We’re probably not the only SEO company who has had to dispel SEO myths. In the past, it was easier to bat away doubts potential clients had – SEO is not about stuffing keywords into title tags, SEO is not about submitting to crap directories, SEO is not fast, etc.

These days, however, people are looking at SEO from a return on investment (ROI) perspective. Most clients are already up to speed about the basics of SEO, and what we’ve found is that the relevant myths are most tied into expectations of ROI. Here are two myths that you’ll want to dispel right away to save you a lot of explaining later on.

SEO Myth #1: Higher Rankings Guarantee More Sales

Look at it from the client’s perspective. “Here are three keywords that describe my company. This SEO company is telling me how important search engine optimization is for business. That means if I’m on Page 1, my sales are guaranteed to increase.”

This kind of logic is perfectly understandable. What’s missing from it are other major factors  necessary for increased sales.

• Conversion Rate: Yes, Page 1 rankings will increase traffic, but if the client has a website that doesn’t convert traffic, sales won’t increase at all.
• Customer Service: It’s not ideal to drive a lot of new traffic if a company isn’t ready to handle the extra volume. Poor customer service is the fastest way to lose customers and one of the major factors to driving and sustaining sales increases.
• Brand Awareness: SEO does increase brand awareness, but it doesn’t do much as much to build brand equity and interaction (Google doesn’t let you post your logo in the SERPs…not yet, anyway).

In case some readers are taking this the wrong way, here are a few reminders about the benefits of SEO:

• SEO does drive qualified, relevant traffic.
• SEO does increase visibility on the Web and provide an opportunity to obtain new customers.
• SEO does provide an opportunity to market your company as an authority in your industry.

SEO Myths

SEO Myth #2: SEO Replaces Marketing

This is a tough one, especially with the popularity of SEO. This myth suggests SEO has no limitations when there are actually quite a few. For example, SEO can’t create the same buzz as a traditional marketing campaign. A mistake that many companies make – especially the smaller ones – is to rely on SEO too much. Yes, SEO is a traffic driver, but it certainly isn’t the only one. E-blasts, print advertising campaigns, radio and television still perform remarkably well. We recommend companies take a holistic marketing approach, not just focus on a single promotion channel, no matter what the medium.

If the budget isn’t there, a company needs to decide what approach to take in regards to marketing. Do you want quick results and immediate traffic increases? Run a traditional advertising campaign and blast potential customers with your message. Do you want long-term results that bring in sustained, qualified traffic? Go with SEO.

There are obviously more, but we’ll leave that to another day. Any other SEO myths you want to dispel out there?

It’s pretty inevitable that any SEO company — ours included — is thinking about Google Buzz and wondering how in the world it’s going to affect SEO. Anything that Google releases is bound to send tremors of its presence through the Web. It’s no stretch to think that Buzz will affect the social media space — but what about SEO?

If you’re still not familiar with Google Buzz, check out their video to get the basics.

Just the Good Stuff
Buzz’s recommendation feature is likely going to have the biggest impact on SEO. According to Google, “Buzz recommends interesting posts and weeds out ones you’re likely to skip.” It is essentially Page Rank within Buzz, and it will be interesting to see if Google funnels everything through social search. My bet is that they are likely to do this. Google’s overarching mission is to organize the Web’s content based on relevancy. There’s no reason why they wouldn’t push highly rated content within Buzz into social search.

What Does This Mean?
This means that Google Buzz is another gateway for something to go viral — with bigger implications. Buzz is already hooked into Gmail and its millions of users, plus Twitter, Picasa, Flickr, etc., and because it’s all centralized, a great relevant post is going to get a lot more airtime. If social search enters the mix, it basically means there’s another form of SEO, except it’s not based on backlinks or optimization techniques. Rather, it’s strictly focused on how many people like and share the content (a.k.a. Digg).

This means that strong, quality content is going to be the best way to drive rankings. Really, this is the way it should be. The better and more relevant the content is, the more it gets shared, the higher it rises in Buzz’s “Page Rank.” Buzz gets implemented into social search, and your piece of content gets ranked right up there on Page 1.

What do you think? Any other predictions out there?