Proper SEO is an investment towards your company's future. Unfortunately, unlike some industries that have been around for decades, the basics of SEO have only been around for less than 2 decades. The concept behind SEO started in the late 90’s, and did not become more mainstream until around 2003. Up until that time, there were major differences with how SEO was performed. As time progressed, these differences became more apparent, as new methods were needed to optimize a website.

There are two primary ways in which companies do search engine optimization.

1. The first is to do things the right way. Traditionally speaking, these are companies like Make it Active, that has always done things this way (the correct way). There are new tools available, and important changes that need to be accounted for, but there is a proprietary process in which is only understood by experience. The tools are the same, and available to all businesses, so if you have the time, you can do much of it yourself. What makes using a company like ours different, is that we have fine-tuned procedures that we follow to ensure the greatest impact can be made for our clients’ success.
2. The second way things are done is the “seat of your pants” approach (we made that up, but it sounds good). This approach is often employed by “fly by night” SEO companies. Remember when everyone was putting hundreds of links and keywords, and hidden information, on the bottom of their websites? Some SEO companies learned little tricks that helped them rank. We understood these to be tricks, and never liked the way this was done, so we never used such attempts. You know who else doesn't approve of these methods? Google! There are all sorts of link generation scams, content writing scams, etc. Many companies use these as they are quick methods to get rank up for a website. Unfortunately, we have had to deal with clients who worked with these companies, so we have seen the other side of this. We have had to be the ones to help restore their previous rank, or even worse, get them reinstated after being banned from Google.

SEO Methods: What's The Big Deal?

Here's the problem with using fraudulent methods of getting ahead rather than white hat methods; they are not long lasting. Do you want your business to be around, or are you only planning on keeping your business around for the short term? Perhaps you don't care about your long term credibility online? These SEO companies don't. They only care about the contract you signed and the money you will pay them right now. They are not looking at the big picture, or in your best interest. Sure, they may come across as tech savvy geniuses now, but when you no longer show up on search engines, how will you feel then?

Google, Bing, and other search engines consider these tactics used by many SEO companies to be internet spam. These are fraudulent attempts at driving ones placement up on search engines by using tricks, rather than solid marketing strategies. Instead of providing real, thoughtful content, some competitors use such approaches that won’t offer long term success, but rather short term gains, which often turn out to be long term losses if you’re not careful. Part of the reason is that they want you around for years, paying money for services. The thing is, you need regular SEO services to stay on top anyway, so I'm not sure why any company would feel the need to use such approaches to keep your business. We keep your business by consistently doing what we can to help your business. We don't need tricks to keep you as our customers! That's why we are so open and blunt about this; and our competitors hate us for it. They don't want you to know these things.

Furthermore, many of our competitors have only been around for a few years. While they claim to have been around longer, some careful searching can show you their history, and even better, can show you that some have actually copied some of our content, in order to try to compete with us. Yes, that's right, sometimes it's almost word for word, but generally they have someone change some of the content, but you can still see the very close similarities. We don't have the need to use such tactics, and have been around long enough to stand on our own successes and rely on our skillset and proven results. But rather than trust us, do a search, look more into the company you are considering to hire to do SEO. 

Here’s a hidden, yet not-so-secret method of learning more about a company. There is something called the way way back machine (do a search for it), which you can look at websites over many years. The majority of our content dates back to 2008, and some of it dates back as far as 2001. Everything aligns with our history pages, and we clearly share who we are, and how long we've been around. So, it’s not difficult to tell that we have a consistent message, approach, and use honest tactics to conduct business. That’s what makes us different. We have had over 25 years experience, have been in business for decades, and intend to work with clients long term, rather than charge a bunch of money doing simple scams that jeopardize a company’s search placement. Just investigate a little before hiring a website design or SEO company. While their reviews might be good, and they have a name, in many cases it's simply because they are good at talking with people, while keeping them in the dark about what they are really doing to their long term reputation. It does not mean they are doing an honest job. 

- Make it Active, LLC