This is a Guest Post by Terry Reeves. He is a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) consultant. He recommends 4 signs, You should look out for, when hiring any Search Engine Optimization company to optimize Your site for better rankings.
Trusting someone to make edits to your website can be a nervous event. To make matters worse, this person who you are giving control of your website to is probably a stranger, someone you have never met before. However, giving control of your website’s destiny can be a positive experience if you find the right person for the job. Below are four indicators that the SEO professionals you have found are not exactly up to the times with their service and offerings.
1. The SEO guarantees you will rank on page one of Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask and all major search engines in very little time and for any keywords you choose.
This would be comical except I see these claims almost weekly in my email and on some low quality blogs and “SEO” websites. I have been ranking websites for many years and I have never held top positions on the three major search engines for the same keywords at the same time. I am not saying that it is impossible, but it’s ALMOST impossible and it definitely cannot be done for any keywords you choose.
On top of these outrageous claims, this “service” is offered at a price that seems almost unbelievable. Here’s a hint, it is unbelievable and not going to happen as advertised. Fortunately, thousands of new marketers discover Internet marketing every day. Unfortunately, they do so with a target on their back. Knowing this is the key to understanding these exaggerations. Only someone with absolutely no real idea as to what it takes to rank a website would believe these claims are true and as affordable as pitched.
Real SEO takes time and cost money and results are NOT Guaranteed. Anytime any SEO makes any ranking guarantees, get as far away from that SEO as you can. That SEO is either lying, thinking you don’t know any better and trying to part you from your hard earned money, is ignorant of exactly what it takes to rank a website or is just plain dumb. Either way, you are not dealing with a real, experienced SEO professional.
2. The SEO offers to submit your website to a Gazillion search engines for a fee. This is a long time ruse to separate the inexperienced webmaster from money that could be put to better use.
The newbie Internet marketer knows very little about search engines and their hierarchy. For those who don’t know, Google is the only search engine you need to concern yourself with, at least initially. Google will index your website long before any other search engine finds your website. In what can take a few weeks, Yahoo and MSN will also discover your website and place you in their index. However, your website needs to be found first and paying money to be submitted to any number of search engines is not necessary.
Do this, Start posting comments on blogs that are of interest to you. Put your website or blog url in the comment area where asked and do this several times a day. Within two to three days, your website will be spidered and indexed into Google, Yahoo and the others. There is absolutely no reason to ever pay for website submissions.
3. The SEO believes that directory listings and reciprocal linking are very important to adding inbound links to your website. This process was the fundamentals of linking just a few years back. In the past, every “successful” SEO immediately added your website to directories of all kinds. This was a quick and easy way to add 20, 30 or even 50 one way links to a website. This was standard practice for a number of years. Recently, links from directories have been officially devalued in Google.
More and more directory listing categories are being removed from Google’s index and listings in these categories are literally not searchable. Wwhatever Google does, the others are soon to follow. Google does seem to still see value in the Yahoo directory and Business.com, but a great many old and trusted directories have recently started showing signs of little or no indexing.
Reciprocal linking, including various combinations of one, two and three way linking is also something Google gives little if any relevance to anymore. Like link directories, reciprocal linking has been abused by most people with a website and Google has recently diminished the importance of these links in ranking factors and large reciprocal linking directories that many websites have are actually hurting their rankings now.
Link building is essential to successful SEO. Internal links within a website are very important to rankings. One way links from a variety of sources are also extremely important. One way to get one way links that will provide some benefit is by commenting on blog posts within your website’s niche. Links from posting comments back to your website or blog not only offer referral traffic from blog visitors but also adds links that are not reciprocal. However, this too has the potential to be abused and should not be your main source for links.
Participating in social websites such as Mixx, Digg and Stumbleupon offers a possibility for links to be created and shared. Running a blog of your own will quickly provide relevant one way links also. The key is to attract links using many sources and not just to rely on one means of link building for your website.
4. Finally, any SEO that claims to have a special relationship with Google and knows “secrets” that other SEO’s don’t know should be avoided at all costs. There really are no secrets to SEO. There is on page optimization and there is off page optimization and none of this involves secrets.
SEO is ever changing. Less than one year ago, reciprocal linking and link directories were an established part of search engine optimization. Now, they are considered to be a thing of the past. As the web grows and changes, ways to interact with that growth and change offer website owners new ways to attract visitors to their websites. Relying on methods that are years old and not effective anymore is not only a waste of time but may eventually get your website banned from rankings.
So, if anyone starts selling you on a SEO plan that relies heavily on any of the four things posted here. Say ‘no thank you’ and continue with your search.
About the Author:
Terry Reeves offers Affordable SEO with a personal approach.
Labels: (SEO) Search Engine Optimization, archives, Website Traffic
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