You will probably hear a lot of buzz about SEO being free advertising and by doing it you will suddenly get a lot of traffic to your website that is looking to do business with you. This is partially true however all the buzz causes a lot of companies to spring up that are doing SEO and make various unfounded claims like:
1. They have special secrets that can help you get to the top of the search engines
2. They can guarantee you first page rankings for a very low cost
3. They will get you loads of high PageRank sites to link to you
4. They have a special relationship with Google or other search engine
If you are going to embark on an SEO campaign you need to be aware these kind of claims and make your own mind up about whether they are realistic or not.
SEO is not Free
Although when you are on the first page of the search engines you may be generating traffic it is not really free. To get your site there you either have to pay someone to do it or you need to put in a lot of work. Anyone serious about SEO should be spending some time everyday working on their campaign. If you work out how much your time costs you will be aware of the cost of your campaign.
SEO is not Easy
Many people look at SEO and see it as reasonably simple. However that is not the case and can be quite a complex analysis to work out what you need to do. You also need to remember that everyone around you is also trying to do the same thing which makes it even harder.
The Search Engines Might Not Want what you Want
The aim of every search engines is to give searchers the most relevant results for their search. So even though you might want to get on the first page you might not be what they are looking for. If the search engines are going to continue to do their jobs properly then you might have to change tact and go for different keywords to obtain top rankings.
Balance your Campaign
SEO is not the only way to generate traffic to your website and should not be 100% relied on. This is partly because there are no guarantees with the search engines and so you need to have your figure in other pies. For this reason you should work on various other ways of generating traffic to your website in order to gain publicity.
The biggest problem with the internet is that many people think that they can set up a website and then the people will come. Unfortunately this is not the case and you will need to invest a lot of time and money in bringing people to your site. You also need to remember that once they are there your site should be set up to convert as many people into sales as possible.
