What Google has to say about all those SEO “Experts”
It seems like every day, our company which is a web design agency and offers it’s own SEO services gets calls and e-mails from so-called search engine optimization experts offering to “improve your SEO and get you a top page ranking in Google, blah, blah, blah“. Our customers are also bombarded by this junk but unfortunately most of them are unaware that most of these SEO experts are scammers (or at the very least spammers). Most of the offending companies originate from India, totally ignoring the United States “no call list” laws and regulations. However, some companies are right here in the USA and call and email their shady offerings too. I find it particularly hilarious, and apparently Google does too as you will see below, that they do not “research” your website at all. You’re simply receiving automated spam messages, designed to trick you into believing that they actually evaluated your website, which they clearly have not done.
The following is what Google itself had to say about all of the above. SEO isn’t all that difficult. Google provides a great SEO document here that explains the core process.
While SEOs can provide clients with valuable services, some unethical SEOs have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to manipulate search engine results in unfair ways. Practices that violate our guidelines may result in a negative adjustment of your site’s presence in Google, or even the removal of your site from our index. Here are some things to consider:
- Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue.Amazingly, we get these spam emails too:
“Dear google.com,
I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories…”Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for “burn fat at night” diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.
- No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a “special relationship” with Google, or advertise a “priority submit” to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or by submitting a Sitemap and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.
Social Networking and SEO Workout Program
Back in the mid 1990′s it was relatively easy to design a new website, submit it to Yahoo (the biggest search engine back then in pre-Google days) and come up in the first page or two of search query results. Fast forward to today and the rules of the game have changed substantially. No longer can you stuff pages with high popularity, non relative keywords or hide obscured text on a page to entice search engine bots. Remarkably, people still believe that stuffing the keywords meta-tag is still the way to guarantee top results in a search. The truth is that most of the major search engines now ignore the keyword meta-tag altogether.
So how does a new website compete in today’s ever evolving web world? The old standbys such as reciprocal links, blogs and pay-per-clicks are still effective. The new trend is interaction with social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter…just to name a few. The dilemma comes when one realizes that leveraging traffic through social networking is not difficult but it can be time consuming. How effective your social networking campaign can be hinges upon the content you are delivering and popularity. There is no doubt that time and effort can provide a great boost in terms of search engine optimization and visibility. In other words, the more you work on your garden, the more crop it will yield.
I still get calls quite often and people ask for a quick 10 minute fix to get their website higher in Google rankings. The simple truth is that 10 or even 30 minutes is not enough to guarantee results. The most effective results are obtained through periodic review and actions to drive traffic to your site. Just like that morning exercise ritual, proper website marketing takes some minimal pain for maximum gain.
Search Engine Friendly Websites
Everyone wants there website to come up in position #1 on the first page of Google results. Is this a realistic expectation? Yes and no.
For the most part, depending on what the subject of your website is, you may have a tough time competing with already established websites to obtain that top ranking. Google and other search engines give preference to long established websites that are blessed with a healthy number of quality, inbound links. Also, a new website can take anywhere from a few months to a year to start showing results in the Google index. Google does this to make sure your website is a legitimate, viable resource rather than a fly by night website that is here today and gone tomorrow (their main intention being to leverage search engine results unethically).
That all sounds pretty grim for a company starting out with a brand new website. The good news is that there are some things you can do to promote and build up your website presence while waiting for Google to take notice.
Free SEO Search Engine Optimization Tools
One of the first things you should do when planning your website is to do a bit of research. Analyzing keywords and putting together a strategic marketing plan is a crucial first step towards the construction of a search engine friendly website. SEO (or search engine optimization) is not all that difficult but does require an investment of time. Basically, the more you put into it, the better your results will be.