Web Design Blog

  Search Engine Optimization is the process of buying traffic (or visitors) to your website.  You might be considering if this is something that might be worth your investment.  It is like investing money in advertising.  Search Engine Optimization pricing varies greatly depending on the package you purchase.   Some options might include:  pay per click, pay per ranking, a one time fee, a monthly fee, revenue sharing. If you are looking into purchasing such a package Google gives this counsel:

 1.  Be leary of companies who send you emails out of the blue, as you would junk mail that comes to you unsolicited

2.  No one can guarantee #1 ranking on Google.  Google does not form special alliances with SEO companies.  In fact you can registar your URL with google yourself.  Just visit http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl.

3.  Be careful of a company who will not explain what they are going to do.  If such a SEO company creates false information about your site, you are held liable and this could get you kicked off google’s index entirely.

4.  Never Link to a SEO.  This is typically uneffective and not worth your time.

5.  Some SEO companies will attempt to get you to purchase the ability to type keywords right into the web browser.  With this you would most likely be expected to install extra software. 

6.  Do your research!  Do not go with the first company that comes along. 

7.  Make sure you know what your money is being used for. 

8.  Look into the legalities, are you protected legally?  Do not be afraid to ask for your money back if you are unsatisfied with the results.  This is just another reason why you should know where you money is going.

Here are the warning signs Google gives that you might be dealing with a fraudulant company:

• owns shadow domains
• puts links to their other clients on doorway pages
• offers to sell keywords in the address bar
• doesn’t distinguish between actual search results and ads that appear in search results
• guarantees ranking, but only on obscure, long keyword phrases you would get anyway
• operates with multiple aliases or falsified WHOIS info
• gets traffic from “fake” search engines, spyware, or scumware
• has had domains removed from Google’s index or is not itself listed in Google

So my advice when considering SEO is buyer beware and do your research carefully.  Good luck! 

This entry was posted on Friday, January 12th, 2007 at 2:21 am and is filed under SEO (Search Engine Optimization). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.