Each time a company undertakes a research engine optimization program, whether it's performed in-house or outsourced to an SEO service, all the attention (and rightly so) is focused on the company website. Here is the one seo optimization aspect where there is an atmosphere of control--once a website is released into the wild, the business will need to see how its site fares against all the other websites out there, whether one other sites are employing ethical SEO tactics or not.



Besides changes made to the company website, the assumption is frequently that the business and, if it is using one, its SEO service, has zero control over what appears searching engine results. However, this is simply not usually the case. Often, you or your SEO service can have a direct impact on search engine results by monitoring your competitors and reporting them to the major search engines once the SEO techniques utilized on their site fall outside what is popularly known as ethical SEO. (Please observe that while I believe that the term "ethical" is tossed around too often, "ethical SEO" has become the standard phrase to spell it out white hat techniques, and so it's the phrase I personally use throughout the article.)



To begin with, let's define competitors. Virtually every company has at the least a small number of others so it considers to be primary competitors--the ones that sell the exact same products and services, that are of similar size, and so on. It is very important that the SEO efforts (or lack thereof) of these competitors, whether they're using ethical SEO techniques or not, be monitored on a routine basis. If they have not hired an SEO service of their very own, or if they've not started doing SEO in-house at all, you can have satisfaction understanding that the use of this channel, for the moment, is yours. If your competitors begin an SEO campaign, with or without an outside SEO service, you are able to learn much about their sales and marketing tactics by evaluating the keyphrases which they target. And you may also investigate whether they are using ethical SEO practices in their campaign.







It's crucial that you bear in mind that it is unlikely that searchers are going to decide only between you and the principal competitors you've listed. They are going to consider any organization that matches their particular needs and that shows up due to their search term. For this reason your criteria for a competitor online should broaden to encompass any business that gives products or services like yours that outranks you for many targeted keyphrases. If your in-house staff or your SEO service not just continually monitors your se positions but in addition analyzes the businesses that appear above you searching results, you are able to often identify forward-looking competitors of which you were previously unaware--your primary competitors of tomorrow.



This brings us to the key issue of ethical SEO. Search engine optimization continues to be a really new concept to the majority of companies. Even the most respected companies will make mistakes in this arena, either by choosing the incorrect SEO service, or by trying in order to avoid hiring an SEO service altogether by bringing it in home with well-intentioned but unqualified people. For seo optimization
example, BMW's German site was recently removed temporarily from the Google index for using doorway pages--something that's not considered a moral SEO practice. It stands to reason your competitors will also be not immune to violations. You can find very notable types of otherwise smart and established companies hiring an SEO service that put them in a worse situation than before they pursued SEO--by getting their site taken from major search engines for violating the engine's terms of service, for example. Not long ago, there was a well-publicized example where all of the clients of a Las Vegas SEO service were penalized. The vast majority of the clients claimed that they were not informed that the firm was not practicing ethical SEO and that these were therefore at risk.