It doesn’t seem like something as innocuous as SEO would have a seedy underbelly, but that’s precisely what we’re speaking of when we talk about “black hat” tactics. If you’ve hired an SEO Los Angeles agency, or are considering hiring one, then you should proceed with caution. If you don’t, and the company you hired has a few nasty tricks up their proverbial sleeve to artificially boost your rankings, you might be subject to penalties that hurt your bottom line.

What do you want to watch out for from a dirty SEO company? Well, among the practices favored by these desperados are keyword stuffing, devising backdoor pages, adding invisible text to a page, and link farming. There are even programs that leave spam comments to try and convince a search engine that your website is more popular than it is. All of these are frowned upon, and some of them can get your website completely blacklisted.

So, how exactly does one avoid hiring a company that would stoop to such deviousness? Much as with any other hire that you would make, you need to ask direct questions, not fall for any trickery, and you need to check up on references. A solid SEO company should be eager to tell you about their prior success stories. They should be able to provide a list of companies for whom they previously worked, and they should be able to outline a plan for your website that is specific and custom-suited to your needs. Nothing less is acceptable.    

There are all kinds of ways you can cut corners in business, but the maintenance of your website should never be one of them. You may have a brick-and-mortar establishment out there in the world, or you may not, but in many cases, potential customers are going to be introduced to your “storefront” through your website. This is the public face you are putting out there for potential new customers to see. Hiring the right SEO company, who is willing to do things the right way, will ensure that those customers will be impressed by you from the very beginning.