Can an SEO firm really guarantee 1st page results?

As a business owner, you have probably either received a call or an email and maybe even a flyer in the mail from some SEO company who will guarantee that they can get your business listed on the first page of Google, Yahoo or Bing. So, with that said, lets break it all down and go step by step into what this really means and how this is a false claim.

First of all, search engines use an extremely complex system to determine search results when you and I search for things on the internet. This complex system is called an Algorithm. An algorithm is defined as a list of well-defined instructions for completing a task. What does that mean exactly? It means that the engineers at the major search companies consitently define and redefine these specific instructions in their system to obtain and return to you, the searcher, the most relevant and high quality results possible. These "instructions" are top secret and closely guarded by each search engine company.

So what does it mean? It means that no one outside of these search companies has access to the inner workings of what exactly these instructions are, how they work, and how to manipulate them in order to achieve top ranking for your business. So where does that leave us with an SEO firm? Well, a good SEO firm knows that they have no special secret or special proprietary way of achieving and guaranteeing top rankings. An ethical SEO firm will tell you this or else lay it out in their contract. An ethical SEO firm will, by using tested methods and of course by reading the search engine's company blogs and by way of real world experience, help you to get better rankings using ethical techniques and practices that actually are in line with what the search engines preach everyday: Quality content

Just the other day I found this on Google's Webmaster blog. It was part of a question and answer session in one of Google's workshops:

Question from a user to one of the Google Engineers: Should I believe SEO agencies that promise to make my site rank first in Google in a few months and with a precise number of links?

Google's response: No one can make that promise; therefore the short answer is no, you should not. However, we have some great tips on how to find a trustworthy SEO in our Help Center.

So there you have it: straight from the horse's mouth. Google cares about one thing and one thing only: Good quality content that is relevant.

Here are some of the outrageous lies I have heard from SEO companies in my years as an SEO professional. I am sure many of you have also heard these, so please be warned:

SEO Company to potential client: "We have a special relationship with Google."

No one, including SEO companies have a special relationship with Google. Remember, I just told you that search engines have closely guarded secrets when it comes to how their search engines work, so this is a complete lie. If this were true, wouldn't all SEO professional have this relationship? And for that matter wouldn't you, the business owner, also enjoy this "special relationship"?

SEO Company to potential client: "We can guarantee you first page ranking."

Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is, any company that makes this claim, doesn't understand how search engines work, and they are probably hoping you don't either.

SEO Company to potential client: "We can get your site ranking on the first page in 7 days or your money back."

Just like that old saying goes: "if it's too good to be true it probably is". No one can guarantee this and if a company states this, they probably don't understand how search works and are only after your money. And what about that money back guarantee? Well by the time you figure out that you've been had, they will be long gone.

So let's review what proper SEO is:

Good quality content that is interesting to your audience and is written for them not the search engines. Write for humjan beings, not machines. Targeted specific keywords used sparingly but effectively in your content. Good quality link building with sites that are authoritative and relevant. Patience.

This list is not a complete list of what SEO is, but it is the basic foundation for success in getting higher rankings. So with that said, just be real, be authentic and you will be found.

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What to avoid in SEO

In recent years a number of illicit techniques have grown up to artificially manipulate a website's ranking. These techniques are referred to as spamming or sometimes "Black hat" techniques. The "black hat" description refers to the fact that in the old western movies the bad guys always wore black hats. The core of any spamming technique is the attempt to deceive the search engine, and ultimately the site visitor, about the true nature of a web site's content.



The question is whether spamming techniques actually deliver any long term benefit. In addition, it is known that using proscribed spamming techniques can get the spammer, their client sites and organizations delisted by the major search engines. It has happened publicly in the past and the search engines particularly Google place great emphasis on their warnings. Google even has a page for reporting spamming offenders. I have identified a list of nine types of illicit SEO or spamming techniqu es.



1. Keyword Stuffing

2. Cloaking

3. Doorway Sites

4. Throwaway sites

5. Mirror Sites

6. Hidden Text

7. Tiny Text

8. Link Spamming

9. Comment Spam



Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing is the technique of excessively using lots of keywords with express intention of influencing the search engines. Quite often this use appears in an incomprehensible or ungrammatical manner. Keyword stuffing is often used in conjunction with other spamming techniques such as cloaking, doorway sites, hidden text and tiny text.



Cloaking

Cloaking is the technique whereby the web site visible to a site visitor is entirely different from that seen by a search engine spider. The ordinary user may see one set of text and images but underneath that image, or "cloak", the site is "stuffed" with keywords. By examining the cache of a cloaked site on the Google search results, we can see that the site shows entirely different information to the spider, from that shown to the human eye.


