Are SEO consultants the used car salesmen of the Internet?

No

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by Amanda Fox

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Saying SEO consultants are the used car salesmen of the Internet is something I vehemently disagree with. However that comes with a disclaimer in keeping with the theme here, some are. A good SEO consultant is worth their weight in gold, a bad one is worth less than the salt in the tears they will create. Like any profession there is good and bad and it is our responsibility as writers to do the legwork to investigate which are the ones that really work, and which are the ones that are interested in our money alone.

Billing yourself as an SEO consultant or guru is currently one of those hot button things that some unscrupulous people are using to try to cash in at the expense of good hard working people that are just trying to improve their craft and earnings. In many ways you can equate that type of person to what we stereotype a used car salesman to be. Common sense and hard work is our weapon of choice as writers to protect ourselves, work, and money from being ripped from our very bosom.

The first thing to look for is the "too good to be true" lines. Those that make huge promises are often the ones that deliver the least. I have explored countless SEO sites in an earnest attempt to learn how to write more SEO friendly articles as this is no just a necessity for know but the foreseeable future. As most print publications now appear on-line in some form the demand for SEO rich submissions is at an all time high. For the simple sake of helping other writers I will admit I against my better judgement paid for the services of an SEO consultant, or three to be fully honest and had horrifying results.

One simply advised I seed words like "sex" as early and often into every title or article I write in order to show up on one of the most commonly used search words on the web. Heck I already knew that about the word sex, it hardly applies in even a quarter of what I write. Still that along with several words of a similar nature I decline to repeat as a point of simply being decent were the extent of the information I garnered. Thanks for the three dollar fee for each of the forty seven articles reviewed in advance. The experience was similar with the others I tried as well, one costing less, the other more.

To be frank, this was my fault. I went in search of the quick easy fix to bring in the almighty dollar. Something in my gut told me this was not the right avenue to pursue, however a more overwhelming instinct of greed coupled with sloth took over. Now you're wondering how I could say these people aren't the used car salesmen of the Internet, and I understand you confusion fully.

The answer is once I began investigation SEO and SEO consultants more closely and actually reading reviews of their services I found countless hard working legitimate sources that turned up reputable SEO consultants. One of the best I found in fact was providing the information for free on helium.com on-line writers collaborative. The was no slick sales pitch, just information and the honest statement that all I needed was available, it was up to me to use it wisely. I sought out other paid sources as well yet again, this time with solid credentials and found they would actually work to the framework of what I presented, not just provide me with a prepackaged form letter of popular words to work into my articles.

The fact is they work. I watched earnings do more than increase a little, I saw a better than 400% increase in one month! I saw continued improvement on my search engine rankings which began providing stedy long term earnings that paid for any information I received time and again and again, ad nauseum. To put it quite simply there are bad SEO gurus operating in the used car salesman formula that are looking for a quick buck at your expense, this is true in any field. By and far though there are tons of legitimate SEO consultants realizing that helping you helps them through increased referrals and more money in their pockets without compromising their principles.

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