Choosing the Right SEO Company

Yesterday, a popular Search Engine Optimisation company in Australia was penalised in Google for spamming their index by using Black-Hat SEO techniques to artificially boost their rankings. The major technique they used was a link-building technique that linked their websites to other irrelevant websites. When doing a search for the sites that link to them in Google (please copy and paste the link into your browser to see the example - we have purposely avoided linking to these sites so that Google will not relate our sites with those listed):

• http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=GGLJ%2CGGLJ%3A2006-47%2CGGLJ%3Aen&q=link%3Awww.foundagency.com.au&btnG=Search

...It can be seen that there are many irrelevant sites. Take one for example, HIT RADIO. On this site you can find their links page:

• http://pub44.bravenet.com/freelink/show.php?usernum=3743912404&cpv=1

...which links to a load of irrelevant sites. These sites and their link pages are often referred to as Link Farms and are something that you want to avoid at all costs.

It is extremely important to choose the right Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) company and more importantly one that uses 'white-hat' SEO techniques.

White-Hat SEO techniques are those techniques encouraged by Google. These are ways to optimise your website without spamming search engines. See our list of White-Hat SEO techniques used at Compelite.

Black-Hat SEO techniques are used to artificially boost ranking by using spamming techniques.

The company mentioned above risks their website being banned in search engines and also all of their client sites risk being banned as they, no doubt, will be inadvertently using the same techniques to increase their rankings. This is why it is extremely important to find an SEO company that is open and honest with you about the techniques that they use.

You will find all the techniques or factors that Compelite look into when performing an SEO campaign on our Search Engine Optimisation Techniques page. We also list all the techniques used when managing your Pay Per Click campaign on our Google AdWords Techniques page. When choosing a company to Manage your AdWords Account you should also make sure that they are qualified as a Google Advertising Professional. This will ensure that they can offer you the best management and Return on Investment (ROI).

Any SEO company that is extremely secretive of the SEO techniques that they use, should be avoided or at least investigated more meticulously. Those that are open and thorough in their explanations can be trusted and researched to a point of understanding that can be trusted.

Google has a recommendations page when selecting the right SEO Company to work with. You can find that page under their "My sites ranking in Google" section.