As an SEO agency, we often deal with clients who’ve been previously burned by some of the less morally-conscious operators practicing within our industry. These rogue SEOs are known for preying on ignorance and throwing around jargon to no end.
There are two types of SEO companies to look out for. Firstly, you’ve got the bad apples. These guys know that they can scare you into spending tens of thousands of dollars on overpriced or unnecessary SEO with their stories about how “your competitors are doing SEO right now, they’re going to pass you by!” Secondly, and far more common, are the ignorant kind. They spend zero time on keeping up with the industry, and throw around footer links and heading tags like they’re the new hotness. These SEOs have much better intentions than the bad apples, but unfortunately are generally a greater risk, as they won’t immediately seem so dirty, so your guard won’t be up.
Google spends tens of millions of dollars per year paying some of the world’s smartest software engineers to make its Ranking algorithms immune to the effects of webspam. As a result, the old and oft-pushed SEO techniques are nearly ineffective in 2012. In order to ensure that your SEO investment is worthwhile, consider asking your SEO consultant to answer a few simple questions.
If the contents of this blog help just one small business avoid wasting thousands of dollars with a dodgy SEO vendor, we’ll have done a good thing.
1. Are you actually an SEO?
Web Designers are not SEOs. SEOs are not Web Designers. Yes, the two professions are related, kind of like rocket scientists and astronauts. They deal with much of the same jargon and tools. But the knowledge and skill-set are not the same.
If your website designer or developer offers to take care of “that SEO thing” for you as well while they’re at it, I’d recommend you politely decline.
2. Can you guarantee rankings?
If they say yes, run! Any legitimate SEO will explain that nothing is certain when it comes to Google’s Search results. With a well-planned SEO strategy in place, ranking improvements are very likely, but no SEO providers are in a position to guarantee anything about the ranking decisions Google is going to make.
We’ve seen algorithm changes like the Panda update, which completely changed the way Google handles duplicate or similar content. This change sent thousands of Rank 1 websites plummeting back to page 20. Many of these websites were probably guaranteed by their SEO provider that they would maintain a first page ranking. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a guarantee they had the authority or knowledge to make.
When offering a service with as many uncertainties and uncontrollables as SEO, a guarantee is a sign of either naivety or dishonesty, both good reasons to steer clear.
3. Are your packages based on the number of keywords?
Many, if not most, SEO providers offer packages which vary based on the quantity of keywords on offer. Although it’s difficult for me to articulately convey in writing, I’ll do my best to explain how completely ridiculous this concept is.
Problem 1: SEO is mostly not keyword-specific.
Most of the cost and difficulty of SEO comes down to improving a bunch of not-particularly-keyword-specific (wow) metrics like domain age, back-links, unique linking domains, unique linking C-Class IP ranges, page-load time, server location, trust, domain authority, page authority, and the oh-mighty PageRank. Whether you’re trying to rank for one Search Query or 1000 Search Queries, these things need to be done first.
Problem 2: You’re talking about search queries, not keywords.
Once you’ve done all that, you’ve still got to address one fact that many SEOs tend to gloss over: a keyword isn’t the same thing as a search query. A search query is the string of information entered by a user conducting a search, while a keyword is the entity to which a search query is compared and matched against to assess relevancy. You can’t count on users to enter the exact keyword as the search query.
Keyword: seo company melbourne
Search Queries:
- seo company melbourne
- seo companies in melbourne
- best seo company in melbourne
- seo company melbourne vic
- seo company melb
Completing SEO actions for the above keyword will result in ranking improvements for the search Queries listed, as well as thousands of similar queries. The catch is that you can really only optimise a webpage to rank for one “keyword,” or group of similar queries. So when a provider is promising to rank your webpage for 20, 50, or 100 keywords, what is the actual difference in what they’re offering?
The cost difference between achieving ranking for 1 or 100 or even 10,000 search queries should be minimal, as the difference in required effort is usually minimal, as long as they correspond to the same keyword.
When an SEO company offers something like a “20 Keyword Platinum Package,” what they usually mean is that they’ll get you ranking for 20 different search queries, which are generally all related very closely to the one keyword. The problem is, the client doesn’t realise that there’s a difference. If it were marketed honestly, it should be advertised as one keyword.
If your SEO provider offers the ability to rank for more keywords as you pay more money, that thing you’re smelling is something fishy. It’s akin to asking how much a barbecue is going to cost and having the salesperson ask you how many sausages you’d like it to come with. Not really the point, is it?
A genuine SEO provider should vary their quote based on how competitive the requested keywords are and what the timeframe is. Ranking for 1 keyword, “cheap flights” will require thousands of times as much SEO effort as ranking for 50 search queries related to “landscapers in brisbane.” And if it needs to be done by yesterday, that’ll cost.
4. How much of your SEO program is link-building and content strategy?
Realistically, if the answer is anything less than 90%, you’re wasting valuable time. H1s, title tags, keyword density, rel=canonical, alt tags. Yawn. For most common websites, on-site SEO is child’s play and should take a competent web developer less than a few hours to implement. The size of the website isn’t even really that important, as any website bigger than a few pages will be based on a template, meaning most on-site SEO modifications will be variable-based adjustments to the template.
Be cautious of SEOs who claim that “good on-site will get you 80% of the way there.” Uh uh.
5. What is your link-building strategy?
Link building in 2012 is all about high-level link opportunities, business relationships, content strategy, link-bait and viral marketing. The days of blog networks, article spinning, comment spam and directory submissions are over. An SEO campaign is never going to gain any traction these days based on 2008 techniques. Google simply isn’t so easily manipulated these days.
If these techniques form the basis of your provider’s link-building strategy, proceed with caution! Be especially wary of SEO providers peddling “automated directory submissions.”
6. How future-proof are your SEO practices?
Many common SEO techniques fall within search engine guidelines today, but will likely be disregarded or even penalised as algorithm updates are pushed out down the track.
Ask your SEO consultant how well their SEO strategy is distributed across various ranking factors and what their contingencies are for handling a sudden algo-update.
7. Do you own a blog network?
This is important. It’s currently common practice in the SEO industry to construct a complex network of WordPress blogs linked together to form a link network. These blogs are usually sitting on re-claimed expired domains with good PageRank and generally populated with rubbish content churned out for $0.50 per article. Why do they go through the trouble of building these networks? To collect, mask, launder, sculpt and distribute PageRank to their clients websites.
This system is a bit difficult for me to trash, as it works extremely well at the moment. But unless the network is assembled flawlessly, it will be detectable by Google and eventually get manually reviewed and blacklisted. If your website’s rankings are built off the back of a blog network that gets blacklisted after a manual review, you’re gone. Your website will be hanging out back on page 8 before you can say “duplicate content.”
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