Red flags pointing to bad SEO firms

The majority of website owners, even when starting out have come to realise that search engine optimisation is the only way for them to get web visibility. Those that know the basics of SEO are aware of the incredible importance of high quality optimisation being implemented throughout their entire website. Now there are many ethical and experienced optimising firms available, but this industry is just as susceptible to those out to make a quick buck. Any website owner can fall prey to smooth sales talk and end up trying to fix the mess afterwards. The only way to safeguard yourself against these characters is to be educated and thus to be able to recognise clear red flags that tell you to tell them to get lost.

Telemarketers

SEO is a time-consuming and intense work and any firm that gives their clients excellent service will not be using what is described as a boiler room full of enthusiastic telemarketers. A reputable SEO firm will have a customer care help line yes, but not make use of telemarketers to drum up business. How much personal attention will a firm be giving clients when they recruit them by the hundreds? This way of gaining clients point to a generalised service to all their clients.

Automation

When you enquire into the methods used by a SEO firm, the last thing you should hear is that they use services and methods that are highly automated. Of course there are analytics and tracking tools that are used by firms and website owners to keep track of site traffic, conversions and a gamut of other functions. But, bottom line is that an optimising company that tells you their services are highly automated should make you head in the opposite direction at a brisk pace.

Search focus

We speak of keywords, keyword phrases and long-tail keyword phrases and this is all part of the optimising game. When an optimiser tells you that he will get you great ranking for your florist shop with “Liverpool Saint Agnes Street Florist”, take a deep breath and leave. Anyone can get a ranking for that key phrase as it is basically your whole address. Discussing the most obscure search terms for keyword ranking is a very bad sign. Competent optimisation is far more than coming up with the most obscure keywords as ‘winners’.

Ownership of URLs

There is a practice that some unscrupulous firms promote; creating URLs for your doorway pages that are not your URLs, but belong to the optimisation firm. There is never any reason why the URLs on your website should not belong to you. Setting up URLs that belong to them is a dangerous practice. You are bound to that firm. If you go out of business, they have lucrative traffic driven URLs to resell. You are at their mercy for price increases as they can simply shut the URLs down if you do not agree to fee increases. This is tantamount to keeping your website hostage and should be avoided at all costs. As said, there are good SEO firms and then there are others. Vigilance and knowing what to look for is how you safeguard yourself.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at 12:07 pm and is filed under SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.