Your friendly SEO expert may be screwing you…big time.
I’m not just talking about inflated bills or crappy keyword research, and I’m not trying to call out the honest search engine professionals, but something has to be said.
Don’t Believe the Hype
Dig around a little to learn where your search expert has been. Are they boosting your rankings by creating duplicate content all over the web, or do they invest serious man hours building a sturdy base on the SERPs?
Oh, and how do their own sites rank online?
You want dirt? I’ve seen web ‘pros’ perform every last trick in the book, including buying and trading links, hiding keywords using invisible text (old school) and even throwing together hundreds of domain names promoting the identical content in order to rank higher for specific keywords.
The end result is usually getting popped by Google — which is sort of like getting de-listed by the New York Stock Exchange (it’s a career killer).
Scrub Your SEO Pro
I’m not naming names, that’s not my style here at SMC. However I’ll point you in the right direction. Be wary of providers who nickel and dime you for daily updates instead of focusing on long term best practices and results. Further, if it sounds too good to be true…it is!
You don’t need 30 or 300 domains to rank well, either.
Intelligent on and off page SEO strategy combined with a connected link builder are still the boring old strategies that work (it’s not flashy, it just works). A ‘good’ SEO is like an investigative reporter, searching for leads (links) and developing new relationships that produce long-term.
SEO is an absolute necessity, and there are stellar firms and consultants up to the task when it comes to moving you up the ranks. Just make sure they’re battle-tested before investing your time and resources.