Friday, July 17, 2009

Eight Mistakes SEO Companies Should Avoid

By Michael Calles

#1: Use the Word Secret. There are trade secrets in every industry, but there are no magic tricks in SEO. If your agency is a quality one, they will go out of their way to tell you that there are no secrets when it comes to ranking your page well.

#2: Ignore Social Media. SEO agencies that concentrate only on article directories and keyword optimization are missing out. Social Media takes subtle, careful, trust-building work, and if your company is serious about ranking online, your agency needs to be serious about social media.

#3: Imaginary Link Building. When an SEO outfit talks about building links back to your brand, but makes absolutely no mention of content creation, you know they arent serious. The word 'building' is used for a reason: these things take work and must be properly constructed.

#4: Quickly Pushing More Services onto You. Having you pay extra for big projects and web design is one thing, but if you sign up for SEO and realize youre going to have to pay for ten other services on top of it, whats the point? Differentiating between honest, paid help and aggressive sales tactics is fundamental.

#5: Hold Old-Fashioned Business Hours. The internet doesnt operate on a 9-to-5 schedule. If your prospective SEO Agencies havent got someone you can reach at anytime, be weary. SEO is done at all hours, and the best agencies are ones with a global reach across every time zone.

#6: Spam. Especially when it comes to commenting on blogs and posting to forums. For the bad SEO Agencies, this is often their entire social media strategy: post generic text, link back to customers site. Buyer beware, indeed.

#7: Ignore the Value of Research. To compete online, you have to know your competitors. If your agency blindly throws you out there, among god knows how many other people selling the same thing you are, then youre wasting your money. Research is fundamental.

#8: Stick With Only What They Know. The same reason old-fashioned ad agencies are going out of business today: they arent following how people get their information. Great SEO Agencies will continuously evolve, knowing that the internet never stands still, either.

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