Buyer Beware of Fake SEO Practices

An effective SEO campaign can help drive valuable traffic to your site where visitors will see the merits of what you have to offer whether information, products or services. It is important to gain a good working understanding of just what SEO is to protect yourself from the many unscrupulous fakes who will offer you the world in exchange for your hard-earned cash. Although there exist some very talented SEO professionals with valuable advice and services, many people seek to take advantage of your passionate need to be a successful online entrepreneur and will prey upon this to “steal” your money. What they typically offer is a “dog and pony” show imparting an illusion of success without really offering anything of value.

Get Some Know How Now

Use the very same search engines you hope will successfully lead people to you to find valuable online information about effective SEO practices. Many website owners don’t have a clue about what SEO is or what it possibly does. Take the time to investigate the ins and outs of SEO practices so you gain the correct information when looking to hire a professional to help improve your website performance. There are many resources online that can provide a third-party view about SEO so you can make an informed decision when hiring someone.

Learn the Questions to Ask

Just like you would do when interviewing anyone to do a job for you, ask the right questions. Don’t leave it totally up to the prospective SEO company to “tell” you why they should be hired. With a little SEO knowledge of your own, you’ll know enough to ask questions that will help make a decision. These should include:

• What are some successful SEO campaigns you’ve conducted?
• Do you have your own website or blog site?
• Can you list your website development skills?
• What methods do you use to measure effective results?

Legitimate Services Offered

A professional SEO company or individual will offer a number of services included in a one-for-all service fee that should include:

• Free Consultation
• Website review
• Design or redesign services
• Content review and inclusion
• Available SEO training
• Internet marketing

What Are the Danger Signs?

Some unscrupulous characters will use a lot of web speak to impress you with their apparent knowledge and expertise to provide you high search engine ranking. The first time you hear the word “Guaranteed,” walk away. There is no such thing as “Guaranteed Page Ranking.” There are, however, a variety of scam techniques that are used to convince you that they are effectively working on your behalf. Some of these warning “lights” include:

• Offering to sell you keywords
• Using “shadow” domains or “doorway” pages that, supposedly, will act as an effective intro to your site. They don’t. But you’ll get charged for their creation and use.
• Search engine ranking on useless search words – be aware that some supposed SEO experts will show you effective page rankings for useless search words that no one uses in your niche area.
• Shows you “search engine results” that are actually paid for advertisements that can appear on any of a number of results pages for a given keyword. These are not organic search results which happen through the relevant relationship a search word will have with a particular web page.
• Watch out for any unsolicited email that looks as if the company has done a thorough examination on your website and wants to give you a helping hand. Often these emails are worded like:

“Congratulations on your new website. Now is the time to get your No. 1 Search Engine ranking, so click here!”

• Make sure the company you are looking to hire has a website. If it doesn’t, this is a clear sign of danger. If it does, check to see where it ranks. Obviously, they should be capable of doing for themselves what they claim they can do for you.
• Check for comparative pricing. Some of these offers, while legitimate, are being re-sold where your contact is actually an affiliate charging a “larger” fee and then passing the work on to a knowing professional. Eliminate the middleman by asking who does the work and how it gets done.

Know What SEO Can Accomplish

Understand that there is a good deal of work involved when seeking to improve a website’s search ranking. An SEO expert will evaluate your website making recommendations for a plan to implement that will make the site more search engine friendly. These SEO activities will include the use of keywords in titles and tags as well as making sure all images have the “ALT” description filled in. Other techniques include use of original, informative and useful content as opposed to using duplicate copy plagiarized from another site.  Ultimately, through effective practices employed by a legitimate SEO professional, your website should begin to obtain a better ranking and more traffic.

Know What Are Reasonable Expectations

Just as there are thousands of money-making opportunities all over the Internet that make outlandish claims about gaining wealth with little or no, effort, so exists a great amount of SEO offerings that make similar claims about improving your web traffic. Since you now know that it takes considerable efforts employing different activities across substantial time to improve search rankings, do not believe any quick results are possible when looking at different SEO services. That old adage about something appearing too good to be true is, well, true.  A responsible SEO company or individual will present an evaluation with an action plan that will appear reasonable and not provide any fast fixes promising outlandish claims. The only quick aspect the other guys are looking for is how fast they can get you to part with your money.

If Fooled

In the event you believe you may have been duped by a fake SEO offering, file a complaint with the state attorney general or through the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.