I got a tweet this morning from someone linking to an article titled, “Five Tips for Avoiding Deceptive SEO Companies“. I like to read articles like this when possible, as it often helps me relate better to potential SEO clients.

While the best advice I could give someone was featured prominently in the article (avoid any SEO company that guarantees a specific ranking for keywords), I was a little disappointed the five tips listed were actually deceptive SEO practices - and not tips someone looking for SEO help could use to sort out whom to hire. From my experience providing SEO for business owners, I’m concern that many wouldn’t be able to identify if these deceptive practices were being used or not.

Therefore, here’s my quick list of the five tips I’d recommend to business looking for SEO services and wanting to avoid “deceptive” SEO firms.

5) References: Most reputable SEO firms can provide references of their past work; “deceptive” companies probably cannot. It’s important to note that SEO is a field where confidentiality agreements are common; therefore you may find case studies without company names, or references to names without specifics on results.

4) How They Get Results: When discussing or interviewing a potential SEO provider ask how they have been able to get results for past clients. Deceptive SEO is often quite complicated and sometimes just sounds “fishy”. A reputable SEO follows a fairly straightforward philosophy that’s pretty easy to understand (in my opinion) and applies it uniquely to each client based on their goals and objectives.

3) What They Don’t (or Won’t) Do: To quote Jimmy Buffet, “The well-seasoned pro knows how far he can go.” Everyone has limits, and there are boundaries we all should respect. I think a key difference between reputable SEO and deceptive SEO is the ability to acknowledge (and explain) the line between so-called “white hat” and “black hat” SEO.

2) Associations / Organizations: Just as in other industries, reputable SEO includes more than just providing a service to make money. There are several active SEO communities online, as well as local Chambers of Commerce and other groups that may be supported by reputable firms. Deceptive firms? My guess is not so much. Check a firm’s website or simply ask what’s important to them in addition to SEO.

1) Cost: The cost of SEO is certainly a topic of much debate, and I am definitely not in a position to settle it in any way. That said, my belief is that reputable SEO (again, similar to reputable companies in other fields) will make very clear their costs and what you as the client / buyer are getting for your dollar. I don’t believe that happens with deceptive SEO - or deceptive anything else, for that matter.

SEO in 15 minutes? Sound too good to be true? Isn’t this stuff supposed to be hard?

The truth is anyone can get an idea of whether their site needs professional search engine optimization in just a few minutes, if they know where to look.   If you’re looking to have your site professionally optimized, then having even a small amount of knowledge puts you in a much better buying position.

So, here’s your 15-minute SEO Checklist:

1. Have a Unique Title on Every Page:  The page title appears at the very top of your browser window, and it’s also used by search engines when listing search results (the words that make up link you click on to visit a site?  That’s the page title).  If all your website pages have the same title, then all your pages will seem similar to the engines - your site should be organized so that each page has its own, unique purpose. 
2. META tag for quality, not quantity:  Meta tags are descriptors for webpages; they are meant to be seen only by search engines, however using the “View Source” option on your browser can show you where they are.   Several Meta tags exist, however only a couple need your attention:
   • Meta “Keywords”:  When you view the source code of your webpages, do you see a line near the top that has a list of keywords / phrases in it?  If so, this is Meta “Keyword” tag.  While these were helpful at one time, my advice for current websites is to remove this tag from all your website pages.  Using this Meta tag does not seem to provide any search ranking advantage, and has the potentially detrimental effect of allowing others (such as your competition) to see the keywords you’ve chosen to emphasize.
   • Meta “Description”:  Another line of code near the top of your page’s source code is the Meta “Description” tag.  This tag is used by some engines just below the title when returning search results.  Your Description should contain a unique one- or two-sentence summary of your page (not site!) that people would find persuasive.
3. Have a Headline for each page:  In addition to a page title, check to make sure each page of your website has a unique and descriptive headline structure.  To get an idea of headline structure, have a look at any newspaper:  A main headline in larger, bold type followed by a concise, one-line description of the article (or a compelling tidbit from the story that entices you to read it), and then the body of the story.  If your page has this basic structure, switch over to “View Source” and look for your main headline to be bracketed by <h1> and </h1> tags.  If you see them, great!  If not, then odds are search engines will not see that as your page’s headlines and won’t emphasize it as such.
4. Have a caption for every image:  Just as the text on your website can be tagged to give more information to search engines, images can be as well.  (More tagging, so keep the “View Source” window handy.)  Images can be given a caption to describe it.  Find out if your images have captions simply by placing your mouse cursor over the image - you should see a description pop-up momentarily (if you’re using IE).  No caption?  Then you’re missing another opportunity to tweak your site a little more.
5. Include Text Links for your pages:  There are a variety of methods to link pages together, and some (such as Flash) have a high degree of visual appeal.  If you goal is to optimize your business website, however, it is important to understand that Flash programming is not easily read by search engines; therefore links embedded in Flash won’t benefit your page’s search ranking (and links area BIG factor in search rankings!).  A simple check of your website for the presence of text links will help determine if your site needs optimization.  Try to highlight the links on your site with your mouse; if you cannot highlight the link, then chances are your site is losing an opportunity to rank higher.

So, in about as much time as it takes to read this post you can get a sense of whether basic optimization has been performed on your site.  If your pages pass this basic SEO checklist, then great!  Your site is probably ready for more aggressive forms of optimization.  Regardless of what you find (or don’t find), analyzing your site in this manner should begin to help you understand what search engines look for, and how you can properly emphasize your site’s content.

Business owners taking their companies online may consider PPC - pay per click advertising - as a means of increasing website visibility and exposure.  While PPC advertising managed properly can yield increased traffic and revenues for business websites, there are obstacles that must be closely monitored.

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Small business owners face a dliemma when it comes to the search engine optimization of their websites. While some small business owners may have a basic understanding of SEO techniques, most do not have the time to stay on top of current trends. Therefore most small business websites are either completely unoptimized for today’s search engines or they have some optimiziation using oldor outdated steps. In this article, I will share some optimization tips that are helpful to most websites, have stood the test of time, and are relatively simple to implement.

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