At times the marketing industry can seem rife with underhand tactics and ethical issues. SEO is no different, and there are several ethical SEO issues in the UK that are common to see. This article will explore some of the potential pitfalls and bad practices that make navigating the industry difficult. However, I hope that by shedding light on these areas, business owners and marketers can be better informed in these areas.
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Ethical SEO Issues
So what are some of the ongoing ethical SEO issues in the UK today? There have always been unscrupulous SEOs in the sector; some, however, are simply just bad at their job. There are three key areas which I think are particularly relevant today. This includes; the growth of AI in content marketing, long-standing black hat tactics and a lack of SEO understanding in my own industry.
Growth of AI
Last year I wrote an article about whether AI would take over content marketing. To summarise, I felt there was no immediate risk because AI couldn’t replicate the creativity, complexity and context skills of human copywriters. However, there has certainly been a rapid expansion and improvement in AI technology since that blog was published. And it would be foolish not to relook at this issue and see how different things are today. While I still believe we are some way off from all being laid off in our copywriting jobs, the growth of AI does post numerous ethical SEO issues.
Luddites Unite
Firstly is the subject of layoffs. We have already seen examples of people losing their jobs because of AI. So, by employing it, you could be risking the future workforce. However, this is quite simplistic and a bit of a Luddite response. New technology has always appeared and can be a tool for good or for bad; it is not in itself evil. Humans are adaptable, and our roles will change over time, especially in an industry like marketing. (When I first started marketing, I worked on lots of newspaper ads, an excepted dying breed of marketing).
Goodbye SEO
The more important issue is that the growth of AI showcases is actually the loss of SEO as an industry in itself. When everyone is using AI, crawling the same information to get the same conclusions, the internet is going to become a vastly boring place. Every article, even if well-written, will be monotonous and offer no new insights. How will search engines differentiate between sites if they are practically carbon copies with the same information?
In recent months, I’ve come to realise I can now identify articles written by AI, and there are a lot out there already, and they suck! This is the real boogeyman for our industry rather than being laid off because your boss wants to reduce costs (They will do that anyway).
This is, of course, a much larger conversation to be had, but AI and how you use it needs to be considered carefully if you want to use SEO ethically in your business.
Black Hat SEO & Unethical Tactics
I’ve also written before about black hat SEO tactics and their impact on the industry. Black hat SEO refers to techniques used to increase a site or page’s rank in search engines that violate the search engine’s terms of service. In most cases, these tactics no longer work, so they are a waste of time to pursue.
The worst-case scenario, however, is that they can actively work against your site. You may even end up with a penalty from a search engine. Lastly, It just simply isn’t the approach to employ to improve your sales. Your website strategy should focus on your customer, not on a robot. Creating SEO with your users in mind will have lasting benefits for your business, so choose ethical SEO instead.
Agencies Making It Difficult
Another ethical SEO issue I frequently come across relates more to the ethics of others in my industry. Agencies and developers who build websites can build them in a way that makes it difficult for the client to use their website or modify it in the long term. There are several poor practices I see which have made it difficult for SEO work to be completed, as well as website improvements in general. This includes;
- Hardcoding design and features into a site – This stops non-techy people from being able to change their site freely.
- Building in software or frameworks that are not easily transferable or common – This ties clients into the people that build
- Don’t consider the long-term maintenance of the site and only want it to look good at launch – This usually leads to excessive plugins, bloated builders and a very insecure site in just a matter of months.
These are some of the reasons I build in WordPress. It’s an open-source platform that millions of websites use, and there are thousands upon thousands of WordPress developers out there that can help. It doesn’t tie you in and can be set up to be very user-friendly. As an ethical marketer, I feel it is my duty to think of the long-term consequences of my builds and how best to make them work for future developers and my clients.
Choose Ethical SEO Instead
So, if you want SEO services that avoid those tricky ethical SEO issues, speak to me. My ethical SEO services don’t use AI and never use black hat tactics. I try to consider the long-term strategy of your website, not just how it looks today. Plus, I will always offer my honest advice on what I believe will work for your site to get you where you need to be. Any questions? Get in touch today. Email hello@middleton-marketing.co.uk to book a discovery meeting.