Doorway Sites

A doorway site is a site that acts as a referring page for another site. The doorway page is highly optimized containing hidden links and keywords that the ordinary web user never sees. The doorway site then climbs the search engine rankings but re-directs all of its traffic to the target and perhaps poorly optimized site



Throwaway Sites

Throwaway sites are almost always doorway sites. They are web sites built by spammers to provide a short-term and artificial boost to traffic. Once their traffic objectives are achieved they are often switched off or left to decay hence throwaway. Throwaway sites are stuffed with links and keywords to attract and then re-direct traffic to a target web site. Typically, the spammers retain ownership of the throwaway domain. The spammers' clients initially receive large amounts of traffic. But once the throwaway site is switched off or thrown away the traffic comes to an abrupt halt and the clients business suffers. The clients are then effectively blackmailed into spending vast sums to retain traffic. The target web site receives no long term ranking benefits.



Mirror Sites

Mirror sites use an alternative URL to the target site but contain identical content. With automated page production, there may be hundreds of different URLs all with the same content. This technique is sometimes referred to as domain duplication.



Hidden Text

The technique here is to fill or "stuff" a page with keywords invisible to the naked eye. This is done by using the same colour for text as for the background page. This technique is sometimes referred to as WOW, short for white on white.



Tiny Text

Tiny text is a technique of using very small text that is barely visible to the human eye. This text can be read by the engines. However, the engines will also attr ibute this text as spam.



Link Spamming

In many respects, due to the increasing influence of links, it was inevitable that link spamming would become an issue. Spamming of links has been a growing problem as many people have realized the importance that Google, in particular, places on links. As a significant issue it raised its head in April 2005 when Google's new release appeared to ban one of the leading SEO firms from its rankings. Few people outside of Google and the SEO firm concerned are entirely sure why this is the case. But the industry consensus is that Google are cracking down on web sites and organizations that accumulate vast numbers of irrelevant links with the sole intention of climbing the rankings.



Comment Spam

Related to link spamming is comment spam. Comment spam is where a spammer visits a publicly accessible site and deposits a comment with an anchor text link back to a designated site. Forums and blogs are typical target. This activity became identified as a major problem in January 2005 when Google took steps to prevent it from the blogs of Blogger.com. The reason was that spammers working for so called PPC (Pills, Porn and Casino) web sites were trawling legitimate blogs and posting uninvited comment advertisements with their web site's anchor text. Blogs were vulnerable because they typically possess a comment section that can be accessed without the need for passwords or even registration.

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Stay Away From These SEO Traps

If you backlink spam you are making a huge mistake. Blog comment spamming and link farms are not the most legal way to build links. The legalities of backlink spamming can be difficult to navigate away from but you should try. If you want to avoid having your site banned you should avoid this mistake. Following internet guidelines is one way to avoid violating the rules when using SEO marketing.

Don't stalk blogs that aren't relevant to your topic. Some think building links is too difficult, this is a lie. Don't make it harder than it has to be but do stay on top of it and don't give up it does take time and patience. It's easy to fall prey to unethical techniques that may look highly appealing but on the long run these are bad for your site. The worst thing that can happen is to be entered into the bad books with search engines. You can increase your one way backlinks legally with alot of effort. Your focused link building ability will be bene ficial to your site in the long run.

Another frequently made SEO mistake often made by internet marketers is that they don't use a title tag that is right for their site. Remember, the search engines look at the title when they display your website in their results, so it's a mistake to assume that your title tag is irrelevant. The fact is, some websites that don't appear to be very well optimized have a high ranking, and this is often for the very reason that their primary keyword appears in their title tag. It also does not give your site the appearance you want if it doesn't have a title. It is not a hard task to create a title tag that includes your keyword in it. Don't make your title tag too long, keep it short and effective. You don't have to limit yourself to one keyword in the title, as you can use up to two.

The third mistake you want to avoid is choosing the wrong SEO Company when you're outsourcing the promotion work. Choosing the wrong o ne can cost you alot of money. You don't want to partner with a company that indulges in blackhat SEO practices, because directly or indirectly that's going to affect your site, and the last thing you want is getting banned. Don't let these companies enticements leave you with a bad website. One way to check the validity of your outsource company is to follow up on references.

Becoming the authority in your industry is not achieved by making the above mistakes so avoid them. The more focused you become the more obvious the other errors will be.

