EQUTE — While press releases have been key to getting into the media, but it was murky how they affected search traffic once they made it online.

PR powerhouse PRWeb said before that it pushed search traffic by a large margin.

“Search engine rankings are arguably the most important small business marketing tool available today because it drives Web traffic — and potential prospects — to a small business’ Web site,” a PRWeb spokesperson once told WebProNews. “However, because improving search rankings is desirable, achieving results can be both challenging and highly competitive.”

A study showed that sites got 50 percent increase in traffic, and up to a 400 percent boost. The company involved in the study also said that the traffic spike lasted for days. When linked to social media, a press release creates a slew of links back to a site. Even though the site may not rank as well, those press releases will rank because of their authority and get great placement in news aggregators and news searches.

Every press release has a chance to grow beyond the initial campaign. If a noteworthy site makes it into a story or a top blogger grabs onto it can spread like wildfire.

So there it is, the cat’s out of the bag. One of the oldest sources for press and public exposure still works on the Internet.

EQUTE — There are thousands of good URL tips for search engine optimization out there, but one simple fix is crucial for helping boos the homepage traffic.

One of the most basic things you can do is get your homepage consolidated. If you’re trying to get the best out of SEO, it an obvious foul to split up the page you are trying to link to.

A list of three common URL problems featured on SEO.com gives site owners a great set of tips to get things streamlined for search spiders and users.

Many sites send links to their homepage, but which one? Links don’t always come to the page you want.

SEO.com gave several examples:

http://www.mysite.com

http://mysite.com

http://www.mysite.com/index.html

http://mysite.com/index.html

This is a pretty easy fix, one that makes use of the almighty canonical tag.

Simply direct all those errant homepages to your www.mysite.com instead of cutting your resources into fractions. Even if you want to split your homepage up for separate versions or tracking purposes, you should send all other sites to whichever version you want showing up in the search engines.

EQUTE — John McCarthy has an interesting article over at Adotas, and it makes one think about what SEO has become — a buzzword for cheap traffic.

McCarthy provides an interesting anecdote about a client of his who sought to use SEO to drive more leads to his technology company. A few competitors said they were getting good results with organic SEO, so he thought of trying it himself. He hired McCarthy and asked him to get the SEO train going.

But instead of leading him on with false promises, McCarthy told his client that SEO was not right because of the sparse content on his site and the long road to organic rankings.

So when should marketers tell their clients (or themselves) to try something else?

Simple, when time and money is of the essence and there is nothing for the search spiders to crawl.

Unless you or a client is prepared for a long wait for results, paid search rankings are a much better way to get things moving — while getting the SEO train moving as well, McCarthy said.

Ideally, sites are created and build up SEO either naturally or by design, but many sites are simply better designed for paid search. But with SEO becoming the buzzword it is, there is a slew of people looking to capitalize with little investment in the down economy. Site owners and business owners should think about whether or not they really need SEO help. With some examination, many people will find that SEO isn’t worth the money, and paid search or other tactics could get them over the recession hump without all the mess.