Picking an SEO Company Pt 2

 

Cloaking uses a server side program that detects what kind of hit the website is getting. Either a real human visitor or an automated search engine spider. Cloaked pages are special pages designed with all the optimization techniques considered for a search engine spider to rank the pages and cater to what is suspected will give the page a boost in the SERP's. The Search engine positioning returns are what you see when you do a search and get the results.

Since what is good for the SERP's spider is usually not very appealing to the human eye as far as page flow, proper spelling or phrasing it has always been a challenge to build webpages with both of these factors considered. Which is why cloaking is such an appealing options. You can make a sales page that is easy on the eyes and converts into sales and make another for the search engine spider that doesn't care what the page looks like, it just factors in the keywords on the pages and analyzes the text without regard for eye flow and phrasing.

However, this search engine strategy has been abused by webmasters to get search engines to index pages that have nothing to do with the actual content you see on the website. So, even though there may be a legitimate use for cloaking it is frowned upon and can get you in trouble as the search engines hate to feel like your manipulating them using some exploitable part of their algorithm.

It is unlikely that you will be detected with cloaked pages if your using it ethically as you have not used it to tell the spider your about one thing and your site is on something all together unrelated thus you won't be reported for further investigation by a real eyeball.

Here's another issue for some people, it is the importance of exclusivity or that the SEO company you hire will not work with a competing company in the same industry while they are working for you. Some think this would seriously compromise the effectiveness of the Search Engine optimization campaign.

Search engine positioning is hard enough to establish and to demand that a company have no other websites that are competition is ridiculous. As with all web promotion there will be some competition. It is just as ridiculous to say to a company your advertising with they can't accept competing advertisers.

The same goes for seo companies, try to be flexible with your online marketing and with your outsourcing company.

I know in my seo marketing, I design pages to the best of my ability and knowledge of search engine algorithms at the time. It makes no difference who I'm trying to help at the time. Would you do any less for your customers? Could you get a lawyer to work for you and only you? Or a mechanic, or a contractor, or a doctor?

Now I've never actually had this situation and as an internet marketer I've been fortunate in my own internet marketing niches. I believe the conflict of interest as it relates to seo marketing is miss guided at best.

I'd have to pass on taking any projects from those with this concern as the very concept implies that I would deal less ethically or honestly for one client over the other.

On the upside, If you can afford the $500 and hour I know of at least one search engine optimization company that will take your contract and work on you chosen keywords your you and no one else.

Heck for $500 and hour I'd think about it.

Get the idea? If, You want an exclusive deal, you can pay $500 an hour for the big companies, or hire someone on staff and pay them very well. Hiring an SEO consultant and expecting them to turn competitors down work is possible but don't count on it.

An seo companies track record is one of the things you'll want to consider. Not what they have that is scoring good in the search engines now since what was doing good last month can be nowhere to be found the next.

Not saying results don't count in the mix but I have had very good results, rankings, and traffic from SERP's and things change with an algorithm update then your out, just like that. Find out about them, the techniques they believe are acceptable and how long it takes to see results.

If you are just doing some quick optimizing without on going changes, tracking and analysis your looking at a minimum of $500 and that is from a hungry SEO guy or someone that likes you.

Asking them which engines they have achieved the best results on is good and hopfully they can even show you current pages with good rankings and traffic from natural search engine traffic.

Here's a fun link that will show the search engines piece of the pie layout so you can see who the big dogs are. http://www.searchenginewatch.com/article.php/2156451

 

Next section we continue with How to choose an SEO Company.

 There is a grey area to some search engine strategies and cloaking is one of them.