SEO is an acronym
for "search engine optimization" or "search engine
optimizer." Deciding to hire an SEO is a big decision that can potentially
improve your site and save time, but you can also risk damage to your site and
reputation. Make sure to research the potential advantages as well as the
damage that an irresponsible SEO can do to your site.
Many SEOs and other agencies and consultants provide useful services for website owners, including:
Review of your site content or
structure
Technical advice on website development:
For example, hosting, redirects, error pages, use of JavaScript
Content development
Management of online business
development campaigns
Keyword research
SEO training
Expertise in specific markets and
geographies.
Keep in mind that the Google search
results page includes organic search results and often paid advertisement
(denoted as "Ads" or "Sponsored") as well. Advertising with
Google won't have any effect on your site's presence in our search results.
Google never accepts money to include or rank sites in our search results, and
it costs nothing to appear in our organic search results. Free resources such
as Search Console, the official Webmaster Central blog,
and our discussion forum can provide you with a great deal of information about how to optimize
your site for organic search.
Before beginning
your search for an SEO, it's a great idea to become an educated consumer and
get familiar with how search engines work.
We recommend starting here:
If you're thinking
about hiring an SEO, the earlier the better. A great time to hire is when
you're considering a site redesign, or planning to launch a new site. That way,
you and your SEO can ensure that your site is designed to be search
engine-friendly from the bottom up. However, a good SEO can also help improve
an existing site.
Some useful questions to ask an SEO include:
Can you show me examples of your
previous work and share some success stories?
Do you follow the Google Webmaster
Guidelines?
Do you offer any online marketing
services or advice to complement your organic search business?
What kind of results do you expect to
see, and in what timeframe? How do you measure your success?
What's your experience in my
industry?
What's your experience in my
country/city?
What’s your experience developing
international site?
What are your most important SEO
techniques?
How long have you been in business?
How can I expect to communicate with you?
How can I expect to communicate with you?
Will you share with me all the changes you make to my site, and provide
detailed information about your recommendations and the reasoning behind them?
While SEOs can
provide clients with valuable services, some unethical SEOs have given the
industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and
their attempts to manipulate search engine results in unfair ways. Practices
that violate our guidelines may result in a negative adjustment of your site's
presence in Google, or even the removal of your site from our index.
Here are some things to consider:
One common scam is
the creation of "shadow" domains that funnel users to a site by using
deceptive redirects. These shadow domains often will be owned by the SEO who
claims to be working on a client's behalf. However, if the relationship sours,
the SEO may point the domain to a different site, or even to a competitor's
domain. If that happens, the client has paid to develop a competing site owned
entirely by the SEO.
Another illicit
practice is to place "doorway" pages loaded with keywords on the client's
site somewhere. The SEO promises this will make the page more relevant for more
queries. This is inherently false since individual pages are rarely relevant
for a wide range of keywords. More insidious, however, is that these doorway
pages often contain hidden links to the SEO's other clients as well. Such
doorway pages drain away the link popularity of a site and route it to the SEO
and its other clients, which may include sites with unsavoury or illegal
content.
If you feel that
you were deceived by an SEO in some way, you may want to report it.