An update on the old black hat vrs white hat SEO arguement

You are all fimiliar with Black Hat SEO right? That’s where an SEO minipulates the search engines alogrythms to boost their rankings. This is not illegal, but violates the search enginges rules for inclusion in their searches, some of which can be pretty lame and hypocritical.Anyhow, I remember hearing this saying one time “Liars are smarter then non liars because you don’t just have to rember what you said but you also have to remember who you said it too.” I think that was from a comedy, but can’t put my finger on it. The fact is that it is 98.53% on the money when it comes to SEO. Pissing off the major search enginges and is easy and its hard to know exactly where the line is that you don’t want to cross. If you plan on getting caught, and you should if you practice the dark arts of black hat seo, then you have to know how to completly change your identity. You will need a new hosting account and web address. Hoever if you get banned from Google adwords, MSN adcenter or Yahoo Search Marketing then this could be as extensive as using a different computer, hosting company, domaina name, credit card, name on a credit card and IP address. They clearly don’t like getting burned twice when internet advertising is concernted. Black hats also need to know skills like cloaking and spamming, but they need to know the most up to date methods or they will get caught right away. Bam. If you aren’t one step ahead of Google then all your efforts are for not. In fact with modern black hats its not a matter of if you will get caught but rather when you will be, so you better make enough money of your site to justify the time spent on it if you go the black hat way.

Obviously anyone who uses black hat techniques when marketing someone elses sight is a reckless fool, unless of course the person who hires said SEO knows that they are doing it in wich case they are the uniformed fool. Unless that person knows and trusts the black hat SEO and the risks involved, did I just digress?

But with great risk comes great rewards. Some markets are so competitive that the only way to get on the front pages of the search engines are to cheat (online gambling, adult sites, and viagra for example), and the SEO’s fight it out like online Samurais and ninjas. However, the learning curve is steep where black hat is concerned and their is no school you can attend to learn such dark arts. At least now ligitimate illigitamate school that I know about, I’m sure their are scammers out their who will teach you (how to get caught) for a price.

I personally would recommend anyone new to the wild west of internet marketing stick to white hat SEO, but know this as a fact. “If you walk on this side of the road, safe. If you walk on this side of the road, OK.. but if you walk down the middle, SMOOSH! just like grape!”

-Mr. Meogy, The Karate Kid (c. 1983ish)

Is it wise to invest in search engine optimization services and search
advertising in a bad economy? You bet. SEO and paid advertising are
relatively inexpensive ways to advertise when compared to the older
medias, radio, television and print ads. Online media is the fast
growing and most important media in those under forty and gaining on
television in older demographics, but more importantly, it isn’t as
saturated and its benefits are measurable. Another advantage is that
gaining expose and positioning online is communalative. The more search
engine optimization and played advertising you do the further your
dollars will go. During a recession these dollars will go even further
since there is a lesser demand for premium positions.

Smart companies will use this time to maneuver their company into the
best online positions while it’s less expensive, and they will be ready
to take off when the economy turns around again. As the recession
weakens competitors, companies with an eye on the future can get in
position to dominate their market place.

Perhaps your company can’t afford to pay any amount for search engine
optimization and search advertising. There is another option, it’s
called performance based marketing. Basically the SEO company will
receive a percentage of the income you receive from their promotions.
The only thing you need to commit is some time to work with the SEO
Company in order to come up with a promotion. For example, if you do
sell Canoes you might pay the SEO company $185 for each sale that uses
the offer they promote. This risk free option works best for larger
purchases, but it can be tailored to almost anything. SEO experts can
also generate leads for you to contact and you can pay them per lead. To
start a performance based program simply contact an SEO company.

Right now the internet is still a relatively young media, but it’s also
an extremely important one. Younger people use it exclusively to find
goods and services and it’s growing rapidly. This opportunity is
literally make or break for companies and now is the best time to jump
in or fall behind.

