Search engine optimization, or SEO, has been in the background for several years though it is just now getting legitimized through major industry and news organizations.

SEO is making your site as receptive to the search engines as possible so that they send you relevant traffic. Put another way, whenever you search for anything with Google, Yahoo or MSN/Live the top 10 results are not there by accident - someone worked hard to get their site listed there.

Organic search traffic is valuable because it is free and qualified. The search engines match what the user is looking for with your site so you know this is a warm lead - possibly hot.

I’ve been looking for Sacramento Website Designers for a project I am working on and noticed many of them offer SEO as an “add on”. Curious about my competition I started looking at the descriptions for this critical service and became alarmed. Many of these sites explain they will use tactics that are more than 3 years out of date. Others are using blackhat tactics on their own sites. Here is what you need to watch out for:

Out of date techniques AKA things you will be charged for that won’t do you any good

These are the techniques I saw described on several local sites. Some of these techniques ruled the SEO industry years ago but have no value today. Others never worked in the first place!

• Meta Tag Optimization - Meta tags don’t influence rank in the search engines. They were too easy to manipulate so the search engines developed more complex methods of determining relevancy.
• Keyword Density - Keyword density takes the total number of times your targeted keywords appear on a given page and divides that number by the total text on the page. This is to show how much “weight” your phrase has. Some SEOs have magic numbers for determining the “correct keyword density”. And others compare your density percentage to your competition. Whatever their method, keyword density is not a factor in determining a match for the search engines so it is a complete waste of time!
• Reciprocal Link Programs - Links are the gold of SEO as each link pointing to your site acts as a vote in it’s favor to the search engines. But not all links have equal value (or voting strength). Reciprocal links are the “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” technique for SEO. A site links to you and your site links back to them. This works in limited doses but if this is the cornerstone of the SEO campaign you will be in trouble because Google devalued mass reciprocal linking.
• Mass Directory Submissions - Directory links are too easy to get in most cases and carry very little, if any weight. Some directories are worth-while but you should check to see if your SEO knows how to detect the difference.
• Mass Search Engine Submissions - The primary search engines do not require any submissions although they do offer it. If your site is being promoted correctly the search engines will find it on their own soon enough! Search engine submission does nothing to help your website rank well. Getting your site into any search engine beyond Google, Yahoo, MSN/Live and Ask is probably a waste of time as those search engines cover 98%+ of all searches conducted in the US.

A note about hat color and SEO

I mentioned that I saw “blackhat techniques” in action on some local sites. Hat color refers to compliance with the Webmaster Guidelines the search engines have created. Each search engine has its own requirements for inclusion and violation of the guidelines can get your site penalized or even banned.

A whitehat SEO does his best to stay within the guidelines so the possibility of a penalty or ban is minimized. Whitehat is the way to go with a company website or any website you want to last a long time.

A blackhat SEO looks for tricks, gimmicks and programs to artificially boost a website’s placement on the search results pages. While this is legal, these tricks do not comply with the webmaster guidelines. Your website will be caught and penalized/banned depending on how severe the violation was.

A couple more items to watch out for

• Guaranteed Placement - Nobody can guarantee placement in the search engines. The search engine companies guard their systems and change them often. This is a hook to get you to agree and start paying. Often companies that guarantee placement disappear or have you rank for terms you would have picked up on your own or on minor search engines that won’t send you any traffic.
• “Secret” Tactics - You have a right to know what someone is doing with your website. If the SEO won’t explain what they are doing you should be wary.

There are many talented SEOs around and I look forward to meeting with them over beers. Like I said, some of these tactics are just old. It’s possible the company website just hasn’t been brought up to speed.

Whatever the case, please take the time to investigate your SEO so you can protect your investment. Undoing the damage of a failed SEO campaign can take months and sometimes the damage is so severe it is better to just start over.

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