23rd February 2008

Search engine optimisation is a sophisticated area and this article aims to highlight some of the potential pitfalls when engaging an agency.

A well search engine optimised site has become a priority for many web site owners, with a number one ranking in Google becoming an often quoted holy grail.

With this growing demand many design, marketing and technology companies now offer search engine optimisation services. The difficultly for many people charged with commissioning search engine optimisation is in ensuring that what they are paying for is effective and safe.

In order to give an outline of the types of approach you will find amongst search engine optimisation suppliers I have split them all into 3 groups.

The Good.

Ethical search engine optimisation.

These agencies will utilise 'ethical' search engine optimisation techniques that aim to reshape the text content and structure of your site in order to align your offer with important search terms for your marketplace.

An ethical search engine optimisation company will use only honest techniques, the main benefit of which is that the risk of being blacklisted is reduced.

The Bad.

Black Hat search engine optimisation.

Black hat search engine optimisation companies use any techniques available with varying degrees of skill in order to improve the search engine ranking of a web site.

This includes spamming search engines with bogus information in order to make a web site appear to be more popular, bigger more relevant than it really is.

We now have a game of cat and mouse between the search engines and these unethical search engine optimisation companies, which the search engines banning web sites for using certain techniques and the black hats devising new ones.

The Ugly.

Pretty much everyone else.

As search engine optimisation is inherently a technical exercise there are agencies that take advantage of the difficulty many marketers have in understanding search engine optimisation.

The risks associated with using someone who recommends and implements techniques designed to trick the search engines can be considerable.

I for one would not want to be in the position of having to get a website out of a search engines blacklist.

When you deal with a good search engine optimisation company, you will agree a set of realistic objectives that are relevant to your business, success of the campaign will be measured against these objectives.

A quality search engine optimisation supplier will also give you reports that illustrate how the web site is performing over time to show progress.