Search Engine Optimization has the potential to radically increase your
profitability; however there are some pitfalls to be avoided when
seeking to hire SEO services. There are several, although unequal, options for
hiring Search Engine Optimization (SEO) work. You can hire an SEO expert
to work in house, hire an SEO company from another country or higher an
American SEO company. This article will take a quick look at each of
these options.

First, should an in house SEO be hired? This option seems viable for
only the largest of companies. An unfortunate reality of SEO is that
most people don’t understand what an SEO does exactly, so in a smaller
company it may be perceived that an SEO doesn’t do anything except place
some PPC ads and wait a month to analyze them. It may not be as
noticeable that the SEO is spending his/her time link building and
improving ranking for a variety of keywords. Also, it may seem that once
the SEO has achieved top rankings for the targeted keywords there isn’t
as much to do, again this isn’t true as the SEO must maintain the
positions but perception is everything. A very real disadvantage exists
concerning in house SEO’s however, succession of the position at the
time of the SEO’s departure. SEO’s are not generally willing to share
their strategies and methods with another SEO and even if they did
different SEO’s have different strategies.

Should an SEO company be hired from the less expensive third world? This
is perhaps the worst mistake that can be made, there are many SEO
companies based out of India, Indonesia and a variety of other
countries. The truth is they can do more harm than good. Promises of
thousands of links often mean they will use software to spam sites with
links to yours. This will be quickly noticed by Google and the other
search engines and your site will be penalized. Another problem is that
they lack knowledge of US culture and command of the English language,
this cultural barrier can cause them to create copy and verbiage that is
confusing or embarrassing for your company. Out of contrives SEO’s have
very little accountability and can ruin a brand in weeks that you have
spent years building up. These companies have no accountability and too
often use unscrupulous methods making this the worst option in SEO.

That leaves hiring a US SEO company as the best option. SEO companies
have a reputation to protect, they have wide experience with a variety
of industries and they generally have a pool of human resources and
technological tools to pull from. Also, they can adjust to the work load
much easier than an in house SEO, if the work is light for a particular
month, then you will be billed for the lesser amount. Companies also
have the advantage of not taking vacation time and generally have
experts in a variety of SEO skill sets. In the end, hiring an American
SEO company will be your safest bet, and generate the greatest return on
your investment.

A while back Britney Spears walked into a barber shop and shaved her head. The photographers where right there and of course the pictures would soon end up online. What a crazy chick right? She must be really screwed in that bald head! Before that she had accidentally flashed a private part to the paparazzi and exposed, (excuse the ludeness) a shaved part of her anatomy due to a lack of underwear and some good upskirt photography. What an idiot!

Well not so fast, maybe she just got a little advice on SEO and PR (public relations, not page rank) and realized that she could bury the pictures of her shaved private part with the new pictures of her shaved head. Searches for ‘Bald Britney ‘ images and ‘Shaved Britney ‘ images would then produce the pictures of her at the barber shop not the club. Now I may be assonated for revealing this to the world about the pop star, but it demonstrates a good point, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has a role to play in public relations. This doesn’t clear Britney from being completely nuts, but it shows that unwanted press can and is buried through strategic planning. Companies that receive bad publicity often wisely release their own versions of events along with other materials that flood the search engines burying the bad news. This isn’t really misinformation, but more like over whelming the information outlet. Politicians have been accused of this for years; they call it wagging the dog, or in Bush’s case it’s gay marriage instead of a haircut. It’s the same thing as in SEO, if there is something people are paying attention to that you don’t want them to (like the war in Iraq in the Bush example) simply point at something else and start yelling “Hey! Look over there!”. When done correctly, by a genius like Britney, only an isolated Michigan SEO blogger notices… when someone that isn’t quite as sharp like, say President Bush does it though it can be less effective. Regardless, there is a lesson here for all companies and people that want to manage their brand online, everyone is going to get slammed on the net, so make sure the slams don’t get top page ranks on the search engines. Throw a hay stack on that needle.