SEO and Cheating

When anyone first enters into the realms of internet marketing they soon become exposed to the many products and services that are readily available to skyrocket their webpages up through the millions of pages to the first ten positions. It isn't difficult to be hoodwinked by many of these shonky practitioners and unfortunately there are more of those than there are of the helpful and truly knowledgable types. Or at least it seems that way.

The 'black hat' shonks seem to be every where and they have no interest in who gets hurt or financially burdened along the way. Some of them have excellent writing skills and can easily persuade you into believing that you should act immediately and buy their product. Most of them are very quick to take your money and even if they have a guarantee, they never seem to be able to return it as quickly as they took it from you. Beware the 'Black Hat' shonks.

The 'White Hat' Group of marketers have had their fair share of being 'taken' by the shonks as well, so they are well aware of what's going on out there. I too have been 'taken' a number of times, especially in my early days when I trusted everyone on the net but soon learned. If you truly want to establish yourself successfully on the net, you'll need to know who has all the good information and breakthroughs. Some 'white hats' have been around for many years and use their real name. That's the first test. Did they give you a real name? Only a little research will disclose that. It doesn't take that long to work out who's who.

I have learned to trust information from people such as John Reece, Brad Callen and Charles Heflin - especially Charles who seems to be on the up and up. It's not possible to indicate those that are questionable or faking knowledge due to liable. Just remember, that before you buy any thing from any one - look into it first (carefully). Don't rely on testimonials on their site for obvious reasons.

Cheating Facts

No matter what anyone tells you, everytime you buy into a sneaky little service or device that is going to help you make money by moving ahead on the search pages, you will suffer down the track. You might even do well for a year or so but alas you will eventually hit the dust. Now, let's consider that you've put quite a lot of time into cheating which most do. If you had applied the same time into doing it properly, your site would still be up making money now and into the future. Brash statement you say - well I'm here to tell you from experience. I wish I'd known of those people I mentioned earlier then I wouldn't have made the mistakes I did earlier. Those mistakes have been costly especially from a time point of view. Google is a good example of quality, they could go for the money, sure. However, they know that the long term success, power positioning and control comes from making their customers happy. I'm talking about the people who search, go shopping, and above all - want to trust! That's right, want to trust their sources. Ask yourself this - isn't it better to go back to a supplier who did it right, ethically and honestly the first time? Of course it's better. It's definitely smarter. Odds on, that's what Google rely on. They want to be reliable and equally important, they want to be known as being reliable. You will do well with Google and other search engines if you act in this very same manner with your marketing and optimization.

Conclusion

If you want to be successful with any search engine, give the users what they are looking for. Try to make content original in each case. I know you can't always do that, but it is better than duplicate content in every case. Don't simply 'slap up' a site with nothing but links and scrapings - these are being identified at an increased rate by search engines and are penalized accordingly. Look for a niche and build on it. I encourage you to attract one way inbound links based on the quality of your site not on clever software (more on that later in the next article). Reciprocal linking is ok but is often more effort that it is worth. Have someone you know who is knowledgable look over your site for 'On Page' and 'Off Page' optimization. Sling them a few hundred bucks - it'll usually be worth it. People who know about seo and sem are constantly approached by others who want the information or help for nothing. That can become an issue if you have a relationship or friendship to consider. It's a simple consideration.

About the author:
Ray Baker is known as a conservative 'no shorcuts' seo expert for internet marketing purposes and often writes for Internet Marketing Journals and Internet Optimization clients. You can see more SEO related articles, tools, and services here.