How to Spot and Avoid the Predators of Search Engine Marketing Malpractice

Apogee Search is a firm that specializes in search engine marketing. When businesses decide it’s time to outsource the task of search engine marketing, Apogee is someone they’d turn to. I’d like to point you to one of the resources on their website that can keep you from getting scammed at best (by the search engine marketers who don’t know what they’re doing) and banned at worst (by the search engines themselves!)

Do you know how to spot and avoid the predators of search engine marketing malpractice? If not, you’ll want to read their report by the same title.

It’s possible that over 90% - maybe more - of online marketing contractors holding themselves out to the public as “search engine marketing gurus” fall into four categories: Pirates, Graphic Artists, Branding Agencies, and Technogeeks.

I’ll let Apogee define those terms for you, but I found some of the comments quite thought provoking. I’ll just discuss this one:

“Starting with SEO instead of PPC is a red-flag of common industry malpractice. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is proven to work, but it works over time. Pay-Per-Click advertising (PPC) is a more efficient way to start an online campaign because it quickly delivers visible results while promoting a new website. This in turn tests, and proves, the right keywords to use in a future SEO campaign.”

This is counter intuitive in a sense, but since we live in a world with limited budgets, wouldn’t you want to test and find the terms that send your website paying customers before you optimize pages around keywords that only “might” work?

Based on this insight, the type of optimization that needs to happen first is a site optimized to convert “clicks” into “leads” (email list subscribers for instance) and then “customers” (who have paid for a service).

That’s a site optimized to serve customers, not search engines.

If you thought that was a good point, I suggest you go on to read the whole article. I found it very helpful.

Thanks to Apogee Search for pointing out this resource and sponsoring this post.