If SEO companies come to you saying they’ll place and keep your site listed high on the first page of major search engines for “only” $400 a week or month, run–fast!

Unless you’re buying a full-service website management package  including some social media, site maintenance, on-site content updates and photos, reputation management, and the like to include SEO services, you’re likely to be taken for a ride.

I just learned about someone who is being asked to pay $400/month to have ten SEO keywords disseminated so his site will be more visible “organically” in his region. Really? And the company offering this “service” is providing no proof of placement, considering having to document their placement work “outside the scope of their responsibilities”. Really?

Good SEO work, all by itself, shouldn’t cost you $400/month, month after month. If your content is good and evergreen, the SEO key terms you use will be in cyberspace forever, ensuring that your site will be seen as long as you update it frequently and remain active in other ways online. So reputable SEO work can be done once for a set price; no one should be charging you month after month to keep your site on the first page of Google and elsewhere. If visitors to your site deem it of value, their presence on it will be all the search engine providers need to confirm its value.

In my professional opinion, there is very little value in writing articles and submitting them to ezine and other directories. “Link farming” like this is frowned upon. It’s considered “grey hat” if not “black hat” by search engine providers. (Don’t believe me? Run a search on Google’s Matt Cutts and read his blogs.) Do too much of it and you can find your site blacklisted.

And if you use black hat or grey hat gimmicks that don’t add real value simply to hold visitors on your site when they arrive (e.g., uninformative animation graphics or YouTube videos, or talking heads that appear automatically only to say next to nothing) your visitor may well go elsewhere.  In a single sound bite, virtual talking heads shouldn’t be  hanging out on your site reciting a vacant script that could be  used to introduce a doughnut shop or a hair salon. Whatever is on your site must add value, not just words.

Here is someone who uses animation video properly: http://www.furnacefilterscanada.com/. 

Here’s a site that offers professional voice services: talking heads.com.

And here’s a company that produces professional voiceover on-hold messages and other voiceover productions: http://www.woodstockmediagroup.com/advertising-on-hold/

So what’s a reputable website owner to do?

Your best bet, always, is to offer information that is of genuine value. Immediately give the kind of information your target audience is looking for. You have just eight seconds to convince your visitors that you won’t be wasting their valuable time. Squander them at your own peril.