Let’s take Twitter for example, sure it’s easy to set up a profile.  You just have to enter your business’ name to create a Twitter handle, upload a profile photo or company logo, write a few words about the company and add a link to the website and voila, you have a Twitter!  Sounds simple enough, but there’s much  more to it.  Having a Twitter profile requires proactive engagement within the online community, interaction with your followers, and frequent “tweets” about your company, news within the industry and information that your followers would want to know more about all while using the Twitter language and following the social media trends.

Those who still think they can handle this alone may choose to install an online platform that automates tweets for them, such as Tweet Adder. These services were developed to make social profiles, such as Twitter more convenient and easier to use, but they shouldn’t act as a replacement for normal organic social media management.  And although there are positive aspects to platforms like these with it also comes the cons.

Cons to Twitter Automation:

• Not all automation is good.  Programs tend to devalue your online profile.  There is no “love” so to speak behind the posts or tweets.  It doesn’t look natural and you fall short of your social media purpose.
• Out-o-matic, Out-o-mind. When you install an automatic platform the program begins running your Twitter page for you.  Your personal involvement decreases because you probably have so many other day-to-day activities to tend to.  You begin to schedule tweets that may pose irrelevant at time of tweet and turn stale without interaction.
• Tweet overload.  Using an automated service gives you the opportunity to tweet every 10-15 minutes or as often as you want, but taking advantage of that can be harmful.  Tweeting too much won’t gain more followers and you may be annoying the community with your information overload.
• Bad for business.  An automated service tends to promote bad business practices. You may be using it to lighten your workload, but these services are often times used incorrectly, cause spammy content, and can get you kicked off Twitter.

In short, to Tweet or not to Tweet, that is the question.  Yes! Tweet, tweet to your hearts content of 140 characters or less, but we strongly recommend the addition of social media management within your internet marketing strategy and employ a social media management service. Hey we do that!!  SEO, Inc.’s Social Media Analysts and Strategists ensure that you have qualified social media experts (like me) to manage your social profiles.  This keeps your profile, i.e. Twitter, fresh and organic, builds your community, helps feed traffic to other pages, and shows you results, with graphs and charts.

So now that you understand the importance of Social Media Marketing and you’ve secured your social profiles, it’s time to hire management services and we can help. Let’s face it Humans Do it Better!

#5. Hidden Text & Keyword Stuffing

The rational:

We can show the search engines a bunch of keywordy content and camouflage or hide it so that our users won’t have to be bothered with it!

How they will catch you:

Someone will tell on you. At this point there are just too many ways to hide text from users for the search engines to be able to detect it, so they rely on your competition to snitch on you, and snitch they will.

#4. Cloaking

The rational:

We can serve one version on our site to the search engines and a different version to users!

How they will catch you:

By comparing caches from different sources that they or other companies own or by using an algorithm to detect sites that are likely to be cloaking and having human reviewers verify the results.

Remember it’s not that serving different versions of the site is bad, many sites actually do this in legitimate ways. What you’ll want to do to get your site banned is serve a different version of your website to search engines with the intent to deceive them and users.

#3. Buy a Lot of Links

The rational:

The more inbound links my site has, the more popular it is according to the search engines!

How they will catch you:

Buying too many links too quickly sends up a red flag. Linking is at the core of search engine algorithms and they are very touchy about people trying to manipulate the system by buying massive amounts of links.

#2. Send Automated Queries

The rational:

Lets set up a script that will check our rankings for us and generate a report based on the results. Oh and maybe we’ll sell this script to other companies so they can keep track of their rankings too.

How they will catch you:

As long as you run the reports from the same server your website is on, you will be sure to consume server resources and anger the search engines.

#1. Be Evil

The rational:

If we make it so our website tries to mess with peoples computers by installing viruses, or Trojans, or do phishing attacks, we can sell the information we steal or use hijacked computers for our own purposes.

How they will catch you:

Have you ever seen a listing in the search results that has a warning by it that says “this site could cause damage to your computer”? That is a site that has been identified by the search engines as a possible threat to your machine, if it is verified as such a site it will be banned.

Here some points I have learned the hard way.

• Start at your initial conversation: This is your first opportunity to explain to the client that there may be components of the Campaign that will be dependent on them for implementation. This should help eliminate any surprises.
• Make sure the client understands the process: Take the time to inform your client of processes.  Let them know how and why you are making your suggestions.  If you listen to your clients responses you can gauge whether or not they understand you.
• Be Honest: If the Optimization has stalled or have not generate the success you and your client had hoped for, you may find it easy to tell the client “ Google is updating their algorithm” or that “it will just take a little more time” in an effort to curb their concerns.  Not only is it dishonest, but you will have to ultimately answer for the success of the campaign.  Your best bet is to be upfront and tell the client that you are not satisfied with the results and propose a solution.
• Stick to your guns.  There may be times when you are working with a client that believe that that they are a “SEO Expert” and strongly makes his own recommendations.  There may be a tendency to go along with the clients suggestions to avoid any disagreements.   This is kind of a tricky area, you really shouldn’t argue but if you allow the client to dictate the optimization you will lessen your value and you run the risk of a unsuccessful optimization campaign. This is an area where “I told you so” doesn’t work for building long term business relationships.

This may all seem like common sense stuff, and it is.  The important piece is that each and every client is unique and managing their expectations is just as important if not more than the success the Optimization Campaign.