SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the means by which an Internet marketer goes about getting a web site noticed on the search engines in the top 10, or top 5 or even as number 1. The trick is to place keywords strategically within a web site, blog or other means by which search engines will find you. There are acceptable and unacceptable ways of using this marketing technique.

1. Embedding Invisible Keywords: This is by far one of the oldest tricks in the book of Internet marketing. You use the text that is the same color as your site background. It’s done so that you can increase the instances of a search word and inflate the relevance. A variation to the technique is to make the font too small to read and inject it at the bottom of the page. It used to affect design layout but with DHTML now being used, the keywords can be hidden in the invisible layer of the code so you generate hits on the keywords without ruining your design. This method defeats the purpose of real content and simply annoys the users of your site.

2. Keyword Repetition: An irregular and unnatural repeating of keywords is used to create a high relevance to that particular keyword in search engines. When creating content, it is expected to use a keyword naturally. Site owners have gone far and above natural word usage by using the META tags to list the word obsessively. This hinders your site, since directory owners look for this sort of thing and if you actually have content, readability of it is lost.

3. Irrelevant Keywords: The knowledge that certain terms are very popular is a no-brainer. Web site owners can conduct a search of keywords and their overall usage in search engines. They will then find the top keywords used and use other SEO techniques to manipulate them. The result is that you have content and keywords completely irrelevant to the site as a whole. Like putting the word “sex” somewhere on a site having to do with cheese graters.

4. Cloaking and/or Redirect Pages: We’ve all been there. When looking for something specific and upon finding the site we want, it quickly vanishes and we wind up some place we didn’t want to be. Redirected, without our permission, to something completely different. With scripting, this can be done automatically. The old school version is click on a link that redirects you to another page. Unfortunately it is common practice among your less scrupulous web-site owners for them to create a page for users and one for web site spiders. Clicking on links can cause you to move to this page instead of the one you wanted, so the rankings can be optimized.

5. Link Farms: This tactic is also known as having a link page or link directory. It involves having a page that is nothing but a series of links that has no bearing on the content of the site itself. Web site owners use them to artificially boost their link backs and thus, their popularity. Rankings will rise on the search engines. A lot of link farms are automated while other site owners use a page of reciprocal links. Search engines are beginning to scan web sites for patterns in mass linking.

There are many ways to generate top spots on the search engines without having to resort to the sleazy tactics described above. Doing so will simply decrease your credibility and while you may wind up with higher spots in the engines, you won’t see much in the way of sales or memberships.