How important is it for businesses to make use of ethical search engine marketing firms, and harder still how can potential users of ethical SEM firms find out if indeed their potential supplier is ethical?

It is a terrible shame but the industry of search engine marketing in the UK has a fair number of unethical ‘black hat’ operators, not only in their marketing practices but in general business running. This means it is becoming increasing difficult for businesses to seek out and utilise the services of the few SEM companies that are indeed ethical.

The question you should be asking yourself is; – How do you go about finding ethical SEM firms?

When you are in initial talks with any future supplier of search engine marketing whether you contacted them or vice versa you should be asking various questions, including:

• How do you rank in the search engines?

• How many clients do you have on your books?

• How many clients are achieving increased revenue through search engine marketing?

• Can you see some examples of first page search engine rankings for their clients?

You should also familiarise yourselves with the Google Webmaster SEO Guidelines as they include some does and don’t for search engine marketing; after reading these you should check over the SEM firms own website and indeed their clients.

The main selling points the majority of un-ethical SEM firms will use are usually:

• Guaranteed first page listings.

• Listings within 2 – 3 months for all phrases, no matter how competitive.

• We are affiliated with the major search engines.

If you ever hear the above, we suggest you end the communications immediately.