SEO Best Practices
Over the past four years, consumer confidence in the search engine optimization (SEO) industry has fallen dramatically. This is due to amateur SEO providers that have not met client expectations and have used unscrupulous business practices, false advertising and fraudulent claims. The lack of SEO industry standards and regulations has created an atmosphere of mistrust and an environment where search engine marketing (SEM) is not considered a legitimate marketing practice.
Search engine optimization providers are not exempt from these problems. Many attempts have been made to educate website owners on how to protect themselves and choose a credible SEO provider. Unfortunately, most of the education has only been surface level and has failed to give any real insight into the honesty or competency of a prospective SEO provider.
The Industry Standards Weren't Strong Enough... So Cresoft Decided To Create The Most Comprehensive SEO Best Practices Guide In The Industry.
Cresoft has a list of 20 questions to protect and assist those considering SEO services. The answers to these questions will give insight into the skill and competency of an SEO firm and allow website owners to make informed decisions when selecting providers.
Does Your Search Engine Optimization Firm Comply?
- What is the firm's area of expertise; do they optimize affiliate sites, link farms or actual businesses like yours?
Request a list of clients the firm has worked with and verify it. - Will the company share its optimization techniques with you?
Search Engine Optimization is not a secret practice, although some would like you to believe it is. SEO consists of research, the optimization of pages, the increasing of link popularity and knowing when, where and how to get a site indexed. It also includes an understanding of which indexes are important for high rankings. Ask the SEO firm for an overview of how it achieves results. If the firm won't give you an explanation, chances are the company is trying to hide its unethical techniques. - Is pay-per-click (PPC) part of the firm's strategy?
A good SEM strategy includes PPC as part of the campaign. Your optimization results should not rely on PPC, rather they should be complemented by the PPC component. Performance results for optimization and PPC should be evaluated separately. - Can the firm guarantee your site will not be penalized and removed from the search engines and directory indexes?
If not, chances are the company is playing Russian roulette with client websites. Using illegal techniques may produce immediate surface level results, but in the long run will end up getting websites banned or penalized by the major search engines. - Does the firm optimize more than your homepage?
A good search engine optimization strategy will maximize the number of pages optimized on a website. It's more work for the firm but it will produce the greatest results for you. - Does the firm understand the difference between a visitor and a targeted visitor?
A targeted visitor will result in more sales and leads for your company. Does the SEM firm focus on generating more sales? Or does the slogan "10,000,000 visitors in 1 month" sound familiar? You don't want "junk traffic" coming from porn sites or from countries not in your intended audience. - Does the firm create new pages optimized for your key phrases that redirect visitors to another page?
If the answer is yes, you are probably dealing with a firm that creates "doorway" or "bridge" pages (although, most companies will call them by different names). This technique violates the terms of service on most major search engines. Legitimate search engine optimization providers do not need to create doorway pages to produce results. - Does the SEO firm provide an unrealistic guarantee?
SEO providers that guarantee a specific position (like number one or two) on certain search engines (such as Google or Yahoo) are not being honest. It is impossible to guarantee specific positions on search engines. Don't ask for a guarantee, instead ask about prior performance on behalf of "real" customers. Do your homework and check references. - Are automated submission tools used or are all submissions processed manually?
Automated tools can often lead to penalization and result in your site being excluded from the search engines. - Does the plan include the cost of all submissions and directory fees, such as Yahoo, DMOZ, Google as well as other directories and submissions, or does it just cover optimization?
- If the plan includes link popularity building, is the firm using a link farm, or is it contracting sites by hand and concentrating on
link reputation more than link popularity?
Soon websites linked to and from link farms will be penalized and banned from the major search engines. - Does the firm's technique involve showing one page to the visitor and a different page to the search engines?
If the answer is yes, then you are probably dealing with a search engine optimization provider that uses "cloaking" techniques. Many search engines specifically warn against this practice in the organizations' terms of service. Google is particularly harsh on sites that use cloaking, and is known to remove them entirely when it finds them. - Does the firm provide a return-on-investment (ROI) analysis and state a revenue goal for your website?
Or is it simply focused only on rank? - Does the firm's plan incorporate the following strategies?
- Page optimization
- Title optimization
- Keyword optimization
- Description optimization
- Body optimization
- Link optimization
- Link reputation
- Existing link analysis
- Initial ranking report for your keywords
- Monthly ranking report after optimization
- Keyword research
- Competitor analysis
- Product branding and goals research
- Search engine visibility research
- Periodic website auditing
- Project planning and goal execution
- Is the SEO provider offering you only a one to three month project?
A good "campaign" should not be short term. It should contain a long-term strategy, which shows the firm is in it for the long haul. - Which search engines does the firm work with?
Make certain the positions the SEO company has achieved are on the most popular search engines, not on smaller engines for which the firm may have a knack for the engines' algorithms. - What kind of search engine saturation can the firm achieve?
While it's easy to focus on one particularly impressive position on one popular engine, it's more important to focus on a broad range of positions achieved on one site. It's entirely possible for a site to have one great ranking and be sorely lacking in positions for all other keyphrases. Ask your potential SEO company to show you a client report that demonstrates solid positions on leading search engines for many popular keyphrases. An effective SEO campaign will achieve maximum exposure across a broad range of keyphrases and engines, not one notable position on one engine. - Does the firm have direct relationships with any of the major search engines?
What about ties to leaders in the search engine industry? Reputable SEO firms will most likely have industry affiliations. Fly-by-night firms have not been around long enough to foster relationships or the company uses unscrupulous practices and this causes peers to steer clear. - Can you reach a real person to ask them these questions before you must commit your hard earned dollar?
Never do business with a firm you can't talk to. - Does your SEO company have a documented process, or is the firm randomly attempting the latest "search engine tricks?"
Ask the company to provide its documented practices and procedures, as this will give you a road map of your SEM campaign.
This list of questions is not exhaustive nor is it a rigid formula that will produce an ethical decision or action for all situations. With the evolving nature of the SEO industry and the search engines, it is important this guide be adaptable and applicable to new situations. Circumstances will arise that are not explicitly covered here or may be in contrast with standards proposed by other organizations. These situations will require SEO professionals and SEO companies to use ethical judgment and make decisions that are consistent with the spirit of this SEO Best Practices Guide.
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