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If  you are a webmaster or a business owner, chances are you have received emails from firms offering Search Engine Optimization services, like this one:

You may be wondering, is SEO actually safe?

SEO can be both safe and effective, but there are risks involved if you are not careful.

A famous example of SEO gone too far happened in 2006, when Google banned BMW for employing SEO techniques that violated Google’s Webmaster Quality Guidelines. Since then, Google has become very good at finding and banning websites that break their rules.

To help make your SEO efforts safe and effective, follow these six tips:

1. If  you are doing SEO in-house, focus on building high-quality content. This can include writing blog articles, setting up a webcam in an interesting location, doing a client survey and publishing the insights you gain from it on a blog, or creating infographics, slideshares, videos, or anything else that people might consider to be valuable or interesting.
2. Have a good link-building strategy. Link-building is important; but be careful about how you build links to your website. We commonly receive emails requesting that our clients  participate in external link exchanges or “sell advertising space”.  If you do this, and you link to a website that Google deems to be of low quality, your rankings may suffer as a result.

If you seek to hire a search engine optimization firm:

3. Deal only with SEO companies inside the United States. If you outsource, you can easily become a victim. Out-of-country SEOs can blackmail you by holding your website hostage, use your website to send out spam, or simply take your money and do a poor job. Offshoring SEO is a particularly bad idea because it takes a long time to see results. If there is a problem with an offshore SEO, by the time you realize that there is a problem, it will usually be too late to ask your credit card company to help get your money back.
4. Look for a firm that adheres to Google’s Webmaster guidelines. The last thing you want is to get banned from Google because your SEO firm violated Google’s Guidelines.
5. Be wary of SEOs offering to optimize your website for a one-time fee. Even if they are honest, your rankings are likely to be short-lived due to natural competition and the constant changes to Google’s algorithm.
6. Check out the firm’s past work. But keep in mind that search engines and marketing trends change quickly. So past successes won’t always be an accurate indicator of a firm’s future performance, but it’s certainly helpful.

When done right, SEO can be one of the most cost-effective ways to promote your business; so take the time to consider your options carefully as you plan out your online marketing strategy.