SiteCrafting, Inc.

I am amazed how many people are willing to ignore email solicitations from some mysterious contact in Nigeria that needs your help to get access to $15,000.000. All they need from you is for you to help. Your reward, you may keep two-thirds of the money. Yet these same people receive an email or phone call from someone they've never met promising search engine nirvana and they take it, hook line and sinker. Do these same people buy the stock picks recommended when they get an unsolicited FAX or email?

Look, we all want to be noticed. If we didn't we'd never buy flashy car rims that spin, add exhaust pipes that sound like F-16s, or wear perfume. Your website is no different, it wants to be seen and you want it be seen. Which is exactly what most Search Engine Optimization firms are counting on.

What They Know

1. You've made an investment in your website and you want to see a return
2. You are probably willing to spend some money with them on a retainer to help you
   
3. You probably aren't wise to what's really required so fancy acronyms and graphs look pretty impressive
4. Keeping it a mystery creates dependency
   
5. This could be a trojan horse for them into more development/design work
   

What You Should Know

1. Websites do take work and successful sites require attention which as a by product increase your Search Engine Exposure
2. There is no mysterious Search Engine formula or advantage. If it sounds too good to be true it likely is. Short term tricks and gimmicks are not replacements for a long term strategy.
3. There are simple things that you can do on several fronts (I'll explain more below).

What You Can Do

1. Start by trusting your website provider. Let them know you are interested in learning more about Search Engine Optimization and allow them to explain it to you. We've attached a planning sheet for you so that you can compare it to their answers. Better yet provide it to them and they can supplement it to what they are already doing.
2. Follow Google's Webmaster Guidelines for content and make sure whomever you hire does too. 
3. Look to have other relevant sites links to yours.
4. Submit your URL to Google and other search engines (this is FREE to do) Others include Yahoo, Open Directory Project
   Live (formerly MSN)
   
5. Make sure your code is clean, you've included technical stuff like sitemaps, robots.txt, etc. Your webmaster will be able to help you here. Look to utilize the webmaster tools.
6. Make sure your content contains the keywords you are looking to target. Make sure your content is relevant and that you are not trying to spam or trick the search engines with content. 

Overall, there are firms that specialize in Search Engine Optimization that are reputable, but essentially they are performing the work outlined above for you. You should not need to pay for ongoing maintenance of these items if you are willing to take a proactive approach to content and developing relationships that lead to links. If you are using a content management system your sitemaps, etc can be dynamically generated so they are always up to date. Just like anything there are some tricks you can play for short term gain, but like being a single in the carpool lane, it is not a long term strategy if one of your goals is not to eventually get punished for tricking the system.


Other Links/Resources:

• Google on SEO