Actually, I would like to talk about what isn’t a search engine optimization consultant. There are some “SEO consultants” in the search marketing space who really do nothing more than preach about the content of your website. USWeb recently had a prospect inquire about a well-known “SEO consultant” who tries to convince every prospect to let her “fix the copy” of their site, and pay her $2,500 - $5,000. If the idea of paying that much for advice on how to make your content “SEO friendly”, let me save you the money and give you that advice for free in my “Writing Search Engine Friendly Content”.

Beware of these types of consultants. If they spend a lot of time focusing on how most firms (even the well-known firms) Spam the search engines, make sure you know what Spamming is. And be aware that when you don’t get the rankings you needed for your business, you will often hear the excuse (like many of her clients have), “I don’t Spam”.

I posted a couple entries earlier about taking the high road in search engine optimization. I mentioned that it is easy to get frustrated about the rankings of sites that leverage Spam techniques to get rankings. There is no doubt many of them. But, I don’t tell you to give up. Focus on your own site. Be aggressive within the terms and conditions for Webmasters. Link building is often where the term “Spam” comes into play. Let me make something clear. A link building campaign in not by its nature “Spam” as this consultant would have you think. A strategy like link baiting, or asking news sites to write about you through press releases or direct contact is not “Spam”, it’s called link building.

I was on a panel a year or so ago with a few other SEO experts. We were asked about “cloaking techniques” and “link Spam”. A few of us laughed because we knew where they were getting their information. Our response was that SEO was a fast moving science. There are always new way to try to get links or build content. The best way to proceed with confidence is to ask yourself, does this seem right? Is the link that I’m getting relevant, and does it seem like something that would offend users? Does this content hold value to readers?

I am going to once again state my big philosophy in search engine optimization. Make sure you have good content that is unique, visible, and relevant. Make sure you have good links that are unique, visible, and relevant. Keep building both until you get the rankings you need. Don’t worry about Google, they don’t want you to worry about them. Google wants you to worry about Google’s users. Give them the proper experience, and you will make Google very happy.

My final advice on looking into a “SEO consultant”. Get references, and check for yourself. If their big ranking example is something like “Gastric bypass surgery in Lexington Kentucky”, then ask yourself if the terms you need to rank for are that simple. Do your own research. I often tell clients who are shopping around for the best search engine optimization firm to buy books like SEO for Dummies, which is actually a great book. The more you know, the better I think USWeb looks. Obviously what I’m saying is study up on what SEO really is, and isn’t before you hand over $2,500 - $5,000 to a consultant.

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