The SEO Trap - A Word of Caution
These days search engine marketing firms (or SEMs) offering everything from SEO and Social Media Optimization to Branding and Article Syndication are absolutely everywhere. While a good percentage of the industry uses what is affectionately known as White Hat marketing strategies you should also be aware that there are many out there with very questionable marketing practices.
Their typical claim-to-fame is that they can deliver higher rankings within days or even hours of purchasing their services. They will usually also “guarantee” a specific search engine placement result and/or will offer a very affordable one time fee. A simple rule-of-thumb is that if it sounds too good to be true, then it most probably is. Online marketing is a time consuming process, one that you can’t really rush. In reality it will take months of tweaking, analyzing, and re-tweaking to be successful. This is one of the primary reasons for contracting this kind of work to a respected firm.
Search engines have been engineered, re-engineered, and cross-engineered to return the most relevant results based on your search terms. This is an unbelievably complex technology which will reward and penalize sites based on the “detected” methods for trying to attain rank. They will not discriminate, if you or your hired SEO cheats it will only be a matter of time before you are caught and punished.
Remember that short-term results may be realized but the methods for reaching them could have long-lasting negative effects on your rank and ultimately your business.
Technorati Tags: seo, search engine optimization
March 15th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Yes, but it is possible to have the strength and influence of black hats while only using white hat techniques. The trick is to figure out as-yet undiscovered white hat techniques.
March 17th, 2007 at 9:49 am
Agreed, there are new strategies coming out all the time which can yield "black hat" short term results without compromising "white hat" ethics or long term success. We've found that one of the simplest and most effective ways to achieve this is by just combining the power of all your online marketing mechanisms (SEO, social media, link cultivation, press release creation, optimization, distro etc.) into a very aggressive media push.