• You depend on your website for some or all of your business. We can help.
• The people who need your products or services must  be able to find you. We can help.
• We can SAVE YOU money! Maybe you've tried Google AdWords, or some other pay-per-click service. Maybe you're currently spending lots  of money on these ads every month. We can help.
• SEO Adept can provide the services you need to rank highly in the natural search results for your most important keywords. With a high enough natural ranking, you can turn off the AdWords and stop the hemorrhage to your cash flow that they can cause. This is a widespread problem. And like most widespread problems, this one has attracted many fast talking con artists who offer you "great" solutions, but are really just trying to separate you from your hard earned money.
• Some will make promises that can't be delivered. Others will use "black hat" methods — deceptive techniques that can give your rankings a temporary boost, but that often result in your site being banned (removed) from the search engines.

Things to Watch Out For

Separating legitimate Search Engine Optimization companies from scammers can be a daunting task. Here are some common scams to watch out for:

• Guaranteed Rankings — Many legitimate SEO companies offer some sort of guarantee on their services, but if someone promises you pie-in-the-sky results (such as a number 1 Google ranking in 2 weeks), beware.
• Get Listed on Thousands of Search Engines — These companies will take your money and use a piece of software to broadcast your URL to thousands of small search engines. The traffic you will receive from these small search engines will be somewhere between minimal and none. It's not important to get listed on thousands of search engines. Only 4 or 5 search engines are really important important. About 99% of all searches today are done on Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL and Ask.
  
  
  

  	Google
  	40%

  	Yahoo
  	30%

  	Google
  	40%

  	Other
  	1%

  	Yahoo
  	30%

  	Ask
  	6%

  	AOL
  	9%

  	MSN
  	14%

  
  Your focus needs to be on the major search engines and directories. Any reputable SEO company will tell you this.
• Get 1000's of Links to your Site Automatically — In the early days (a few years ago), it helped a website to be listed on link farms, but these days it can actually hurt. The search engines that use inbound links as a "vote" for your website (primarily Google) have become quite sophisticated at evaluating the quality of your inbound links. It's important that pages that link to your site have similar themes to the page they link to. Your website will probably be penalized these days if you have too many incoming links on link farms or from other "bad neighborhoods".
• SEO Email Spam — An unsolicited Email that begins "We've noticed that you are not listed in some search engines" is not worthy of your attention.
• Cloaking — Some disreputable SEO companies place "doorway pages" loaded with keywords on your website, and promise that this will make your pages more relevant for more queries. These pages are meant to be seen by the search engine spiders, but not your visitors. Such pages may help in the short term, but using them will catch up with you sooner or later, and your domain may be banned (dropped) from the search engines.
• "We work with the search engines" — No third party company has ever worked, or will ever work with the search engines companies.

You might want to take a look at Google Information for Webmasters for additional advice on choosing an SEO company.

SEO Code of Ethics

SEO Adept and its employees adhere to the SEO Code of Ethics developed by BruceClay.com:

• We will not intentionally do harm to a client. This involves the continued use of any technology or procedure (without appropriate care) that is known to result in having the client site removed from search engine indexes or directories, or rendered inoperative. Questionable adherence to standards must be addressed via the Robots Exclusion Standard. Order your Website Evaluation today!
• We will not intentionally violate any specifically published and enforced rules of search engines or directories. Should rules and guidelines change (as they often do), we will promptly take action to comply with the changes as they apply to all clients. Where rules and guidelines are unclear, we will seek clarification and await approval from the appropriate search engine before continuing to utilize potentially harmful technology or procedures. Order your Website Evaluation today!
• We will not intentionally mislead, harm, or offend a consumer. All individuals utilizing a search engine to visit a site will not be misled by the information presented to or by the search engine, or harmed or offended upon arrival at the client site. This includes techniques like "bait and switch" where the client page does not substantially contain and is not clearly associated with the optimized phrase, or may be reasonably offensive to targeted visitors. Order your Website Evaluation today!
• We will not intentionally violate any laws. This involves the deliberate and continued violation of copyright, trademark, servicemark, or laws related to spamming as they may exist at the state, federal, or international level. Order your Website Evaluation today!
• We will not falsely represent the content of the client site. This includes the practice of presenting different versions of web pages to different users except where that information is altered solely to meet browser specifications and needs, sensitivity to regional factors such as language, or product specific needs. In general, ALL requests for a specific URL should be served identical HTML by the web server. Order your Website Evaluation today!
• We will not falsely represent others work as their own. This includes the taking of work from others in whole or in part and representing this work as their own. We may not make verbatim copies of the work of others (instead of authoring original work) without the prior consent of the other party. Order your Website Evaluation today!
• We will not misrepresent their own abilities, education, training, standards of performance, certifications, trade group affiliations, technical inventory, or experiences to others. This includes quantifiable statements related to project timetables, performance history, company resources (staff, equipment, and proprietary products), and client lists. Guarantees will be restricted to items over which we have significant and reasonable control. Order your Website Evaluation today!
• We will not participate in a conflict of interest without prior notice to all parties involved. This includes the practice of choosing to emphasize one client over another in competing keywords because there is more personal gain for the practitioner. All clients are treated equally and all will receive equal best effort in their Search Engine Optimization. Order your Website Evaluation today!
• We will not set unreasonable client expectations. This includes the practice of accepting more than a reasonable number of clients competing for the same keywords and implying that all will be in the top positions in the search engines. This also includes the implication that results can be obtained in an unreasonable amount of time given the known condition of the search engines, client site, and competition. Order your Website Evaluation today!
• We will offer their clients both internal and external dispute resolution procedures. This includes the publishing of address and phone numbers on primary web pages, the inclusion of third-party dispute resolution links prominently placed within the practitioners web site, and contracts that include sections discussing dispute resolution. Order your Website Evaluation today!
• We will protect the confidentiality and anonymity of their clients with regards to privileged information and items implying testimonial support for us. All staff of SEO practitioner shall be bound to protect information that is not generally known as it may harm the client. We will not include the publishing of testimonials and proprietary logos of client lists, press releases, and other collateral discussing the client without explicit approvals. Order your Website Evaluation today!
• We will work to their best ability to increase or retain the rankings of client sites. Clients are contracting for fee with us in order to obtain and retain search engine placement. We are charged with an obligation to utilize appropriate and allowed technology and methodologies to improve and retain the rankings for their clients in the face of shifting search engine technology, competition, and client web site needs. Order your Website Evaluation today!