Knowing what you are getting yourself into is just as important in hiring a SEO firm as it is with building a brick and mortar business.

Risk and reward are the operative concepts in SEO. If you don’t know what you are getting yourself into, maybe you should do some research and apply some common sense to the equation. Realizing that “if you build it they will come” attitude doesn’t make sense in the real world, so why should this be the case online?

Ownership, in my mind, is shared by both the SEO and the website owner. If you didn’t know the qualifications of a doctor, but let them operate on you anyway and get messed up physically, shame on you!

Education is the first step. Start building your understanding and look at long term results and not just talk.

I think that whitehats should take a bigger role in the industry and be more outspoken as advocates of users and when consulting website owners giving realistic expectations of performance.

I know a great number of SEOs that are the mercenaries of the Internet marketing society. They focus on short to intermediate goals and claim the results. However, I have experienced the difficulties in recovering from negative techniques to “game” the engines. I like a challenge, but cannot stand the idea of starting in the hole.

I really wish that website owners would really consider the long term affects and play a greater role in the monitoring of their SEO campaigns. This starts with realistic, measurable goals from the SEO consultant or company that can be maintained, rather than attained.
sphinn comment

I do not defend blackhat behavior. I do, however, understand their desire and intention in practicing in this art.

That is very true. So why does people like Danny Sullivan praise and tout the blackhats of the SEO industry then? Many believe he should be using his name for good things, like trying his very best to get rid of the blackhats in this industry so people like Calacanis and the “Geeks” might see the industry in a better light. Instead, he takes monies from blackhats and allows them to promote themselves at his conferences, etc, so it’s no wonder the industry is looked at from the outside the way it is.

It’s like a …. well Duh?

Then you have all the friends of blackhats who defend them to the end. Those friends are also buds of DS. It’s a never ending kind of thing that does not seem to be changing anytime soon.

I will always contend that if you do your best by users, you will see the benefit from their word of mouth (online or offline) and the engines will follow. Given the fact that you are doing what you need to do to be visible to the engines.

Good point, but I’d say the purpose of *some* SEOs is to provide a positive user experience. Many SEOs will serve whoever pays the dough, myself included. And some don’t give a rat’s ass about helping improve Google’s search relevancy.

A professional SEO will help clients build a site worthy of ranking #1 for a target term. A newbie SEO will ignore site development and just jump right into link spamming (er. link “building”). Better the quality of a site, less resistance ranking high in search results and less money you have to blow on links since your visitors who dig your site will market your site for free.