Remember What SEO Stands For: Search Engine Optimisation

Over the past couple of years it’s seems that SEO companies are a dime a dozen. Businesses must feel spoiled for choice when they jump online to start researching prices and SEO providers with dozens offering things such as “no contracts”, “endless keywords” and what seem like impossibly low prices. But a note to the consumer: All is not what it seems!

The thing is; Google are onto these people.

Let me explain what I mean by “these people”. Over the past couple of years Google has been putting more and more focus on both quality and “over-optimisation” and SEO companies are in the firing line. Basically the old adage applies here more than it ever has: You get what you pay for.

Is your SEO Company offering you thousands of links? Great! But what sort of links are they? Google knows what a link farm is (a sham site built for the purposes of linking) and can identify them a lot easier than they used to. These links will not help you. On the other hand, they may be offering you thousands of links from “legitimate” websites, but do they mean badly written blog articles on worthless content websites? Are they talking about social media links from questionable accounts

that won’t necessarily exist in the near future? Facebook doesn’t like fake accounts and are always working hard to identify and delete them. Add to that the fact that social media links are nowhere near as effective as genuine links from genuinely relevant websites and suddenly the value you thought you had starts to diminish.

Then of course there’s text content. This comes under both quality and “over-optimisation.” If an SEO company wants to add scores of text pages to your site, run the other way! Adding relevant content is important, but needs to be done correctly. With the huge focus Google has put on this sort of thing with their recent algorithm updates, you’re playing with fire if you go with this approach. Not only that, but the quality of the text content itself is also something they’ve got the spotlight on lately. Poorly written, keyword stuffed content is not a path you want to go down.

There are more aspects of SEO than I could think to speak about here which need to be addressed in an above board, genuine manner but the same rule applies across the board.

Don’t Cheat.

It’s easy to forget, amongst the sea of SEO providers offering the world, that SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimisation”, not, “we’ll get you onto page one whatever it takes.”

Too many people aren’t even aware that Google lays out exactly what you need to know to rank in their SEO Best Practices guidelines. They WANT you to rank. They’re GIVING you a map to the front page. They’re not some evil corporation trying to make your life hard. But they want you to do it genuinely, which is why our mantra here at SponsoredLinX is The GRGR Rule (Genuine Relevance Gets Results).

Want to rank better? Then simply follow the rules! Don’t go taking shortcuts. Some of them may work for now, but Google is on the hunt for better ways to identify cheaters and sooner or later they’ll catch up with them.

So the next time you’re getting an SEO package offer that looks too good to be true, make sure it isn’t. If you’re paying rock bottom, you’re getting rock bottom practices. Thinks of it like a medical professional. Do you really want to hire the backroom operation taking cash payments or the seasoned professional who cares about the guidelines their industry is supposed to follow?

I think with the right perspective, the choice is very easy.

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