SEO TIPS: Who is Doing Your SEO – and How?

SEO is not one size fits all. Individual sites and objectives require certain individual approaches in order to work effectively and efficiently. In a similar way, not all SEO tactics are created equally. What works wonders on one site may work well, but not as overwhelmingly good on another. There are a number of factors that play into this, but today we want to focus on why some SEO techniques are good or bad on the whole rather than in specific, niche, instances.

The best thing you can do is spread your reach so that you are drawing in traffic and links from more than just the SERPs. Focus on are articles, press releases, web content, blogging, Squidoo lenses, Knols, videos graphics and other types of content can be optimized with a common goal – making the signposts on the web point to you as the most relevant result in your field. This is how solid organic link building is built. Authority links are valued, and if you are the authority, by proxy, your content has higher value. This is how small sites grow into big sites as efficiently as possible without playing in the gray areas.

Doing this does require research. You cannot simply wing it and expect that good things will happen. You have to be diligent, wise and make good decisions. Choose a niche, find long tail keywords, run an effective ad campaign, and optimize content for any affiliates you might wish to partner with. When this is done correctly, it leads to building your online credibility and making the spiders that crawl your site light up with delight. Make your readers happy and the search engine spiders will be happy. Never write only for the spiders – they are now intelligent enough to sniff that out and it will do you no favors.

Doing all of this is by no means easy. Even if you are outsourcing, you need to follow up on everything to make sure it is exactly as it should be. That is a responsibility that falls squarely on your shoulders. Even great can make a mistake now and then. You also want to make sure they are doing what they are contracted to do and that the methods they use are approved and not something they are merely testing out. If they play in the gray areas, or crossover to the black hat side, you’ll just be penalized and lose time, ranking and money not to mention your credibility.

With this better understanding white and black hat SEO, you can ask yourself every time you get ready to do something new, “Is this relevant? Is it helpful? Always remember that anything that helps the USER is usually a good thing. It is the user you are getting to purchase your product/service after all and not Googlebot!

Google in particular will reward you for giving the user what they want. If you follow the best practices, you can build a solid foundation for your site. Anything else is bound to crumble away. White hat SEO is the ONLY approved way to build a site! That is one SEO constant you can take to the bank! Accept nothing less than the best!