Many of the marketing tactics used by unscrupulous SEO companies prey on the fear that small business owners have that they will no longer be able to reap the benefits of the free traffic that they have acquired from Google.  These SEO companies use this fear to scare potential clients into purchasing their services.  As each month passes, new efforts are launched in order to compel small business owners to invest their few marketing dollars in the latest SEO scam, or risk losing their ability to secure online business.

The truth of the matter is, search engine optimization has not changed dramatically in the 10 years we’ve been in business.  Links from other websites are still important.  The written content of your website is still the most important part of an online marketing effort; “content is king” has always been the primary rule of search engine optimization.  Today this rule has been rebranded as “content marketing”.  Nothing has changed.  The true message is still the same.  Well-constructed websites that contain unique high quality content will help out rank other websites.  It’s been that way since we’ve offered services, and I have no doubt it will continue to be that way.

The only true change is that Google now is slightly more transparent than 10 years ago.  Today frequent messages addressing all areas of search engine optimization are posted by Google’s head of spam engineering, Matt Cutts.  This is not to imply that Google has given away the house: they just have shed a little bit of light in the front and back yard, so those willing to listen can find their way.