Tom Pimental : Web Creative

Having spent the better part of my professional career in online media, I’m acutely aware of the seduction of SEO. Countless unsolicited emails have graced my inbox touting higher rankings, mounds of traffic and never-ending revenue. But time after time, the only things that ever seem to work are good content, good layouts and quality external links—all things “SEO experts” cannot deliver.

Google’s own SEO Starter Guide states, “Creating compelling and useful content will likely influence your website more than any of the other factors discussed here.” What does this mean? Simply write content for your audience, not search engines, and Google will find you because people will notice your high quality content, products and services and link to them from their Facebook, Twitter and blog pages.

So the next time you receive an unsolicited email from a self-proclaimed “SEO Expert” keep an eye out for these scam warning signs:

1) Promises of increased rankings: No one, except a developer at Google or other search engine, has the power to physically better your search ranking. If someone makes this promise, get it in writing and get a good lawyer.

2) Any references to increasing your external links: External links should be earned, not bought/scammed. Anyone can go out and spam forums and blog comments to artificially increase your external link counts. You’d be better off spending your money on graffiti artists to spray paint your URL on a bridge as Google looks at the quality and context of the link to your page over the volume of them.

3) Keyword optimization: Keyword stuffing is one of the worst things you can do. Don’t force keywords into your meta data and site copy in the hopes of attracting searchers, because if your site is solely optimized for search engines, you’ll leave your users confused and clicking the back button to get to your competitor’s search listing.

4) Your description or keywords meta tag are not “optimized”: “SEO Experts” love to use free tools to “analyze” your site’s “search friendliness” and use those official-looking reports to scare you into doing business with them. Google’s own Matt Cutts has stated that Google does not use the keywords meta tag. Description tags are important, but again they should follow the rule of “write good content” and avoid reusing too many of the same keywords.

5) Quick turnarounds: Changes you make to your site can take 6 months or more to propagate through search results. If anyone is touting a quick fix, they’re probably doing things like keyword stuffing, link baiting, etc, which Google will eventually penalize you for.

6) External links: It’s no secret that external links (links on other sites to your site) play a big role in how well your site ranks. However, these links should be obtained over time by writing good content, providing exceptional service and generally having a useful website. Some firms will plaster your site all over forums and fake directories, but when it comes to links, quality always trumps quantity.

Take it from me, one small business owner to another, SEO can be a silver bullet, but Google owns the gun that fires it.