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Forums... What They Are And WHY They're Essential For Anyone 'Considering' Starting An Online Business
Well... first off, let's define exactly what a 'Forum' is so that you'll be able to relate to what I'm about to explain within this article.
The simple definition of a 'Forum' is... it's a online community with a open discussion that allows...
How Can Joining a Forum Help Your Business?
Online forums are a fantastic reminder of the influence the internet has had on society. Using forums to connect with your market is a natural progression.
Forums are online communities where individuals can discuss topics ranging from fly...
Increasing Link Popularity WITHOUT Exchanging Links
Yes, it can be done. Here are 7 ways that a site can acheive increased link popularity without having to exchange links: Directory Submissions - Submit to the Open Directory and other sites like JoeAnt and Gimpsy. These are all human reviewed...
Using Back Links to get Top Search Engine Ranking
Using Back Links to get
Top Search Engine Ranking
There are no hidden secrets on how to rank high with the major search engines. All that is needed is a basic understanding of how search engines work and a bit of know how. Perhaps...
Using Forum Signatures For Search Engine links
Forum Signature Links are one of the quickest and most effective
ways of getting your site either listed or increased in link
value by the major search engines Many forum webmasters are
happy for you to use this service provided you create...
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SEO and Search Engine Forums & Conferences :: are they really helpful?
Working in the SEO/SEM industry can be very rewarding. Many
times a problem can be solved simply with a little online
research, and posts on a few forums.
All to often, however, some people put too much stock in the
posts they see, ultimately negatively impacting their SEO
efforts.
In this article I look at some of the positives and negatives of
online SEM forums and attending SEM and SEO conferences.
As part of my daily routine I visit a few of the search engine
forums out there to see what people are talking about and what
some have noticed.
Sometimes I come across real gems - stuff I can put away for
later, or use with a client I'm currently stuck on.
But more often than not, the information you see is really
mis-information in some cases. As such, one must be extremely
careful in relying what is said on one forum.
A good example is when the Google Dance used to happen.
It was at this time that webmasters would watch Google and begin
to sweat when their rankings dropped one or many positions. Some
webmasters literally didn't sleep during the days of the dance.
And many times you would visit some of the popular forums and
see all kinds of conjecture and speculation as to what Google
was doing.
My favorite posts were "on my website this happened, so this HAS
to be what Google is doing." Yet all to often this poor soul was
basing his ideas on the effects he witnessed on only one
website.
And that is a flaw with these forums. It's not that the forums
themselves are flawed, it's that in some cases people posting on
them make bold statements about the current state of the engines
with little or no evidence.
They base their "fact" on observations made on one or two
websites over the course of one or two days.
Generally, these types of posts are quickly debunked as myth,
but sometimes they do more damage than good.
That's because there are others out there who know even less and
read these posts and take them as the truth when in fact they
are mere speculation.
And it's not just forums where this happens.
Many of the big forums now have events planned - conferences and
the like - where you can now go hear those that post regularly
also speak.
But it's not the speaking engagements I have a problem with,
it's the speculation that happens before and after the
presentations that worries me.
I can't tell you how many times I've had clients come back from
Webmasterworld conferences or Search Engine Strategies with
their heads full of ideas on how to move forward, even though I
know many of these "theories" to be false, or at least flawed.
You see, there's lots of socializing that happens at these
events.
You may be sitting down to their lovely boxed lunches and strike
up a conversation with the person next to you. Before you know
it you are sharing ideas, and the next thing you know he's
solved all your problems. Or at least you think he has.
But how well do you know the guy you've just been talking to?
And how can you be sure that what he's told you is correct?
This is what I've dealt with in the past and many times it's the
forums and conferences that can undo over 3 or 4 days what it
has taken you to build over months and years - that is an
appreciation from
your clients that you do indeed know what you
are talking about.
Here's an example:
We once had a client from a major University. Things were
sailing along quite nicely, changes were getting made and the
site was beginning to rank quite well.
The client thought it would be a good idea to attend a webmaster
conference. We recommended that she attend, but try not to place
too much emphasis on what she had heard. This was because the
conference she was attending wasn't one of the "big" ones like
WMW or SES, but more of a regional one put on by a local SEO
company.
Yet she came back full of ideas on how to "help" me do my job
better.
Things like turning off her URL rewriter because "search engines
index dynamic content just fine." and removing optimized meta
tags because "search engines don't use those things anyways" and
halting all link building efforts because "building links can
get you banned."
Well you can guess what happened next - the site stalled in the
search engines, and didn't improve much after that. We pleaded
with her to let us get back on track, but she was unwilling.
In the end, the client canceled unhappy with the results, but
would never allow us to do the job we were hired to do.
All because she took what she had heard sometime during the
conference as the truth to end all truths.
Now I'm not saying that what she was told at the conference was
wrong. In fact, I'm inclined to believe that what she was told
was mostly right. However somehow between attending the
conference and coming back to work with us she had determined
that she somehow knew more that I did about SEO.
Chances are she likely distorted what she had heard. Instead of
"search engines don't use meta tags" she probably heard "most
search engines don't look at meta keyword tag."
And instead of "link building will harm your rankings" she
probably really heard "improper link building can hurt your
rankings."
I feel she misinterpreted or otherwise twisted what she had
heard into something else.
So if you are site owner, please don't assume everything you
read/hear in the industry spaces is correct. If anything I've
found that you must question everything.
Even if it's something that a well known industry expert has
said, you still owe it to yourself to question it.
After all, if the "expert" is wrong, and you've based your
online marketing decisions on what they've said, there's only
one person to blame - and it isn't necessarily the expert.
Similarly, if you've read something in a forum, be sure to
double and triple check it against a few other reliable sources.
For example, if you've read something at the Webmasterworld
forums, don't be afraid to question the ability in the
Searchenginewatch forums. Go a step further and question it in a
few more places until you get a satisfactory answer.
Because while there is a whole lot of gray in our industry in
terms of what works and what doesn't there are some hard and
fast rules to SEO. Ones that will help and ones that will hurt
when applied to your site.
About the author:
About the author:
Rob Sullivan - SEO Specialist and Internet
Marketing Consultant. Any reproduction of this article needs to
have an html link pointing to http://www.textlinkbrokers.com
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