Just because you can…

This space for rentI have a good example today of "just because you can, doesn't mean you should". A lot of website developers and owners understand enough about search optimization to know incoming links to your site can be a very important part of your overall strategy.  What many don't understand though is it does matter where those links come from. Here's a great example of search engine link spam-http://www.hookah-smoking.com/dir/directory.html. If you visit this website, you'll see it has everything to do with smoking the hookah.  If you scroll down the page, what you'll find is a spammy list of "link trades" from sites like LiveSouth.com.  The aforementioned website advertises luxury real estate...to quote a co-worker, "...there's quality traffic for you, nothing pre-qualifies a luxury home buyer like a little hookah smoking addiction." Folks, when you're out there trading links, buying links or whatever techniques you use in acquiring links to your site, for goodness sake keep it relevant.  The search engines aren't going to award you for spamminess and it's no service to your own visitors either. And if you're looking for certified SEOs, you should start your search here: SEO Certification.

Why #1 isn’t necessary

SEO SoccerIn sports being #1 is the ultimate goal of each team and there can be only one.  In search engine optimization, clients and SEOs alike often focus on the #1 place in search results for particular key words and phrases but it really isn't necessary to be #1 to be successful, and any SEO who guarantees a client a #1 spot on Google or any other search engine is taking a huge risk in making that promise.

Snake-oil promises

Why you might ask?  Google and all search engines regularly change their ranking algorithms, other competitors enter the field of competition and a myriad of other scenarios cause daily fluctuations in search engine result pages (SERPs).  If you are fortunate enough to be #1 in Google, better enjoy it because staying there for any length of time takes incredible effort (and a fair shake of good luck too).  

    • Marty has been an active search marketing professional for over 12 years. He has consulted with the Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 as well as medium to small B2B and B2c businesses, governments and higher ed.