The Stuttering Fish… On SEO Quacks

Posted by Mihaela Lica as SEO Advice

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Have you ever wondered what a stuttering fish is? Well, it’s an SEO experiment I start today, to prove you I can achieve high rankings for this very search term: stuttering fish.

First I’d like to make something clear: I am not an SEO expert. I am an online public relations consultant. I simply use SEO tools as I consider that the search engines are very important online PR (public relations) channels. And I hate to see these channels being misused on daily basis by scam sites. This really makes it difficult for legitimate businesses to send their message correctly and to get the rankings they really deserve. Some webmasters really work hard to create accessible sites, with quality information – and that information is lost without SEO. Am I stuttering?

So now I am going to tell you how to choose the right SEO Company – as a matter of fact I am going to tell you how not to fall for “stuttering fishes” and SEO quacks.

The first thing you’d like to have when you pay for a service is a warranty. And you might fall for companies that promise you top rankings “guaranteed”! Don’t! There are no warrantees that a company, any company can deliver such results for highly competitive keywords. If we talk about less competitive keyword phrases – my own “stuttering fish” – you can be sure there are warrantees! There are only 246,000 Google results for this term as I write (December 14, 2006). Even a child could beat that! To put it simple: if you don’t have competitors for a certain keyword, sure you’ll get high rankings. But: how many people are going to perform such a search? Think about it! I’m sure this article will make it on #1 in Google for the term stuttering fish in less than a week. Nah, maybe tomorrow – it’s a blog after all! And what good is that going to be for my site? To be number 1 for something no one cares about is not something that makes my day! What about you? Would you like to be number 1 for a worthless phrase? I guess not.

A professional SEO company will not make “high ranking” promises, but “quality traffic” promises. A professional SEO company will not involve any spammy or obscure practices to boost your site’s search engine rankings.

If you want to see your site on the first page in Google you might as well use their AdWords program and target some competitive keywords. It will really cost you less than paying for SEO quack!

And you shouldn’t fall for that “submit your site to 100,000 search engines”. While minor search engines do have their particular importance, being listed in their results will not help you with your Google, Yahoo and MSN positioning.

A good SEO company understands that there is more to the web than Google, Yahoo and MSN and will use all possible channels to get quality traffic for your site. While SEO does mean search engine optimization, a professional company will go beyond that term, advising you to create an accessible website, a quality website that will focus on the long term SEO and not on overnight results. No SEO firm controls the search engines. No one controls the Web! What you can control is what you deliver, what you publish on the Web. And if this has good quality and it’s promoted in a smart, ethical way, the users might choose your products and services over the ones offered by your competitors. But if you stutter about your business, if you cannot prove your expertise, if your site doesn’t look professional…there’s no way you’ll ever be successful with ethic tools.

So stop fishing for a stuttering fish and go for an SEO company that will pay attention at your website’s real needs. And if you are not sure which are those needs, choose a PR company to identify the industry trends and your audience. Yes, Pamil Visions is such a firm, but there are plenty on the Web able to provide quality services. Choose a company you trust and don’t go for the first you stumble upon!

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Why W3C Compliant? The Importance of Valid Web Codes

The Need of MSN Optimization

Traffic, SEO and So On – Stick to the Basics and You Will Not Go Wrong

Get Out of the Crowd! Be Different! Choose Online PR!

6 Responses

markrush

December 22nd, 2006 at 10:06 am
1

…of course stuttering fish is a highly competitive term isn’t it… oh wait, no it isn’t… of course it’s easy to get #1 for a term no one uses… that in its self is something i warn prospective clients about… why target “widget manufacturers in bramwell road, london” when you should be targeting “widgets”
Geoff

December 22nd, 2006 at 4:27 pm
2

I think the main point here is educating clients, so that they are aware that high postion search engine rank is not something that is achieved overnight with a few keywords, but, is something that is possible with correct ballance of marketing, affiliation and user exsposure/retention (just my two cents)
mig

December 22nd, 2006 at 4:42 pm
3

To Markrush: yes, that’s my point! But again, “widgets” is highly competitive and too general. The phrase you’ve mentioned might work if your client is interested to sell solely on the local market. It will be rather difficult to achieve high rankings for this particular term. As I said, I am not a SEO. I have some SEO experience and I use SEO techniques every now and then for my clients. But my purpose, as Geoff said is to educate my clients and warn them against fake SEO strategies. I just hate it to see small companies wasting money on something with no value!
Mike

January 2nd, 2007 at 3:24 pm
4

I just tried to search ’stuttering fish’ on Google the site is not even in first 5 pages? May be i read it wrong.
mig

January 2nd, 2007 at 3:27 pm
5

No, you’ve read it well. I am aware of that fact. The “stuttering fish” position fluctuates now. I’ve recently wrote a new post: “Sic transit gloria mundi” on that very topic.

http://www.ewriting.pamil-visions.com/2006/12/29/sic-transit-gloria-mundi/

But: the purpose of my article was to point out fake SEO techniques. I also wrote in another post: Well, I don’t know how long this is going to last for ewritings, as I don’t plan to gain traffic for such a silly keyphrase. So I am not going to make any improvements anymore. This was just to prove a point: don’t fall for “guaranteed” rankings!
Ryan Jensen

May 16th, 2008 at 4:33 am
6

This makes total sense, maybe I should have read this long ago before I invested in a company that gave me a guarantee. Thanks for the information.