When it comes to search engine optimization, several reports keep surfacing in newsletters and forums all around the Internet, of companies who resort to shady strategies. Conversely, there’s also a good deal of information warning people they should never hire shady or unethical professionals to help optimize their websites for search engines. Truth of the matter is that many companies specializing in search engine optimization care only about making a quick buck, sometimes at the expense of the customer’s reputation. This is true in every industry, not just SEM. If the people in our industry can remember this when trying to create a Professional SEO Company (and there are many factions trying to do this), it will go a lot smoother.

So, how about customers who approach you with a corrupted mindset from reading somewhere else about search engine exploitations. Imagine they’ll ask for something such as getting 10 doorway sites linked to their domain. This kind of customer might have read somewhere that building a network of fringe websites will boost their site’s rankings, so they don’t want you to touch the site itself.

By using such strategy, one usually succeeds in getting the pages found by search engines by putting them in a sitemap and get it linked within the real hope page. When visitors find one of the doorway domains via search engines, they end up making unnecessary clicks before they finally arrive in their desired destination. So what should you do, in such as scenario: indulge the customer, or let him know that’s not a good way of optimizing a website? Certainly, creating those pages that way couldn't really be considered unethical or anything. Regardless, what if you had noticed the customer’s website featured a meaningful amount of content? It would be much wiser to simply revise and adjust the already existing content to match the right keywords, that to create a pointless roster of doorway domains.

Whenever dealing with this kind of customers, I always try to persuade them how wrong, pointless and ineffective their chosen strategy would be. Should I fail in doing so, I won’t hesitate to turn down the client. It may sound hard to yield the solid profit that would originate from such a simple job. I mean, you could probably even create those doorway pages using a Page Generator, and after all…that would be no effort at all, right? In more than a way, you could justify yourself why it’d be okay to take such a job. But if you’re interested in being a professional SEO consultant, it’s very important doing what you know is right. If keeping your reputation requires turning down an easy job, it’s all for the best.

There will be other chances to make good money with customers who don’t require that you compromise your professional integrity. Just the positive reputation you get from turning down an intransigent customer will be more than your money’s worth… literally. You can bank on it!