The SEO Shopping List
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Services has become a
burgeoning industry in the recent years, and it` s steadily
growing even more every day. There are now over a million SEO
Service Providers all over the world and if you `re looking, how
would you know if you` re getting the real deal? It` s not going
to be easy. Major considerations have to be addressed if only to
ensure that your investment would not go to waste. Once the
decision to engage in SEO services is made, the big and
undeniably the most important question pops- up, which one
should you choose from among the throng? There are as many
qualified SEO companies out there as there are ambiguous ones,
if not more. Deciding on a potential SEO partner is crucial. It
would help to know what questions you ought to be asking the
candidates. The following is a list of feelers to resolve the
issue of whether or not the SEO company you` re eyeing on is
worthy of your trust.
Would you exhibit anything to search engines that our web
visitors would not see?
Certain search engine optimization strategists employ a common
tactic called "cloaking". This is a technology that commissions
your website to identify when a visitor is actually a spider. It
then feeds the spider with
earmarked content specifically designed to rank highly in search
engines. This strategy violates the Terms of Service (TOS) of
all major search engines. Thus causing the removal of your site
from the engine` s list. Effective but it` s not a risk worth
taking.
Would you create special pages which would` nt be built into the
navigation of our site?
These special pages are called "doorway pages" which basically
goes by the principle of cloaking. Highly- defined pages are
created in your server that would target what spiders are
specifically looking for. This would result to the best possible
ranking for your site but it would also mean putting the website
at risk of penalization because its another violation to the TOS.
Is your link- building methodology automated? If so, do you
target reciprocal links?
Link popularity plays a major role in rankings and one approach
to link building is the automated reciprocal linking scheme.
Emails are sent to as many recipients as possible in the hopes
of forging link exchanges. An outbound link from your site is
counted as a "vote" for the site which it links. The peril in
this particular tactic lies on the integrity of the sites you
link to. if that site gets penalized, your site runs the risk of
being penalized in turn. A good SEO provider would focus on
assembling quality inbound links to your website and adding the
kind of content that makes it worthy of non- reciprocal links
from other sites.
Now, before you start asking these questions, there are more to
come. This is the first of a three part series on getting to
know your potential SEO Partner.
By: Lelit Barrios
11/23/2007-BHI Pro
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