Sydney 2 August 2013. People and businesses get unsolicited emails from people offering SEO services. Most recipients mark them as Spam to train their email provider to treat them accordingly but a few get through.

Their promises sound attractive to website owners who know that they need more traffic. ( aka customers ) Every business needs to get customers.

It is information that brings new business not SEO businesses. If a business wants to use an SEO service to enhance their online marketing then here are some tips.

The first thing is to avoid SEO experts.

The second thing to do is to join Google Webmaster tools. Open a Google account ( it is free ) and enable Webmaster Tools under Products.

The third thing to do is to enable Google Analytics and you do that under your Google account Products section. Generate an analytics code and install it on your website.

That gets you to the stage where there is a website, a Google Webmaster Account and Google Analytics installed. You are ready for the content phase of DIY SEO.

Create sections and categories in sensible keywords that people will actually search for on Google. They will be related to the brand, service or product that the website exists to promote.

The best SEO is content.

Buy or create unique content that is real information not keywords or search terms scrambled together to try to trick Google. Trying to trick Google is not possible in the long term. It will not work because Google has a lot of money to pay very smart people to outsmart the most cunning SEO "experts".

Create good content to earn credibility with Google and its ever changing algorithims. Post that content on the website while making sure that there is easy navigation to it. No more than two clicks.

Keep adding this quality content and each time login to the Google Webmaster account and enter the link to the new content in the Crawl section. Google will index it almost immediately.

You have just carried out SEO. You have placed quality content that is not used anywhere else on the web and told Google through Webmaster tools that it is there.

Now here is what to avoid with those SEO folks who send Spam and sign up some people to their mystery secret product.

Make them list the sites that will provide high quality relevant unpaid links back to your website. Keep that list and check back often to make sure that the links remain in place longer than the day the SEO guy gets paid.

Never let SEO people have access to your website back end or administration panel to add copy or "work on your site". Some get up to tricks. Make them send the copy to you for checking and then ( only if it is high quality ) add it to the site yourself. Do not allow ftp or password access..

We had a recent experience where an SEO guy hired by a friend added software to his site that enabled SEO friendly URL generation. The problem was that the " SEO Expert " added a free version of the software that generated a link back to the developer on every page. Google regards this as spamming.

The next problem arose when the software was uninstalled after it was found. Every link to the site stopped working as the software removal undid everything it had done.. A kind of retro spite.

Then we found that the SEO guy had added his brand to the bottom of the website he was working on. No permission was asked or given and the site owner only found out by accident.

Not only did the SEO guy use the site as his free advertising billboard he added links to his site. These links would appear to Google as Spam links on the site as they were not contextual and were on every page.

The links were found by accident too. Using cheap SEO software and placing backlinks was unprofessional conduct but the main thing that caused the most embarrassment was that the ads he placed on the customer's site without permission made viewers think that the site owner endorsed this SEO guy and has added the links as testimonials. The owner would not recommend this particular SEO service to anyone.

The best SEO is a well structured website to which quality content is added regularly ( weekly ) and which is kept out of the hands of so called SEO experts. Google rewards quality writing not SEO tricks.

Spend the money on content writing not artificial stimulation of search rankings.

Another DIY SEO idea is to join Facebook and Twitter. Link the accounts and post good content on Facebook that is related to the content of your website. Google will regard boasting about the website as a show of faith and algorithms will find "Likes" and determine them as votes of approval. NEVER buy paid friends or followers. Genuine organic growth is the key.

Disclaimer - There may well be reputable SEO businesses. They are usually not the ones who send unsolicited email promising first page on Google.

The author is the editor of Businesses.com.au Contact him at ceo@businesses.com.au to protest or disagree. Or use the comment feature below.