Schubert Solutions

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has been buzzed about since search engines began.  Everyone wants to know how to get their company to the top of search engine rankings organically.  Not the paid spots at the top of the page.  The actual search engine results.  That’s free marketing, and who doesn’t love that?

SEO specialists abound, and they all promise to increase your organic search engine rankings–for a fee.  Free marketing apparently comes with a price tag.  There has been a proliferation of websites on the internet, and as a result, companies are jockeying for top position.  With so many companies and only a few first page search results, getting to the top is rarely free anymore.

Unfortunately, with this boom in websites (and the subsequent boom in need for SEO specialists), the internet has become overrun with awful content.  I mean, seriously awful.  Some SEO “experts” will load articles with keywords, to the point where the actual content no longer makes sense.  They are writing solely for the search engines, and not considering how the content might read for the searchers.  For a while, this style of keyword bombardment actually worked.

Now, however, keyword-riddled articles are more likely to get your blacklisted from Google’s search rankings.  The number one search engine is attempting to remedy the problem by constantly making changes to their search algorithms.  This hasn’t stopped the SEO “experts” from charging clients and filling the web with keyword-filled drivel.

What makes these SEO “experts” so bad?  Not only do they bury actual, helpful content in a sea of useless articles, they can be a pricey way to make sure you wind up in Google’s version of oblivion.  If your SEO contractor does any of the following shady business practices, it may be hurting your page rank much more than it’s helping.

• Duplicate content. Often, shady SEO companies will repost the same article with only minor changes.  Over and over and over.  This may increase the number of onsite keywords, but it does nothing to keep readers on your page.
• Unreadable articles. Sure, you want high keyword density, but high is more like 4%, not 70%.  How many people will actually read your articles?  With new Google algorithm updates, the amount of time a user spends on your site can help determine your rank.  If there are unreadable articles, the user will immediately click away.
• Cloaked pages. This is a highly dangerous practice, as it is likely to get you banned from Google search results altogether.  It happens when SEO site builders layer your website pages, so that what you see is a page optimized for the reader, but underneath sits a page filled with keywords.
• Excessive linking and link farms. Part of SEO is obtaining appropriate backlinks, but this is traditionally done by creating awesome content that others want to link to.  Many pages will provide reciprocal links, but only if your page relates to theirs in some way.  However, sometimes SEO “experts” will link your page back to link farms and add tons of links for their other clients onto your page.  This may help with SEO in the short term, but it is also something that Google frowns upon.
• Hidden keywords. The practice of hiding keywords on the page is meant to help search engines find the site without having to worry about actually incorporating the keywords in site content realistically.  Keywords will be written in the same font color as the background, rendering them invisible unless you highlight them.