Avoiding SEO Scams

At Net Builders we talk a lot about getting your website found in search engine results. That is the definition of Internet marketing in our opinion. And we put our websites up as examples. Before you read any further be aware that we are not trying to sell you anything, we give away free advice and in some cases dig in and help website owners at no charge. But we don’t build websites for other companies or provide search engine optimization services. Call it pay-it-forward..

This website Netbuilders.com ranks on Google and MSN for the phrase “Florida Internet Marketing”. Do a search yourself and see. We picked that phrase because it describes our focus – we help Florida businesses get found. We have four other websites that rank in the top 5 on Google for many competitive phrases. We give you this information not to brag but as an example of how you should evaluate any company offering to do search engine optimization for you.

Picking An SEO (Search Engine Optimizer)
The first and most important step in hiring anyone to help you with your website is to see what their website ranks for. They should be able to show you their search engine rankings for a competitive phrase on Google. If they cannot, run away screaming.

We focus on Google because that is where the majority of searching takes place. In addition, the Google approach to ranking websites is far more complex and takes more of a commitment. Google separates the pros from the amateurs.

A few Scams to Avoid

1. Made Up Phrases
The key to Internet Marketing is ranking (showing up in search results) for a phrase that people actually search on. An obvious scam is to make up a unique phrase that is easy to rank for because no one actually searches on it and as a result there is no competition for it.

If a search engine company cannot show you that their site shows up in search results on Google for a phrase that is commonly searched on, you don’t want to hire them. The phrase should not include their company name or have more than three words in it. The more words in a phrase the less competition and the easier it is to rank.

2. Link Farms
It’s widely known that having links point to your website from other websites helps your search engine rankings. But those links need to come from sites that have content somehow related to your website. Getting 500 links from a bunch of unrelated websites will not help and in some cases is seen by the search engines as spamming. This can result in your site being banned and never showing up in search results.

3. Hosted Content
There are some companies that offer to let you pay them to create articles on their website with content about your business. They will put links to your site in those articles and therefore drive visitors to your site. You pay every month to have those articles stay up with your links.

This is less of a scam than just a bad decision. The problem we have with this is that the minute you don’t pay your monthly fee the company will call one of your competitors and offer them the pages and resulting traffic.

The Wrap Up
We get at least 5 phone calls every month that go like this.

“Hello do you need help with search engine optimization”
The person calling has a heavy accent and you can hear dozens of other operators in the background in a busy call center.

Our response: hang up..

If you are going hire someone to help you with search engine optimization the best bet is run a search on “search engine optimization” or “search engine marketing” on Google and look at the first 20 results. Those are very competitive phrases so anyone showing up in the top 20 has to know something. Picking the right one will be tougher, just make sure you know exactly what you will be getting for your money and that you will get monthly reports showing measurable results.

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