Search Engine Optimization companies are quite literally, a dime a dozen. When you look at the services being offered, make sure you understand what you are getting and if it is actually of long term benefit.

Here we list some commonly advertised SEO techniques and how they can sometimes be falsely bought in too. Before you decide to purchase any SEO/SEM packages, educate yourself.

Search Engine Submission Service - This often is touted as "the" way to get your site into the indexes of Google, Yahoo and "hundreds of other search engines." The truth is, you do not need to submit your site to the search engines. If you properly design, update & link your site, search engine spiders will naturally discover you. Offering RSS feeds with regular updates will expedite this process.

Top 10 Rankings, Guaranteed - Anyone guaranteeing top 10 results for you, is simply "selling the bridge." Firstly, I like to think it is an obvious fact, but this guaranteed rank has no "keyword/phrase/etc" included with it. Aside from using pay per click campaigns, anyone guaranteeing overnight top 10 placement is likely to be using spam tactics that will inevitably harm your ranking. Top 10 rankings for specific search words/phrases are possible, however they are not guaranteed.

Meta Keyword Optimization - When search engine optimization was first realized, optimizing the keyword "meta" tags within html source code was the key to successfully being catalogued (indexed) by the search engines. This technique was soon exploited and outdated. Onpage optimization now consists of many more factors, such as title + description tags, keyword density, topic headings, subject matter, interlinking, etc. Optimizing meta tags is time wasted.

Inbound Links - Having other sites link to your page is the original form of traffic generation. With a targeted inbound link campaign, wherein sites that are relevant to your industry link to you, your site will always have quality traffic regardless of SERP fluctuations. Generally when an SEO firm offers inbound link campaigns, they often offer X amount of links for X amount of dollars. Unfortunately they do not give you an idea of the quality of these links. If you own a car dealership website, 100 inbound links from unrelated websites will be of no benefit. Inbound links must be relevant to your industry.