What the Term Means—And the Ensuing Confusion Around It
SEO is an acronym for "search engine optimization" and is commonly associated with two distinctly different services:

  1. the process of optimizing a website to include very specific (and therefore searchable) content; and
  2. Google's (and others) "pay-to-play" business model where they auction off keyword listing prices to the highest bidder.

True SEO in a Nutshell
Pure SEO (No. 1 above) can either greatly improve your site or damage your site and reputation depending on the responsibility of an SEO provider. We don't risk your good name and offer proven SEO services without the hype.

  • Review your site content and structure, including creating XML sitemaps
  • Provide technical advice, specificially regarding hosting ISP, redirects, error pages, and the use of JavaScript
  • Create/rework pages that are focus driven without hyperbole and extraneous information
  • Incorporate phrases that you believe others will search on Google within your pages
  • Provide detailed analysis and reporting of sites visitors, what browsers they use, how long they stay online, etc.

If your site was created by someone without experience in this field, chances are your firm's visibility can be enhanced by retooling the content a bit. The charge is nominal and unlike other players in the industry there is no monthly fee to maintain it. We can do it because our design team includes a Google guru who understands search engine technology in and out.

The SEO Misnomer
SEO, related to No. 2 above, isn't actually search engine optimization: it's the process of setting up a Google (or other search engine) account and purchasing sponsored links from it. This service actually has nothing to do with web pages although many companies sell it as "SEO."

Basically, someone creates an account and then creates keyword phrases, then Google's system calculates how much you need to pay to be listed in the top spot (or top 3) based on those key phrases. If two other companies are willing to pay $10 per click for the word "Botox," then you need to be willing to cough up $10.01 per click to be listed first. However, the reason there's no guarantee about placement is that tomorrow your competition might notice that they've dropped a notch and leapfrog you by being willing to pay $10.02...dropping your listing down to No. 2 or 3 (or whatever). Google (and all search engines) naturally hope you'll pay more and will send you a note alerting you to your dropped status in the hopes you'll pony up more dough to regain your listing—which could be as transitory as the first round.

  • The only way a vendor can "guarantee" that your listing is in the top 10 of any search is for you to guarantee that you'll pay an ongoing and ever-changing click rate to Google to stay on top.

There are a variety of deceptive ways to cloak this service and attempt to rename it something else; but in the end, it's nothing more than paying the search engine and setting up the account—something you can most likely do on your own.

Our Stand
It might seem strange for us to say this, but while this system is great for Google (as well as other search engines such as MSN and Yahoo!), there are risks of fraud and it's very difficult to ascertain if the advertising dollars actually provide a return on investment; therefore, although we do run several specialized Google campaigns for many clients, we actually find that optimizing the content is more than sufficient in most cases and advise that available advertising dollars should be spent in more traditional and measurable ways (e.g. branding campaigns).

 

Fact: No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.
Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through its Add URL page or by submitting a Sitemap — and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.

Did You Know?
The process of adding "keywords" to web pages has been outdated for years and such information is disregarded by Google and other major players due to fraud and attempted manipulation of the rankings. So why do vendors still sell it? Because there is one remaining search engine that uses it, so even though it's a Google world, the vendors aren't technically being fraudulent, although they're certainly not helping their clients.

SEO Company Fined for Bogus Promises:
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