Does anyone have a recommendation for a white hat SEO company? I have 2 web properties that I'd like to have up for the long term and want to avoid short term gains that result in Google death punches if at all possible.
Need a person or a team to provide content, links, social, etc.
Any recommendations appreciated.
White hat??? Does that work?? :-)
Yes it does... if you follow the webmasters guidelines :P
http://www.google.com/webmasters/ <--- you Need to know this INSIDE and OUT. I don't care what side of the spectrum you are on. Period... The End... Done!
however, they leave it up to you to be creative with the design, and strategy: and sometimes you need ideas from other sources for that!
Also look up "Bing" and "Yahoo" Equivalents to Google's Webmasters.
If your having some issue with ranking in Google, Target other search engines (which can be easyer), which will inevitably help you rank better in the Big-G.
The reason people wounder if white hat really works or not is because, it's not fast enough, or they really dont know White-Hat at all, maybe both? (I'm not targeting you "rmcfaul", I dont know you... only you can answer that with some self reflection though)
you can get away with black hat for a while Maybe. but when you get a manual review... your screwed.
White-Hat=Long Term income, moderate speed (depending how you build traffic, of course) will always grow if your straight with google.
Black-Hat=Short Term income, faster income potential, but has a random expiration-limit.
a Healthy Dose of both Black-Hat, and White Hat will give you more insight, into how things work.
Just keep your Black-Hat, and White-Hat Seperate from eachother, so as to not taint your progress with White-Hat.
If you want to Brand yourself, and keep a long lasting income... White-Hat.
If you want to make quick money and have slightly more risk... Black-Hat.
Both sides take the same amount of time to setup, depending on how "smart" you are about getting the job done (IE: Outsourcing, Software, Platforms, etc.).
Unless you get Smacked by google a lot for black-hat, inwhich case you will find yourself starting over most of the time.
Tallon,
LOL. Good points. I was mostly being a little sarcastic. But you have laid it out quite nicely.
I started this "biz" with SEO, but have come to the conclusion that SEO is far too random in it's sustainability as a business model. As you have no control over Google's random updates to their algo.
With paid traffic, it is a definable and sustainable source of income.
There will be always places to buy traffic.
Or you can come up with really cool ideas that are widely adopted. I am certain that Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter, and Pinterest did not have their growth from SEO.
But if you want to build up a brand then SEO should be part of the strategy for sure. And white hat for sure.
Thanks,
Rob
SEO was my bread and butter till middle of last year. i am good at bringing sites to first page of google. part of business came from freelancer and below is my feedback link
http://www.freelancer.com/users/feedback_518461.html
but it was boring and got little tough after google panda. SEO needs patience which neither me or my client had. despite series of private clients i stopped taking business because-- it was boring.
thought to give you background so that you can take my advice seriously.
for SEO to work just maintain proper link velocity and link acceleration. let it appear natural to google and you would find that your keyword would start moving to first page. provide variety at regular interval and thats all you need to do.
it was my secret and i am sure it would help some (my contribution to this forum).
only thing i wont tell is my clients, my sources/vendors/software of link building and my tactics.......Dont worry .......above advice would give you lot of ideas.
recommendation for SEO- try freelancer or such sites. make sure you got tight delivery timelines and performance based payment. not all are good so screen well.
good luck buddy.