As a person I have fallen claim to some seo myths as I am sure you have. Today I want to reveal to you that the “Alt Tag” is a myth. If you ever hear anyone saying it helps improve serp rankings then you should run.

The alt tag used to be a factor for the search engines to properly rank you but that changed a few years back and it now means nothing to the search engines accept more text on your site. While I agree with others that using them to get more text with your keywords on the page can be helpful if you have a massive page, smaller pages need not worry because you really only have to mention your keywords on your page 1 or 2 times and that is plenty.

Using this tag can also spark the search engines interest because it is a change, I have used them before to get the search engines bots to my site because they believe new content has been added. However in the long run that could hurt you as well if your page does not warrant regular changes like a blog does.

Since my blog is after all about MMO and Blogging Tips its only fair to warn you that if your running a blog then DON’T use alt tags ever! Blogs are already equipped and jamb packed full of your keywords in the title, meta tags and in your posts! Not to mention the fact that if you use technorati tags within your blog you are already doing more then enough to rank for general long tail keywords.

What about you? Have you tried using the Alt Tag before with no luck? Tell us about it below and leave a comment for real extra link juice!

Now I don’t intend to answer the question in detail, but some people do wonder what hocus pocus an SEO professional does when he claims to be optimizing the site, and when they post this question, some “pseudo experts” spring up and say “nothing much, they just add tags and get a bunch of links and take your entire advertising budget.” Some SEO professionals don’t help because they get mysterious and go cloak-and-dagger about the whole thing. That’s pretty absurd when everybody over here at SEO Chat is willing to blab SEO state secrets. Obviously some people think if you tell the client what you do, they would do it themselves. I sometimes wish it was that easy.

I addressed this question first because it is the foundation of all SEO myths. It comes from the idea that “SEO is easy, just submit your site to so and so directory and so and so search engine and you are on a roll.” Do-it-yourself SEO gets its processes crossed. Now I use the term “professional” loosely, but let’s just say a professional really has the knowledge and skill to get high rankings in specified key words. The idea that an SEO professional is not needed, and that by doing A, B and C you can reduce costs and optimize your site, is the root of SEO myths. We will come back to common myths that exist about SEO professionals (although some have been discussed in previous articles on SEO professionals).

Search Engine Optimization Can Be Done By Anybody

Now the fact is you can optimize your site yourself, and it’s not very hard, depending on your key words and competition, but hopefully with this article you won’t be presumptuous in your efforts to get that top ranking for your site. Yes, “anybody” can do SEO; interestingly enough, stay-at-home moms seem ideally suited for the work since they have time and write great copy. Like everything else in life, however, it’s not as easy as the pros make it look.

Every professional field has its own set of "myths" — things that people either within or outside the profession (or both) take to be true about it. SEO is no exception. If anything, the field is a little more prone to myths because something that worked last week, last month, or last year may no longer yield results. In this article, we take a look at some of the more common SEO myths.

"Assumption is parent to all failures."

– Politically correct rendition of popular maxim    

SEO MYTHS

Some things annoy me and some things amuse me. I seriously wonder about things that leave me unmoved. For example, hidden charges annoy me, and so does poor customer service. A site that is always selling me stuff while pretending that its sales pitch is content annoys me (though I am guilty of doing the same sometimes). Domain name resellers annoy me (growl, gnash, need I say more).  Bloggers can be amusing, and forums more so.

Strangely, people who spread myths about SEO professionals and search engines leave me relatively unmoved. I feel no need to defend myself against anyone who believes that hiring an SEO is totally unnecessary. Still, some myths can be harmful, and those are the ones I hope to address here.

This article deals with "myths," "fallacies" and "pseudo experts" on search engine optimization professionals and search engines themselves. First I will address the popular sentiment that "search engine optimization can be done by anybody," then I will look at varying myths that exist about search engine optimization. You will be surprised at what people believe about SEO to this day. But first, let’s get the heavy stuff out of the way before we start talking about the common myths.