Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of fine-tuning a Web site for it to rank well in the search engine results. As everyone knows, the better your site shows in the search engines, the more traffic you�ll get on your site. With so many companies promising to bring that traffic to your Web site through better search engine rankings, how do you separate the real deal search engine optimization companies from the scams? Cast a critical eye…

While some search engine optimization companies approach this with a methodical, almost scientific technique, others practice bad voodoo. And that bad voodoo can do your site more harm than good.

The field of search engine optimization is in constant flux. Each change in the search engine algorithms or in the business structure brings a reshuffling of the results. Whether it’s Google tweaking their algorithm, like the infamous “Florida” update or Yahoo kicking out Google’s search results in favor of its own spiders, change is a constant. While some firms hire search engine optimization companies to keep them on top of the stack, others handle the chores in house.

So how do you choose which search engine optimization route to take?

Lets start with the time versus money question… quite simply, if you have a qualified person on staff, but no funds to look outside, think inside. If you have the funds but lack a qualified employee, think outside.

Search engine optimization is an important task, and is not to be taken lightly. You shouldn’t expect a $99 solution to deliver $100,000 worth of results. But that’s not to say that you have to spend a huge amount of money to make things work. Just know that those companies that seem to offer an incredible bargain most likely do not. Go the cheap route with search engine optimization and you’ll get exactly what you didn’t pay for: poor results.

I’m a strong believer in creating clean websites—ones that spider well, play no tricks, and do all that they can to make their content attractive to the search engines. I limit the amount of fancy HTML and JavaScript. I use Flash sparingly and never bury my content inside of Flash files.

And FWIW, I seem to get decent results (knock wood). But I don’t work hard at it. I just put my content out there and let the spiders do the work they were built to do.

If you or your search engine optimization company try to play tricks on the spiders, they will eventually get caught. The tricks may work for a while, but it’s only a matter of time until the algorithms are tweaked to penalize the trickery.

My best, most basic advice is to focus on your content. If you’re interviewing search engine optimization specialists, you’ll do well to see how they approach this. A clean and ethical approach to search engine optimization is the smart way to go in the long run.