If you read anything about “SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION” today, then take time to read this. I’m likely to give probably the most honest, self-explanatory and bullshit free post I believe I’ve ever composed, about SEO, the people involved and the issues that presently occur.
This post is the result of having spoken with a large number of business owners earlier this week, who’ve enquired about search engine optimisation, and have then complained about it –
- Being cheated
- Losing their search positions
- Becoming trapped in lousy contracts
- Relinquishing thousands
….and so on.
It’s becoming a lot more apparent when i talk with people, precisely how defensive business owners have become when dealing with SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING organizations.
SEO got you burned out? Learn to chill out. http://t.co/t0JvqEYuwp
— Patrick Coombe (@patrickcoombe) June 27, 2013
How come this is happening?
The reality of the problem is that companies understand that they need SEO to become found in the various search engines (especially Google) however because of the amount of BS that’s presently going on in the industry, they’ve become significantly wary of getting cheated.
Here’s what I believe is currently happening.
SEO is actually relatively new
I understand SEO ‘s been around for a long time now, but in the event that you compare it with other styles of advertising such as for example radio, newspaper, tv and magazine, it really is – only a infant. And as you would expect with anything that is new and extremely profitable – every guy and his dog are jumping all over it, yelling “We’re the very best – our results are guaranteed”. Problem is – no one can guarantee anything. SEO is definitely a “best effort” exercise, that’s not regulated at all. Right now, it’s sorta like the “wild west”.
It’s in high demand.
There’s absolutely an enormous demand for search engine optimisation services right now with companies will do just about anything to be the on the “first few results in Google” for their desired keywords. Demand is a good thing when there’s supply, or at the very least a GOOD supply. Right now, i think lots of business owners are out to find gold and they’re digging stone with plastic picks.
Many SEO organizations thrive on clueless business owners.
Many SEO organizations love it that business owners are usually utterly clueless about SEO and how it operates, because this implies all they have to worry about is pitching them an awesome sounding offer and signing them up. As long as companies hear “first web page rankings”, and the salesperson gets “credit card numbers”, everyone wins. Until it all goes pear shaped.
Companies want search positions as INEXPENSIVELY as they possibly can.
This is one of the primary difficulties in this sector – pricing. Most companies view SEO as an “expense” instead of an investment. That is why I always hear, “Just how much will this cost“, or “You’re very costly“. They’re not considering seo as an investment decision for their company.
Should you be spending a monthly charge towards SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION, over time, you should be creating a positive ROI – and the only way that’s likely to happen is in the event that you concentrate on increasing income and product sales, NOT keywords and search positions.
Rankings usually do not mean income – conversions do!.
This is actually the VERY reason, I ask queries like …
- How much is the site presently making monthly on average?
- Exactly what is a customer worth for you?
- How do you think you’re generating sales?
- What exactly are your conversions?
…and so on.
I ask these types of queries for a reason. Not because I am attempting to see how deep your wallet goes, but how exactly i can help Boost REVENUE. That’s the whole point. Not keywords. Not search positions. Infact, it’s not really until much later on in to the campaign, that we may begin discussing keywords and search positions.
Low-cost SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION will become troublesome because numerous business owners base their decision on Cost. When companies do that, they’re not really seeing the complete picture – which leads to the issues that we have finally – SEO organizations dropping their charges to become the cheapest, merely to get clients. It becomes an entire “churn and burn” operation.
And what is worse is when organizations drop their prices, the standard of their services drops as well. They start –
- Spinning content
- Key word stuffing
- Building out slim articles
- Using robotic software program that blasts links everywhere
- Outsourcing to overseas staff members at $3 per hour
Effectively SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING organizations are increasingly being “squeezed” to satisfy market need, and for that reason, we end up getting lousy solutions springing up everywhere. This essentially creates a constant cycle of craziness. Business owners want inexpensive SEO, organizations want clients, organizations reposition their prices to fulfill the demand, the product quality drops, the outcomes turn out to be non existent, business owners end up getting frustrated and complain.
It’s complete craziness.
Numerous SEO organizations are ripping businesses off.
I talk with plenty of companies, and inturn, I visit lots of web sites. When businesses come to me and say, “Mike, we’ve been recently dealing with XYZ SEO company, and we’re unhappy”, I’m often completely shocked to see the kind of work that is done. To provide you with an example, here are some items that I’ve discovered when assessing clients websites which are paying decent money.
- No onpage optimisation at all. The SEO company has merely gone about developing crummy links pointing back to the customers site. It is a huge waste of time, because without sorting out your onpage problems first, developing links to it really is pointless. It’s like attempting to fill up a bucket with water that’s filled with holes.
- Spammy links. That is definitely the most typical. Generally, it is a direct consequence of inexpensive SEO, whereby the organizations do only submit your site to spammy business directories.
- Serious over optimisation. This happens when agencies continuously hammer keywords, precise match anchors and so forth to the stage where the web site will become seriously over optimised and at the brink of receiving a penalty.
What’s even worse is I’ve worked with clients which have had their websites negatively impacted or penalized due to dealing with agencies such as these. It makes helping businesses so much harder when you’re beginning a campaign with a negatively affected site.
Organizations don’t care so much because there’s so much demand, customers become disposable.
Clearly I’m not really suggesting that all companies are like this – but there is undoubtedly quite a lot out there.
well, I’m glad to read this, because you’re right; for so long seo was flooded with con artists, but since penguin those seem to have moved on to social media, some of them try to hold on selling ‘content management’ which means they’ll overcharge you for writing some crappy blogs posts with some social shares, but they won’t do any seo-engineering.
I like to think I fit in the same category you do; those few rare exceptions that actually know what they’re doing … you know, honest people.
We’re in Phuket, Thailand, I’m from Antwerp, Belgium and the writers are in Singapore, so although it’s outsourced overseas … we charge more than $3 per hour!!
although it will probably take quite a while for seo to gain a good reputation, I do believe eventually it will, simply because google has finally be able to make it complex enough to keep the ordinary scammers and spammers out … I’m still here and here to stay, because I’m smart enough to actually understand seo, that’s why we’re able to deliver quality and so real results and why our clients can afford us!
I feel sorry for those people that end up ordering from any of the scammers, but they usually don’t do that for too long, eventually those scammers and spammers will have been forced to go elsewhere … at least I hope so, because it has been really bad indeed.
and its honest people like you and me that have to go against the negative reputation … seo by itself is hard enough, at least genuine seo is …