Sharks in Gold Fish's Clothing

By Jason Hagelberg

You have probably heard it said to be watchful of wolves in sheep's clothing? Well, the same can be said of being aware of sharks in gold fish's clothing in the sea we call the internet. I am referring specifically to Search Engine Optimization companies that dress themselves as gold fish, promising to deliver you the top spot and more, and yet use shark-like tactics to do so. These companies prey on people's lack of knowledge of best practiced SEO methods recommended by the search engines themselves. Everyone likes to hear of new methods and techniques to gain on edge on the competition, but what many of these companies are truly offering are merely “black hat” or half-truth methods that use unethical means to try and rank you, and often end up getting you banned or severely penalized. Here are 5 offers I have recently seen from gold fish clothed sharks.

Exciting New Offer #1
PPC (Pay Per Click) campaigns are the best way to increase your organic ranking.

Truth: Whether you choose to take part in a pay per click campaign will neither help nor hinder your organic search results.

Some basics: Sponsored search results are those that generally appear at the top or down the side of the page on the search results page. These links have been bought and they pay a per click price in order to show up in the position that they do. Organic search results are the natural search results that follow and are determined by the search engine's best matches.
What some SEO companies are promising is that if you spend the money to buy these positions in the sponsored results, it will pay off in the non-sponsored search results. This is not even remotely true. Google themselves state that the use of paid advertising will neither help nor hinder the organic search results (article here). This also carries over into the desire by search engine to provide the most accurate results in their organic searches, not merely given top spot to those companies that have more resources. Your organic ranking has to do with best practice Search Engine Optimization methods that optimize your site for better ranking. Although paid advertising campaigns do not hinder your site, they do not help your organic rankings. Be wary of this scheme of getting better natural rankings through pay per click advertising. It is just that, a scheme.


Exciting New Offer #2
We guarantee #1 ranking...

Truth: No one can guarantee you #1 ranking in organic search results.

Again, Google states that NO ONE can guarantee #1 ranking in the three largest search engines (article here). This is an empty promise. Either they mean they can get you a high ranking using more money through a pay per click, which is not the organic search results you are probably thinking of, or they will rank you for a very obscure keyword term or a very long-tail keyword term. These keywords they decide upon are not be terms that you are going to want to rank for, but rather ones that have very little competition.

Exciting New Offer #3
We have secret methods that can outsmart the search engines.

Truth: An SEO company does not need to outsmart the search engines, or have to use secret methods. “Best practice” methods are clearly outlined and just take effort.

These tend to come in the form of secret techniques that some SEO companies claim are not known by others, but guarantee you great rankings. They fail to mention that most of these secret techniques are “black hat”, or unethical, practices that are against search engine optimization best practices. They call them secret often times because they do not want to explain these unethical practices to the customer and can get away with just calling them secret exclusive techniques. These will often include the use of “link farms”, shadow pages, keyword stuffing, and other practices which directly go against the best practice methods that search engines ask you to use.
On the flip side it is important to realize that many SEO companies do have certain good methods that they use and may not be willing to tell the world every step of their process. However, as a customer, you should be aware of the steps being taken to optimize your website. A good SEO company has no secrets to keep from their clients and should be ready, willing, and able to explain any action they take on your behalf.
Also, search engines are not evil or out there to be “defeated”. It is important to realize that most search engines have one main goal and that is to make search engine results ever more accurate. Yes, they want to make money and pay their employees, but they can only do this by having the best ranking system. Therefore, generally, the better a site is optimized by “best practice” methods, the better it should rank. Scammers may rank well for a short time, but they are often knocked back significantly over time. This is not a position that a company paying for these services should ever find themselves in.


Exciting New Offer #4
We can perform all of your SEO needs without even touching your pages.

Truth: A well Optimized site is essential for best practice SEO.

It is always intriguing to see advertisements that claim they can rank you with little or no changes to your original site. On the flip site, a site overhaul is generally not needed either. However, there are many little changes that can be made to a site to give it well optimized base. These practices do include making sure that your Meta data is accurate, giving good titles to pages, creating a well-formed site structure and page names, giving your keyword or phrase the proper weight in your content, and optimizing your link flow. All of these changes are made to the site and lend weight to your ranking. These changes also help in advertising your site. Meta tags are used less and less by search engines in terms of ranking, but can make a huge difference in getting people to visit your site because most search engines use your description meta tags and title as your introduction to your website. You need to optimize these to catch people’s attention and bring them into your site.
There are also SEO companies who only concentrate on inner site optimization without focusing on “off-page” factors. These “off-page” factors, that a good SEO company will take into account when optimizing your site, include good editorial links pointing into your site, external articles that can link back to your site, and association with other websites that are in your same line of work.

Exciting New Offer #5
We guarantee you top rankings no matter what your keyword or key phrase, for a low set price.

Truth: Keyword and key phrase selections make a difference in the amount of work that needs to be done to rank a site well.

You may say then, that they have it figured in doing whatever needs to be done for any keyword and still include it in that low price. The fact is that they either have a very high set price, will have hidden charges for more difficult keywords or phrases, or have a cookie cutter list of “black hat” practices that they use for every site. These “black hat” practices may get a ranking for a short time, but more times than not, the site that is using these methods will be banned or severely penalized. And where are these companies when your site is banned? They are long gone with your money.
A well researched set of keywords and phrases, on the other hand, will make a great difference. It is important to realize that more descriptive key phrases will not only give you areas to rank better in., but will also give you better customers that are searching for what you have to offer. Research shows that people interested in buying generally have longer and more definitive search terms, whereas “window shoppers” tend to have shorter search terms.

What are you to do?
Be wary of those that promise you great things for little or no investment. More times than not, you get what you pay for.
If it sounds too good to be true, than it probably is.
If they don’t have past clients to show you work done for, be concerned.
If they guarantee overnight results, it’s not going to be pretty.
Look for companies with experience, a well laid out plan, and open communication.

If you want to see what a good SEO company looks like, visit Webtivity Design’s Search Engine Optimization layout. We describe our methods for getting people ranked and we are available to further explain our best practice methods. We have been working in the Web Design field for over ten years and have constantly strived to make our services the best available.

Continue to check back to our blog for more information regarding Search Engine Optimization techniques and principles.