Great post here from Marketing Pilgrim, and a good lively conversation in the comments. What I would add to the discussion is that many clients WANT exactly what Greg is cautioning against in his post. Most of his points are great, but, unfortunately, a lot of people who call me (I don’t cold call) are looking for a quick meta tag and link building type campaign because the IT folks don’t want to hear your suggestions, the marketing folks don’t want your ideas and the product people don’t want your advice. I agree that SEO programs should be fully integrated, but convincing customers of that is sometimes difficult. They view it as a condiment instead of an integral part of the website sandwich…
The tips here are valid, but I don’t think they should necessarily be presented as find out if your SEO guy is unscrupulous… They should be presented as suggestions to help businesses understand why they need an integrated SEO program with a respectable budget attached to it – and, perhaps, why it is better to do it in-house…
Read on:
8 Tips for Avoiding an SEO Fraudster
