The hot topic is search engine marketing... every company these days understands the importance of search engine marketing, especially organic search marketing. But be careful of who you hire to provide this service. Recently we have taken on several clients in the vacation rental management industry. These companies provide valuable services to vacation home owners by running professional rental companies to lease their clients' properties to tourists. Vacation home rental management companies rely heavily on search marketing to have their web sites rank so that online consumers know that there is a choice for lodging beyond the standard hotel rooms.

As I was speaking at the recent Florida Vacation Rental Management Association in Orlando this month, I had several companies ask me to take a look at their web sites and consult with them about their program and how to improve it.  My SEO department was stunned when they found company names, other than the rental management company's name, in the meta tags. As we researched this some more we realized that this company had actually done this across the board.  One of the vacation rental management companies said to me, when I told them what I had found, "well if that's not illegal it is at the very least unethical" and yes, it is.

My point is that if you hire a company to perform search marketing for you, check the work after it has been done. Make sure that no company that you are paying is taking you for a ride by hijacking your web traffic. The reality is that there is enough business out there for every professional search and Internet marketing company. If you have to play that way to get your own web site to rank in the search engines you should not be in the business.

If you have discovered this or other unethical practices I would like to hear about it, but I hope it has not happened to you.

till next time...

Leah Woolford