Mach 9 Consulting, Inc.

These are 3 simple questions to answer when you begin your journey on SEO optimization and higher page rankings. It's important that you have a basic understanding of the service that you are buying. You wouldn't buy a car without first some preliminary research, or a house without first researching surrounding property values, recent home sales, etc. While these comparisons might be monetarily somewhat higher than what a typical SEO plan costs, don't be surprised to invest a good amount of time and money into an SEO campaign. After all, it is essentially a professional online marketing plan

SEO is an abbreviation for "search engine optimizer." Many firms provide useful SEO services for any website owner, from writing proprietary content to restructuring the entire site architecture. However, a few unethical SEOs, otherwise known as Black Hat SEO's, have given the industry a bad reputation through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to unfairly manipulate search engine results. Here you will learn about what to do and want not to do in your SEO efforts. Even if you do not wind up using Mach 9 for your SEO campaigns, make sure you follow a few guidelines when deciding on your SEO strategies.

An SEO firm that sends you an email out of the blue should raise a red flag.

Dear yourwebsite.com,

I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories..."

Choose wisely.

While you consider whether to go with an SEO plan, you may want to do some research on the industry. While Mach 9 doesn't comment on specific companies, we have encountered firms calling themselves SEO experts who follow practices which are clearly unethical and could possibly get you removed from a search engine.

I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories..."

If a company is secretive and will not explain what their SEO packages entail, be aware.

If you are unsure about something in the SEO proposal or documentation, don't be afraid to ask. An experienced SEO professional will have no problems explaining any and/or all details of their SEO plan. If an SEO creates deceptive or misleading content on your behalf, such as doorway pages, your site could be removed entirely from Google's index, and those alike. Ultimately, you are responsible for the actions of any companies you hire, so it's best to be sure you know exactly how they intend to "help" you.

You should never have to link to an SEO.

Avoid SEOs that talk about the power of "free-for-all" links, link popularity schemes, or submitting your site to thousands of search engines. These are typically useless exercises that don't affect your ranking in the results of the major search engines -- at least, not in a way you would likely consider to be positive.

Be sure to understand where the money goes.

Some SEOs will promise to rank you highly in search engines, but place you in the advertising section rather than in the search results. A few SEOs will even change their bid prices in real time to create the illusion that they "control" other search engines and can place themselves in the slot of their choice. This again is an unethical practice. Make sure you know where and how your money is being spent. Ethical and/or organic SEO does take time and effort. There are many hours involved with manual labor, as well as monthly maintenance, ongoing keyword analysis, etc. This takes time, but overall a wise investment.

No one can guarantee a number 1 Google ranking.

Beware of SEOs that make high claims to guarantee specific page rankings, through a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google. There is no such thing. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through their Add URL page or through the Google Sitemaps (Beta) program, and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.

Hopefully this has answered some preliminary questions about SEO and what Google and others do in the industry to make sure SEO professionals are adhering to the proper SEO standards. There are a lot of common misconceptions, and even more so, a lot of companies that will tell you one thing but do another. So do your research, be careful and enjoy your traffic results. Click here to learn more about SEO and to get a quote on our SEO packages.