Don't let Search Engine Optimization and Promotion companies damage your website and not help your search engine rankings. Many claim to be experts. Most are not.
Tips and Standards for preventing web site damage, some of it invisible to you.
1) Don't EVER let a Web Site promotion or SEO company near your website without knowing all about them and their reputation, how long they have been in business and what warranty or guarantee they have against damage to your web site or not performing as promised.
2) Don't ever let an Search Engine Optimization or PPC consultant (pay per click) company do ANY direct work on your web site for several reasons, but most important because they often use Editors that change existing HTML or XHTML or PHP code in ways that change some existing code and add cryptic code which confuses your web designer who has to make upgrades and fixes. This will cost you money later as they wade through unreadable mess after mess.
3) You must have a good web designer on call nowadays because most sites need updates for server, browser and codes upgrades compatibility and many sites and shopping carts are being broken by hackers or hosting companies, or these SEO companies. A good web designer keeps backups of recent versions of web sites, like "snapshots" in time, also to maintain code integrity analysis against hackers and for copyright control. Never let an SEO company bypass your web designer and webmaster.
4) Web site promotion and design and testing are integral processes which includes planning and placement of SEO content and search phrase optimization. Novice search engine ranking wanna be experts often do more harm than good. Some may know a bit about sprinkling some content words, but most do not know where to put them, and the all important first few lines of a web site body must be matched and coordinated with all of a business's strategy and positioning and appeal testing balanced by internet competition realities. Only a full service web development, design and maintenance company with a web-marketing arm knowledgable of business, internet marketing and technical limitations can best coordinate and execute an SEO program while maintaining web site integrity and maintainability. Good web designers work closely with the business marketing liaison and the web marketing arm of the web designer to have a master plan to truly optimize the balance of many factors, including important maintainability and integrity of the web site.
5) SEO companies sometimes promise to get you "top ranking" in several categories, but may use less than "optimum" methods and phrases, including those which most people seldom enter. Anyone, even your kid can come up with unique longer phrases where you can be number one for about $.50 per click, or they use the other scam method below next.
6) The other big scam of some Pay per click (PPC) consultants is to get you top ranked on search engines that just "don't matter" that most people don't use. That goes beyond a no- brainer that anyone can do for very little cost and no expertise and is of little value.
7) Another big scam is those Web site Promotion companies who claim to be a "Google Expert" or authorized Google consultant but who actually don't know much else about business, not enough about what they claim to be experts on, and not nearly enough about your business and web site design, code and browser compliance and site integrity requirements as well as the larger web marketing plan that only a dedicated longer term real expert web design and internet marketing company can provide, based on serious internet business standards.
8) Another similar web site promotion "advertising" scam is the selling of banners on several sites, which often go for hundreds of dollars per month. The deception and scam is that they did not disclose (ie: fraud) material important matters that you will only appear on certain web sites mostly unrelated to your business, and that you will only appear at odd times of day which they call "rotating" but in fact you may not show up but a few minutes or couple of hours per day. Avoid any banner program that is not pay per click for qualified traffic from a company who checks that it is not relatives of the promoter clicking on your banner.
9) Don't fall for the SEO scam that bases part of their performance on "number of impressions". "Impressions" don't mean much at all and the relevance of most is hazy at best.
10) Don't fall for the scam by alleged Search Engine optimization firms who promise to get you clicks on a PPC search engine and who want to help handle your SEO content and ad copy. Advertising is not for amateurs and some of these people can break your company. The key number is conversions, not traffic, based on qualifying and screening prospects BEFORE they click. If an SEO company talks to you mostly about getting more clicks, beware.
11) Most SEO companies have no one who has really studied marketing, business strategy and internet marketing balanced with web site design and maintenance standards. So amatuers can damage your site by recommending content changes that destroy a proper long term testing and upgrade program which must be dovetailed with the business's strengths and market gaps. An ignorant optimization and ranking consultant can lead your company away from your proper larger strategy or mislead you to an over-broad or over-narrow one.
12) Proper promotion while keeping all the other critical parts of a web marketing program going is job for professionals to be coordinated by the web design company's internet marketing arm in conjunction with the business's key marketing person or people.
14) Most medium and smaller companies should look to such an experienced internet marketing and web design firm for guidance to establish a plan that can save money and mistakes overall, before even considering hiring full time personnel in those areas, to save over half the costs until the company is selling well over about $200 to 300 million per year.
15) Lastly avoid small fly by night SEO only companies, and any SEO firms from out of the country. Serious issues have been arising as to integrity of the out of country communications and theft of web sites and selling of information gained by access to your files by such companies. Work with someone in your country who has been in business at least five years who has a good reputation.
