85% of SEOs just don’t have a clue. If you are not shocked by this figure, you should be. SEO is an industry plagued by misinformation. With this in mind, I have put together a brief, 10-point check list to help you spot an “SEO wannabe”. Watch out for these folk, their advice could get you penalised!
1. They are obsessed with Google’s toolbar PageRank and will wet themselves at the prospect of a “PageRank update” in the near future.
2. They buy links all over the place in an attempt to manipulate search results.
3. They gladly participate in elaborate link schemes, even with poor quality sites, because “any link is a link”.
4. They spend more time thinking about where their next link might come from, rather than focusing on providing useful content for visitors.
5. They hang around on forums such as ‘Digital Point’ and dish out their phony advice to the rest of the unsuspecting followers.
6. They send e-mails and ask if you would like to “exchange links” with a completely unrelated site. Moreover, their link would likely be of no interest to your visitors anyway!
7. They usually can’t string a sentence together.
8. They engage in mass, unsolicited e-mail marketing in an effort to drum up business.
9. They will talk the talk but have no substantial results to back up their claims.
10. Spam is their friend.