Search Engine Optimization Techniques to Avoid

Fathom SEO is a leader in ethical search engine marketing, offering clients a proprietary process for achieving higher rankings in search engines. As experts, we also know what not to do. Below is a list of unethical tactics employed by some SEO firms.

Website marketers will do anything at times to rank well. No one can blame them for having the desire. Traffic does increase business. But should you cloak? Should you give the spiders one version of the website (i.e. text heavy) and the public a different version - maybe one with more graphics and a stronger marketing message?

We advise against it.

Too many people don't have a clue how to cloak. While some services may be successful, and you won't get caught by search engines, how do you really know? While a firm may outpace Google today, will its techniques fail you tomorrow?

Many search engine optimization consultants will insist that you should just stick with your main domain and avoid micro (or extra sites) as much as possible.

Creating extra sites devoted to specific products, services, offices and more can have its advantages. New domains with keywords stitched into them may help. In the end, maybe your main site will rank #5 for a search term and your micro site will rank #8. It's an easy way to stuff the search engine results.

Over the years, however, search engines have frowned on these extra websites because they're often caked with duplicate content. A webmaster may say, "Hey, if the copy worked on this website and achieved a high ranking, why not toss it in the new site as well?" Again, Google is pretty clear: Don't create multiple pages, sub domains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.

You'd think people would know this by now. No, you can't hide your keywords in the background. Search engines can notice that sort of thing - white text in a white background.

Mostly, it's just plain unethical.

Even if the practice were not frowned upon, you'd want to skip it because you would almost mess up your keyword density objectives for the given page.

Some marketers try to get around this by making their font so tiny that people can barely read it. Why play games with search engines?

"Catch me if you can" seems to be the anthem of some marketers. Besides, it looks plain ugly to the visitor also known as a prospect. If you're going to place copy at the bottom of a page, make sure it's pertinent to the website and this page in particular. Use a common font, keep the copy above the copyright notice and don't push it way down with dozens of line breaks or paragraph codes.

Some online marketers have a keen sense of what keywords may make sense for them. Often, they rely on consultants or in-house search engine optimization specialists to help them make those decisions.

SEO firms can fail them on purpose or with lousy advice. For example, an SEO consultant can automatically steer new clients to longer search terms that aren't that competitive. Or, analyzing available data, they may honestly believe some one- and two-word search phrases simply won't work because of the competition (i.e. 10 million competing pages).

They are similar scenarios based on different motives. Website owners deserve better direction. The reality is that some highly competitive keywords are worth pursuing. The determination shouldn't be made in a vacuum. Keyword competition shouldn't be the only factor. Too often, SEO firms and clients don't take in other selection criteria, such as age of a website, current content, a client's open-mindedness to revised content, the frequency of content changes, the website's link popularity, customer acquisition costs, customer retention rates, and product or service profitability related to potential keywords.

For example, a #3 Google ranking would be great for a highly competitive search term. But maybe a #15 ranking will be just fine, at least to attract more than enough traffic. For some companies, SEO may be extremely profitable if they only get 1,000 new visitors and sell five products with high profit margins. Some sales don't happen right away either. A purchase may be made weeks or months later - perhaps by phone (tracking the marketing origin of those calls is useful).

The definition of keyword stuffing is open to many interpretations. Some liken it to artwork (we all have different views on the merits of a piece).

One camp believes direct repetition is unethical - saying the same search term over and over on the same line. Others believe it is wrong to deliberately weave keywords in to a page in various spots. In other words, if it weren't for search engines, would you have mentioned your main product keyword five times in three paragraphs?

Your goal for ethical search engine optimization should be to make it appear as natural as possible. A typical visitor to the website shouldn't detect where you've placed search terms that weren't there in the past or feel like you're repeating the same information over and over.