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Some SEO mistakes that can get you penalized by the search engines

Traffic happens to be one of the most important elements of your online business, without which, it's impossible to see any positive results. A great way to attract this kind of targeted traffic is to optimize your site so that search engines will place you high in the search results. And yet there are some Internet marketers who believe they'll be better off by trying to trick the search engines for better results instead of working on ways to do it properly. Then these marketers are surprised when their sites suddenly get banned by the big search engines, like Google or Yahoo!

Yet there are some webmasters who aren't aware that the tactics they're using are unethical. Both of these cases could be put down to a lack of knowledge about how search engines really work and what they look for. A big part of getting SEO right is also knowing what you're doing wrong. This article will look at some of the SEO mistakes you should keep in mind when you're optimizing your own site.

The most common SEO mistake made by new webmasters is that they try to use a lot of flash on their website. Even though flash gives your website the "coolness" factor, it's not really recommended when you're doing SEO. Flash helps with your human readers but search engines can't even see it so it won't help you in the searches.

Search engine spiders are looking for content and they'll go elsewhere if they don't find any. Your ranking will be greatly affected by this. Flash can really dress up your site and you don't have to get rid of it completely if you just use some graphics along with the text so that the search engines approve. You have to have a lot of text if you want to rank high.
Messing up your keyword research will mess up you SEO results. If you don't research your keywords well enough and don't have a strong keyword list, it spoils your optimization efforts. Without targeted traffic you won't make any sales. Your focus should be on keywords that are popular among searchers.

Understanding how to do keyword research correctly will greatly increase your chance of success with SEO. Once you have found some high volume keywords you can start planning your site structure and themes. There are a number of free keyword tools that you can use to generate relevant keywords for your site.

Consultants who practice SEO and aren't ethical need to be avoided. There are lots of companies that offer SEO services. Some of these companies are definitely worth working with since they use practical ethical SEO methods, but many others depend on unethical or blackhat SEO to get sites ranked. The search engines could ban your site and you wouldn't even realize it until later. So if you plan to work with SEO consultants, only hire the ones whose reputations precede them and who will give you progress updates on a regular basis. The more transparent they are, the better it is.

If you have been looking for a long term traffic solution that doesn't cost you anything then look no further than search engine optimization. SEO requires you to stay consistent and persistent; do this and you will beat the competition. Stay patient and persistent and SEO will really work for you. This is so simple: find out what the search engines want and give it to them, master that and SEO will be a breeze.

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How Black Hat SEO Can Destroy Your Business

A black hat SEO is an unfair way for a person to get their website to emerge higher on search engines. These blackhat SEO's will usually reflect the following characteristics.

First of all and most essential, it breaks the search engine rules and regulations. Second it will create a bad user exposure. Finally it will unprofessionally present content, both visually and non visually to the search engine web crawlers.

Black hat SEO's at one time were legal but after too many people began to abuse it and therefore it became objected on by Search engines. Now if you are caught using Black Hat tricks it may be a short term answer to a problem but it will also get you penalized from the search engine.

These penalties for using a black hat SEO can be harsh and include but not limited to banning from all search engines. There are ways to avoid creating a black hat website and followed correctly, will save you a lot of misery in the future.
1. Be mindful to not stuff your keywords
-applying a lot of keywords in your site and nothing else will get you in difficulty with the search engines. You must to learn how to position your keywords properly to avert this. If you pad your articles with a lot of keywords it will increase your chances of ranking higher on the search engine but only temporarily.

2. Keep away from using invisible text
-undetectable text consists of putting keywords into your site in white with a white background. This invisible text is concealed from the buyer but will lure the web spiders to grade your search engine higher. This is not a good method as it results in a black hat SEO and will get you banned from the search engines.

3. Do not use doorway pages
-A doorway page is nothing more than a fake page that is used to seduce the web spider bots. The customers themselves will never see this page. This doorway will deceive the web crawler to rank you r business higher but once again, this will only be temporary.

As you just read black hat SEO's do sound alluring but a person must know the consequences from using them which can be very bitter. They only help you temporarily but will cause you bigger problems for a long time to come. They will help you get higher rankings in the search engines but they are very unethical.

If you want to run a legitimate business you need to avoid black hat SEO's because they will corrupt your company in the long run. Run your business right and do not fall into the unethical practice of running a black hat SEO website.

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Importance of Genuine SEO Techniques

TherearesomemethodsofSEO(SearchEngineOptimization)youshouldfollowforyourwebsite.SEOisveryimportantforallwebsitesoutthereinthetechniques,whicharegenuine,youcannotgetyourwebsitetobeknown,andgetanyprofitfromit.

