Unfortunately, there are lots of SEO (search engine optimization) companies out there just eagerly waiting to get their hands on your money—with no real intention of helping you achieve the results you need when it comes to optimization. Here are 4 questions you can ask that should help reveal the true intentions of any optimization service:
1. How do you plan to build my site’s link popularity?
There are good ways to build link popularity and bad ways. Good ways include naturally developing new backlink opportunities by doing things like blogging, submitting articles to article directories, arranging link exchanges with reputable sites complementary to your niche, broadcasting PR articles, actively participating in social media, and so on. The thing about these good ways of link building is that it doesn’t all take place suspiciously at once—but rather gradually over time (a positive thing in the eyes of the search engines). Using techniques like spamming hundreds of blog comments or forums, or using so-called link farms is a sign of black hat (bad) SEO.
2. How will you optimize my web page’s description Meta tag?
Believe it or not, there are actually people out there saying that a web page’s description Meta tag no longer matters any more, and therefore it’s not worth wasting any time on. This couldn’t be further from the truth—even Google offers specific advice for how to best use the description tag, which is a sure sign that it still matters where it counts. There even times when the search engines will use your page’s Meta description word for word as part of the search listing. SEO companies that say they don’t bother with the description are likely the ones that do absolutely nothing (other than collect your check).
3. What kind of results will you guarantee?
It’s true—many SEO firms actually guarantee first place search engine results. If this is the case, be certain to read the fine print, because doing this is either and out and out scam or there’s some creative catch worked into the policy. Bottom line is there’s no legit way to guarantee specific results (unless they’re just taking a pure speculative gamble, which no one operating a reputable business is going to do). Guaranteed improvement in rankings—sure. But guaranteed specific results are a sign that something’s wrong.
4. Can you get me priority Google submission?
If you browse through the sales copy of a bunch of SEO companies, you’re quiet likely to see a few bullet points offering customers priority submission to Google. But here’s the thing—there is no such thing! First of all, Google will generally find and spider your site automatically, even without submitting it. And if you do choose to help the search engine find your site by submitting to the search engine, you should know that they only have a single submission form that’s used by all—no favors or “priority” submission available.
WSpider, a full service search engine marketing company based in the center of technology, San Jose, CA, always strives to take a holistic approach to actually helping you achieve maximum results without the gimmicks. Give us a call today to learn more about how we’re different than the rest!
