Things I Cannot Believe – Webmaster Edition
Digital Point is without question my forum of choice for finding the latest news for making money online. If nothing else it helps me keep my finger on the pulse of the marketplace, giving me some new ideas to try out. But despite all the good that comes from surfing around DP, I'm amazed at what people are still focusing on, things that just don't matter.
This is a very opinionated list of things I cannot believe webmasters focus on or waste any time at all on. Granted, there is some room for new user error here, but any amount of reading should clear up most misconceptions of the items listed below.
1. Alexa Ratings
It's important to keep an eye on your statistics, but garbage in equals garbage out and that's all Alexa ratings are, garbage. They are extremely easy to manipulate, are not accurate traffic numbers, and at best serve as a fun figure to play virtual domain stock market with.
Unfortunately too many webmasters still rely on these figurs to help sell links, domains, and full websites. There are actually programs out there and proxies to manipulate these numbers and scammers rely on these figures. Beware any sale where the primary statistics come from Alexa.
2. Search Engine Submissions
In all of my experience I still feel this is a big misconception, there is no need to submit sites to be shown in search engine results. A few years ago, yes, it would help out, but with todays algorithm's and the way all the major search engines operate, as long as you have at least one incoming link you will be found.
The incoming link does not even need to be that reputable, links from blogspot blogs or even in another blogs comments or forum will be sufficient with having your site indexed. Obviously the more links you have though, the higher rankings you will receive in most cases. But actually submitting a site to a search engine does not provide any measurable benefits.
3. PR Is The End All
Google started the craze and now they are responsible for it consuming website owners minds every time they start an SEO campaign. New online marketers may find it easy to be swept up into the whole PR is more valuable than traffic thing, when purchasing links or advertisements, but that myth is only perpetuated by those selling who stand to profit. Yes, I speak from experience.
For actual benefit it's important to look at incoming links, find out what kind of traffic the site receives, and then base purchase on that information only using PR value as a last resort. I have PR sites ranging from N/A to PR6 and I can tell you that the PR is not directly proportional to earnings or value of visitors.
4. Google Is The Only Search Engine To Focus On
This is another myth perpetuated by those who stand to profit. Google is very clear what it's guidelines are and those looking to sell you services attempt to provide measurable tactics to strengthen your positioning. In my experience, while Google does provide the most visitors, the better converting visitors come from MSN and Yahoo.
There are plenty of theories of why MSN and Yahoo visitors convert better than Google and my personal feelings is because they are less web savy. These visitors are more likely to buy at the first or second website they find rather than continue searching for the best deals, as Google visitors would.
5. Google Wants You To Succeed At Web Marketing
No, no they don't. Google is directly competing with you on almost every level, but mask it very well. Anytime a web surfer searches on their search engine for a specific product, Google provides links to the highest bidder on items they(google) receives commissions on. Go ahead, lie to yourself, convince your own instincts that they are wrong and that Google would rather buy from your thin affiliate site than from their own Shopping Network.
This is the primary reason why small niche marketing is so successful, because Google has less interest in stealing those visitors. Keep that in mind when starting your next marketing campaign and try to figure out how to beat your biggest competitor, Google.
Conclusion
This is a quick 5 part list that I've used today after reading threads over at Digital Point. I intend on continuing this feature of 'Things I cannot Believe' anytime I'm flabergasted by posters who just don't know any better. Although this returning feature may not always cover webmaster topics, if you are looking for my views on Affiliate Marketing please view my DeadMan Blog.
