Working in the SEO business for over 8 years brings exposure to many interesting situations. Particularly mis-information driven inquiries by potential search engine optimization prospects.

Recently I received an inquiry that was typical of what I hear from really small companies looking into SEO that get their information from sources that have little to do with SEO. Web developers and hosting companies that advise their clients on search engine optimization should think twice about some of the information they give out.

Most small businesses are challenged to find a reliable source of information on SEO. It’s discouraging when they get bad information that doesn’t work and then get a bad impression of SEO as a tactic.

Here’s a recent example:

Wondering if you can point me in the right direction here or if you have any other sources that might work better. I’ve been working on learning more about getting noticed online. My webhost suggested we buy some additional URL’s and write up a landing page for each with a somewhat repetitive description that forwards right to the home page without being seen.

So that’s all done and now I’m looking into getting them submitted to the search engines. He suggested [bulk submission software]and [bulk submission web site], just wondering if you had an opinion on these or had a better idea. We bought about 20 url’s, many including our geographic area in the URL such as [geourl], [geourl].

I’m not sure how much action they’ll get even if submitted regularly, any thoughts? Thanks for your help.

My response:

Your web host is full of beans and is suggesting that you engage in tactics that most search engines consider spamming. What’s been done with the "landing pages" can get your main site removed from search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN.

It’s not necessary to submit a site to the top search engines anyway - especially if your site is already indexed. What IS important is adding useful content to your main site and getting links from other respected web sites with related content. Consider keywords that are important to your target audience in the content you create, in the way you organize your site and in the links from other web sites.

If you want to know more about search engine guidelines, my suggestion would be to get the information from the source:
Google
Yahoo
MSN
Ask Jeeves 

You can also get very good information from Search Engine Watch and here’s a Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization.

Of course, we could help you effective search engine optmization and online marketing tactics that are in compliance with the search engines’ guidelines if you didn’t want to do it yourself.

In situations like this, I prefer they find a SEO consultant that offers training for smaller projects or figure it out on their own. In the end they did not engage in submitting the doorway pages and I referred them to a local SEO who will be able to help them according to their budget. If you’re a small business getting information about SEO from your web host or web developer, you might also call a few search engine optimization firms as well.

[tags]seo,search engine optimization,search engine marketing,search marketing,misinformation,marketing advice[/tags]