I have an artcile on the ethics of blog commenting, perhaps you or some of your readers may find it helpful:

http://www.seolight-blogger.com/2009/04/06/blog-commenting-part-i-benefits-of-blog-commenting/

Regards,
Anton

Cheers,

Jim

You guys are on the money with your comments. The problem as I see it, is that for a web site owner to be able to tell a solid SEO strategy/proposal from a scammy/dodgy proposal, he or she needs to know enough to be able handle the basics of SEO him or her self.

We all know it is much easier to rank for a 5 word key phrase than for a single word keyphrase in a popular niche. If the 5 word key phrase is getting a reasonable number of searches, then it can be a valid optimization target. If it’s getting nothing, then proposing it as part of the criterion for a successful optimization is scammy. To most business owners, their web site is secondary to their offline advertising efforts and they wouldn’t know to ask the question about the amount of searches each of the proposed key phrases might be getting.

As such they are easy prey for the unethical folks in our industry, spend money on SEO, see no return on their investment and spend the rest of their lives bad mouthing SEO as a worthless service.

The only solution to this as I see it is for folks like us to publish a list of ethical SEO practices that we disseminate as far and wide across the net as we can, in the hopes that people searching for SEO info or services will come across it, read it and use it as a guideline for selecting an SEO.

I’ll start the list, feel free to add to it:

As an Ethical SEO, I promise to:

1) Only optimize a client page for keywords or phrases that can meet the client’s stated traffic goals.

2) Never submit a site to a search engine as this no longer has any value.

3) Avoid keyword stuffing in meta tags or in the page content

4) Write good solid readable content that will enhance the desired conversion activity while simultaneously improving search rankings.

5) Always implement analytics on the pages I touch so I can provide quantitative proof of progress as both traffic and conversions increase.

6) Do link building focused on relevant sites or blogs, using the appropriate anchor text where possible.

7) Avoid building many links with the exact same anchor text.

8) Avoid building pages with essentially identical content within the client site.

You guys take over … it’s late here and I need to get some sleep.

Cheers,

Jim

Its these cowboys (or idiots as well who think they know) who put us and our clients in very difficult positions as expectations and results are tampered by reality checks and the facts when the job is being done right. Such is the way of things I suppose, but I dont have to like it!

I am also a web designer/developer and understand what is involved in SEO when executed correctly, that is why I limit my SEO work. The problem is that there are a lot of cowboys out there offer guarantee’s of 1st place in search engines in 2 weeks, etc. They forget to mention that they may be using obscure keyword searches to obtain this. Average Joe taking on an Internet project for the first time has no understanding of SEO. Be gentle with them, they will come round eventually.

regards
George

It says right on my about page that most of my articles are featured titles on Helium.com…I’ve been writing there for years and have transferred the related articles over to my blog. I have every right to do this…it is my writing and Helium is a way for my articles to get more exposure. If you go on my profile: http://www.helium.com/users/edit_show/285532, you’ll see I even have Webitect.net listed as one of my links.

About 50% of my articles are from my BrennaMae pen name. If I were ripping off articles on Helium, wouldn’t I choose the #1 ranked ones ALL the time? Why would I just choose them from this one person’s profile?

Yes it is me, and no I’m not stealing any work.

I’m not ranting because you disagree with my side on this topic, I’m ranting because you’re blaming me for stealing work.

Like I said before, this is a Helium title, and I’m not quite sure why you’re only attacking my article and not the other three listed. You clearly had enough motivation to research my specific article and attack it, but you didn’t research in closely enough.

My latest comment on the above article.

Oh and by the way, googling for the title of this article brings up exactly the same article on http://www.helium.com in the number 1 position. Are you Brenna Mae?

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=Are+SEO+consultants+worth+the+money%3F&btnG=Google+Search&fp=2wlQetsoUzs

Article here:
http://www.helium.com/items/1259110-seo-consultant-seo-consultant-seo-specialist-internet-marketing-website-promotion

I hope you haven’t ripped this off.