In the new realm of Internet marketing, visibility and search ranking are two items that one needs to be fully aware of, since enhanced visibility and good rankings make for greater clicks by web users and profits for sites that sell their products or services.

Currently, there is a lot of misinformation lingering on the Net regarding Search Engine Optimization or SEO and marketing, therefore it is imperative that customers and web users get to have some facts laid out clearly, in order to prevent tripping on a lot of errors and misconceptions. Here are some of those common misconceptions about SEO’s.

* Not Enough Link Popularity.

Some search engines make almost every attempt to qualify the results which are laid out in search results. They try to do this is by tracking the number and quality of the incoming links to a web site. A website with a huge number of incoming links from quality sites is given a higher ranking in search results with regards to SEO.

This is an important factor to consider, and is sometimes over-looked by those attempting to market web sites. SEO service providers and link services that promise to link your site to thousands of other sites are far from productive; in fact they can sometimes do more harm than good. Most search engines these days consider services like this to be spam, so-called “link farming” and often give sites with these types of links a low ranking or drop them all-together from the search results.

* Lack of Research On Effective Keywords

If you have a web site, it would be important to ask yourself “Do I know what pages in my site are generating the most interest? Do you know what terms people are searching for that would lead them to finding your site? Let’s cite an example. You own a web site that sells jelly beans, and so you spend some money on paid search advertising, and logically; you assume that the key phrase “jelly bean” is a prime candidate to target.

So, what happens after? Usually one of two things. First, the term jelly bean is such a popular search term that probably twenty million other web sites are competing for the same key phrase. Second, the term jelly bean is so unpopular that it’s unlikely that it’s searched for more than once in this lifetime. Proper keyword research can solve these problems

* Putting Too Much Emphasis on Design, and SEO later

Most often, even experienced web designers fail to consider the results of design decisions on SEO until it’s too late. So what’s the point of spending thousands of dollars for a well “designed” web site if nobody even sees it, or clicks on it? One needs to consult with a SEO specialist early in the design process, even if your web site marketing strategy relies too much on paid search advertising. Consulting with a professional SEO expert first may expose flaws in your site’s layout.

* Splash Pages May Look Nice, But Are They That Effective?

Most often we see entry pages that instruct the user to “Enter”, which are usually decorated with a large graphic or a flash animation. The index page of a web site is the one that search engines read first, and more often than not the only readable content on this type of page is a link that says, “skip intro”. The notion is that splash pages lack indexable content, and generally contain no links and often contain a “redirect” to the real home page. Search engines generally hate redirects, for they want the real thing. It would be best to avoid splash pages unless you aren’t serious about being found by search engines.

* Relying Too Heavily On Pay Per Click

For many small and medium-sized businesses, trying to compete in the internet marketplace simply becomes overwhelming. While paid search advertising is a highly effective means of targeting an audience, organic search optimization greatly increases the chances of success for any web site. Ensure that the site you are advertising is one that people can easily locate without the assistance of a paid search advertising campaign, which sometimes could be real costly.