There are many unethical SEO agencies around and it is important that you avoid them or you could find your website being penalised by Google. For this reason, you should be vigilant that your SEO agency is entirely reputable.
What Is An Unethical SEO Agency?
Unethical SEO agencies are those that use black hat techniques to get your website to the top of search engine results pages (SERPs). These techniques include keyword stuffing, hiding text and link farming. These techniques may get your website to the top of the search results but when you are found out your reputation will be severely damaged.
Keyword stuffing involves putting in as many keywords into the text as possible, even if they are not relevant to your content or your website. This is because you can get your website to the top of the search results if you have keywords that are frequently searched for. However, while SEO agencies that use white hat techniques will research keywords that are related to your site and that are often searched for, a black hat SEO agency will just use any keywords.
Another black hat technique is hiding text. This is done through using such techniques as putting white text on a white background so that it can’t be read.
Link farming involves obtaining a vast number of links to and from your website to other websites. However, for SEO agencies using black hat techniques, these websites don’t have to be reputable or relevant to your own website. It is all about link building as search engines will list your website higher up if you have links.
How Can You Avoid Unethical SEO Agencies?
If you use black hat techniques you are going to be found out and Google will penalise or remove your website from their SERPs. It is vitally important that you hire an SEO agency that does not use these underhanded techniques.
You can ensure that you don’t hire an unethical SEO agency by doing your research.
1. Check To See Whether The SEO Agency Is Listed On Google - If the SEO agency cannot be found on Google you will know immediately that it cannot be trusted.
2. Ask For Examples Of The Rankings They Have Achieved For Other Websites - If they cannot provide you with this then you know that they are not reputable.
3. Look At Their References - Look for other clients’ reviews of their agency. If the other clients are telling you that the SEO agency helped their website you know that it can help yours.
4. Ask Them For Examples Of How They Will Help Your Website - Ask the agebct what methods they will employ and then go and research these methods to make sure that they are not black hat techniques.