and choose a reputable provider, you can trust that you are being delivered a high quality service at an affordable price.
SEO can generate too many leads
Last in our list of common SEO myths. Every website wants to have a lot of leads and sales, however there is never too many leads for a business. Local SEO allows businesses to target which specific kinds of traffic they want, reducing the time wasted on handling unwanted leads and saving money.
In regards to PPC or Pay per Click advertising, if a business has to deal with an excess amount of leads it is very easy to halt the advertising should your business be unable to keep up with the new clients SEO is bring in for you.
Summary of common SEO Myths
No matter what anybody tells you there is no silver bullet to SEO. Quality SEO requires time, effort, and monetary investment. The only way to guarantee satisfaction as a business operating in the Australia area is to make sure you allow an expert to handle all of your SEO needs.