1. ContentisKing:Everysearchengine,Googleincluded,looksforonlythecontent.Contentisthemostimportantthingtorankhighinsearchengines.Withoutcontent,yoursiteisjustanothersite,withoutmuchimportance.Socreategoodgenuinecontent.

2. Buildlinks:Buildinglinksisutmostimportantjustascontent.Forthis,thereareseveralmethods.OnesuchmethodiswritingtotherelatedWebmastersandlettingthemknowofyoursitesexistence.Iftheybelievethatyoursitehassomecontent,whichislinkable,theywilldefinitelylinktoyourcontent.Maybesomereciprocallinkingisrequired.Inthatcase,youcannegotiatewiththewebmasterandaskthemaboutthereciprocal.

3. Noonecanguaranteenumberoneinsearchengines:Googleisthemostimportantsearchengineoutthere,andevenGoogletopemployeescannotguaranteeyournumberonepositioninGooglesearch.ItistheresultofyourhardworkandgenuineSEOlinkbuildingthatwillpositionyouatthetopofthesearchresults.Otherwise,youcannotjustgettothetopofanysearchengines.

4. Linkbuildingyourselfisbetterthanconsulting:YoumaypromoteyourblogwithgenuineSEO,andthatwillrankyoursitehigherthananySEOfirmcando.So,itisextremelyimportantthatyoudoityourself.Setapartsometimeinyourdailyscheduletobuildlinkswithanynicheblogsyouknowof.Also,askyourfriendswhohaveblogsthemselvesinthesamesubjecttolinkintoyoursite.

5. DonottrustblackhatSEOfirms:BlackhatSEOtechniquesarethose,whichdonotdogenuineSEObutgobysuchmethodsasdoorwaypages,invisibletext,keywordstuffing,etc.SEOshouldbedonethroughWhitehatmethodsonly.Otherwise,youmaybepermanentlybannedbysearchengines.

6. Donotdorecklesslinkbuildings:ifyourblogistwodaysoldandhas1200incominglinks,thenGooglewillbanyouonthethirdday.So,recklesslinkbuildingisequaltolinkspamming.Donotdothat.

TheseandmoreofthetechniquestodogoodSEOareavailableintheresourcesmentionedbelow.SEOisaveryimportanttechniquetogetyoursitetothetopofsearchengines,therebybuildingyourbrand,gettingsales,andprofit.So,genuinenaturalSEOtechniqueisextremelyimportantforthesuccessofawebsite.

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Link Baiting Idea

One of the best and the far most the effective way to gain links to your website or blogs is link baiting idea.

What do you mean by Link Baiting?

This is a new idea born among webmasters to gain popularity for their blogs/web page. As you all know getting attention is an old trick, weather in real life or online. Politician uses this often to stay in limelight. This same rule applies to link baiting as well.

There are two different flavors in link baiting idea. Good and bad. Good ones are those to create news first like exposing scams and create news, which will surprise everyone. Bad ones are those you create a controversy or attach some leading personalities in your blogs. Think that you are trying to gain traffic not really hurt anyone. These kinds of tricks or ideas will bring in 1000's of website/blogs linking to your site.

Link baiting idea is a blackhat technique that's why most webmasters think it is not legitimate to use it. But the effects of link baiting have profound effect and gradually drive traffic to your blog or site. If implement properly it can draw huge links with minimum effort from your side. Some link expert's call that "hooks" has mentioned the 5 types of "hooks" as News, Contrary, attack resource and Humor.

Matt Cutts the Google Engineer in his blog about SEO advice has mentioned "LinkBait" as something interesting to catch people's attention. He say's Linkbaiting is not a bad idea.

So creating attention is the key to that also person should be creative in his thought to get that idea into place.

You might all have heard of Alex Tew of he created an idea to raise a Million $ to raise funds for his college education by selling 1 pixel for a $ on his website. After four months he accomplished the task. This is the kind of news you should create to get attention. His site was also mentioned in CNN News as well. After his idea there are 100 of sites mushroomed over the web like one cent pixels but they are not gaining to achieve the results Alex could drew to his website. So be first to create news before it gets crowded.

Actually the term "linkbait" was started by Aaron Wall of SEO book in his post way back in August 2005. He says in his post that if "you are in a field that can't build links naturally create linkbait". By creating something on your web site that's funny, controversial, informative, or creative, it will gain natural linkswhich is the key to top search engine rankings.

Andy Hagan's has come up with an idea to throw a contest to get links. The idea is simple give Andy a link baiting idea and if that works you will earn $1000 for that. He has posted that on BizNicheMedia.com blog. So his idea for a contest itself is an example of link baiting.

And generating information or ideas that people talk about is a surefire way to generate links.

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