Do you have a website? If you have a business, I hope you do. Does it generate leads for you? In other words, do people contact you because they found you online? If not, there may be some specific problems that are preventing people from finding you, which I’ve written about before.

However, you probably realize that you should be doing some form of online marketing for your business. It may be search engine optimization (SEO), paid placement, social media, e-mail newsletters, or any of some other things (get my report: The Top 10 Ways To Get Found Online Today).

It may be that you’ve even tried to do some online marketing, but it’s not generating the results you want. I get lots of questions from people, and many people believe that the following myths are preventing them from generating the leads and business they need in order to succeed:

#1 – You Need To Be Found For Short, Competitive Phrases

“If only I could be found on Google for ‘Houston dentist’, my lack of business would be solved.” People believe that there is one “magic” phrase that will generate all the traffic (and thus sales) they need, if they can only get found for that specific phrase.

Reality: People will search for LOTS of different variations on many different phrases which are all relevant to your business. Some of it is location based, some of it is not. Most search traffic is actually on “long tail” search terms or searches that have 5 or more words in it. For instance, considering “Houston dentist” as an example, a very quick 15-second search found terms like “Houston dentists open on Saturday” and “Houston dentists that accept Medicaid” as some of the top searches that are good opportunities (any dentists in Houston out there?). Many of your customers’ search phrases will have up to 10 words in them, which you can never predict nor specifically optimize for.

Work on building great content on your website and blog for all your products and services, and you’ll be found for all kinds of terms.

# 2 – You Need Lots of Traffic

This is a biggie. “I need 10,000 visitors to my website and all I’m getting is 300 people per month.” This is the old-fashioned advertising mentality. Blast everyone with your message, and it’ll stick to someone eventually.

Reality: Traffic doesn’t equal sales. Period. If you’ve got tons of traffic to your website, and no one is buying, that doesn’t do you any good at all. I’d much rather have a much smaller, more focused, qualified subset of traffic to my website for people who actually want my products and services. I can communicate to those people directly for when they are interested in my stuff and when they are considering buying my stuff.

There are roughly 30 million small businesses in the USA. If you’re getting a percentage of the search traffic for people looking for your stuff, work more on converting them to buyers than concentrating on generating more traffic. That’s where the money is.

#3 – It’s Hard to Do Search Engine Optimization

“SEO is so hard and complicated!”

Reality: It’s actually very easy to “do” SEO. I can show you how to do it in about 15 minutes. You can easily SEO your blogs, your website, your YouTube videos, your press releases without having to think very much. The harder part is doing it consistently and on a regular basis. However, once you get into the habit of creating content your customers want to consume – no matter what form it is – the more you’ll be found for lots and lots of search phrases that you never thought of (see #1 above!).

#4 – There’s a Secret Formula

Reality: Um, see #3 above. Online marketing is MUCH more about consistency and creating content than any magic formula that will generate hordes of visitors. Do this on a consistent basis, every week, no matter what, and I 100% guarantee you’ll start generating search visitors. People that run around trying to figure out the right “formula” to beat Google are wasting their time. Google changes the “rules” every day. If you try to keep up with that or just react to every time a Google expert farts, you’ll never get anywhere.

#5 – You Need to Be in Position #1 on Google

“If only I could be #1 on Google for this phrase…”

Reality: There is no position #1 on Google anymore – I’ve said that many times. Google is doing a pretty good job about giving each of us the results that are most meaningful to us as individuals. That means that your search results for a specific phrase will be different than mine. Often there is a competing website that is going to be locked into “position 1” that you’ll never beat anyway. You’ll never beat Wikipedia for instance for a phrase.

Get over it.

Instead, spend your time write a compelling SEO page title and description that entices people to click over to your website from the search engines, and you’ll get better click traffic than the one at the top. I guarantee it.

Are there any other myths you think I should add to my list here? Tell me below in the comments.