Search engine optimization can be very confusing to the business owner who did not build their own web site and has no clue as to how a web site is edited. Having experience with html is very important when optimizing a web site. The wrong edit can literally make your web page disappear or distort drastically. Obviously, this is not the anticipated result when making SEO related edits to a web page.
What about my Webmaster? Good question.
Does your Webmaster know SEO? Has he ranked a website for words and phrases that send searchers and customers to a web site? If he has, was it recently or was it a few years ago? Don’t trust your future rankings on what someone has done in the past.
As a SEO Specialist, I rank sites for a living. I spend almost every day learning more and testing theories that I may have on my own web sites. I also post relevant search phrases that I rank for on practically every page of this site. I am not much good at SEO if I can’t rank my own site.
Every week I hear from disappointed business owners who have been sold promises that were not delivered by search agencies that spend more time selling than servicing the companies they corner. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this situation is the rule, but it does seem to occur frequently and I regularly talk with business men and women that have been taken advantage of, sometimes to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
That creates anger. Yes, some business owners are very, very angry at what has happened to them and their business. Some search firms are giving this growing industry a very bad name. Fortunately for me, their practices will become exposed at an increasing rate because of the growth the search industry is experiencing. Word is getting out and these unethical operators are creating their own demise.
I can understand the anger and the disappointment and the distrust some business owners have felt. When you put your trust in what appears to be a successful, professional operation you don’t want to believe you instantly become another cog in their machine. Sometimes the sales pitch and the service reality are miles apart.
When it comes to search marketing, especially SEO, make sure the service provider can supply real results from real businesses. Ask for client references and contact those references. talk to the business owners supplied and see what they have to say about the agency or individual you are considering. Also, find out where their clients come from. What words or phrases do they rank for. Any real SEO operation should be found in the results for SEO related searches. Not that paying for search traffic is a bad thing. However, any search agency that does not rank for some SEO related searches is probably not really worth considering.
That’s just my opinion. It makes perfect sense to me, I bet it makes sense to you as well.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
If You Liked This Post - Stumble it!
