After punishing popular lyrics website Rap Genius for their link-spamming tactics two weeks ago by removing it from search results, Google has finally relented, and the site is showing up again. RG didn’t just apologize, though. According to Tech Crunch, “Rap Genius contacted the webmasters it knew, and built a scraper to find the rest of the links.” Why did Rap Genius get in trouble in the first place? They asked bloggers to insert Rap Genius’s unrelated website links into blog posts, which Rap Genius would then promote. This counts as bad link promotion in Google’s books.
If you run a website, it’s important to invest in good SEO companies so that you don’t find yourself shoved out of Google’s rankings, with thousands of links to somehow clean up. If you are looking for local SEO companies to help out your website, here are three important facts to keep in mind.
1. You Won’t Find Great Local SEO Companies in Indonesia
Sounds obvious, right? But this is an important point to cover, since you might find many “affordable” SEO options overseas. Today, and for the foreseeable future, Google is placing an emphasis on higher quality content. In reference to Google’s Panda update, Matt Cutts, Google’s spam expert, has said, “the overriding kind of goal is to try to make sure that you’ve got high-quality content, the sort of content that people really enjoy.” In other words? Google is downgrading bad content and the links that go along with it. When you hire an SEO company from a country where the writers don’t use English as a first language, the quality isn’t likely to be high.
2. Look for SEO Marketing Agencies That Can Synthesize Your Web Approaches
Consider these facts: when online content has an image, it receives over 90% more views. And when PPC and SEO are combined together, people are 40% more likely to click on the associated website. So what if you worked with a website SEO company that could handle your PPC, SEO, and multi-media needs? This would help you save time and money, while streamlining your online marketing approach so that one company has responsibility for its success. Look for companies that offer full service web marketing.
3. Do Your Research
Would you buy a car without understanding the benefits of your particular model? Probably not. SEO is the vehicle for your website. Without it, you won’t get the site traffic that could lift your business to the top ranking people see when they look for organic search results, and your site will lack online visibility. Do proper research. Check to see what past clients have to say, and ask questions about the metrics that will be provided to you so that you can measure the effectiveness of the service.
What do you look for in local SEO companies? Let us know in the comments.