SEOs Need a Firm Hand
So you’ve got a deal with these SEOs. You’ve got to keep them in line. You need to get guarantees. But here’s the trick – all SEOs need is a good, firm hand. They’ll throw big words around the room and try and overwhelm you with jargon. Here’s what you do:
- Get references: This is a costly, time-consuming process. Make sure you hire the right people.
- Let them set goals: You’ve hired them for their expertise. They spend their days testing different strategies.
- Let them set a timeline: You should see results within six months. But let them develop a timeline of how and when you’ll see results.
- Ask questions: You want results, but SEOs can forget that search engines are only 50 per cent of the equation. The other 50 per cent are your users. Ask how they will accomplish their goals and if it will affect your users experience. A lot of SEOs will contract their work out to India and pay workers less than a dollar an hour. Is that acceptable? Ask a lot of questions.
- Ask for guarantees: If your SEO doesn’t give you the goals he/she promised in the time they set, then make sure they finish the job at no extra cost to you. If car companies can stand behind their products, then SEOs can too. It’s true that search engine optimization is not an exact science, but an honest person should stand behind his or her work.
Give SEOs a Few Things Too
I’ve harped on SEOs enough and they are going to require a few things from you.
- Access: Be ready for them to start and make sure you’ve removed any roadblocks that might hinder their progress.
- Say yes: You’re paying them. Take their advice. Ask questions as they know more than you and me.
- Patience: Search engine rankings won’t change overnight. You can check to see if it’s changing every day, but let them work the process. SEO takes months, not hours. If you are going to invest, be prepared to wait a quarter or two before you get results.
SEO is Only Part of the Puzzle
Search engine optimization is the dirty, manual labour of the web world. It’s a slow, awful and grinding process. It’s prudent to do the basics, but whether or not you take the next step and hire an SEO is going to depend on the strategies available to you (and your imagination). Ultimately, search engines are a great way to drive traffic/sales, but it’s not the only way. Look at all the options and possible ROI and have clear goals before seriously investing in SEO.
Category: Articles, Editor's Pick
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Hey Rhett,
You’re right to rail against SEO’s that don’t act professionally, or use Black Hat techniques. They give the field a bad name.
While it’s unfortunate that they exist, their bad behavior actually provides an opportunity for those of us who practice White Hat SEO, much of which you described. My clients appreciate my honesty and diligence, which is in contrast to the scam artists.
Many of us that practice White Hat SEO techniques came to the profession from web development when realized that doing the basics can lead to better results in search engines. You understand this; you’ve chosen a good, SEO optimized Wordpress theme framework for your own blog. Thematic.
I’d add that there is more to the basics than the on page and off page SEO you outline. Laying a good technical foundation is important as well, including proper use of robots.txt and sitemap.xml files, redirecting domain.com to http://www.domain.com or vice versa, but not both, making sure the dev team doesn’t go overboard on javascript, flash, etc.
As I send my clients on their way so that they continue building back links and optimizing on keywords, doing so becomes a natural part of their workflow. Like gardening, a little bit each weeks pays off dividends in the long run.
Joel Greenberg
http://www.straightshooterseo.com
An Austin, TX SEO
Thanks Joel. You make excellent points on the tech side. I’m a writer by trade and while I know about the tech stuff (and use stable framework, robots, xml sitemap, etc), I wouldn’t be comfortable enough to actually write about it. Plus, this article would’ve gone on far too long. ;)
I’m wouldn’t consider myself an SEO (not enough patience), but have done it enough to at least get myself and others started. And I have worked with (or sat through presentations from) SEOs that I can sniff out the good and the bad ones you described.
The best way to deal with greasy SEO’s is to find out what entails SEO. This article does a great job providing this information.
Walking into a meeting informed goes a long way in setting the expectation and you will more than likely get the desired results.
Articles like this are excellent for business owners because they point out how thorny the industry really is. It’s exceedingly difficult for most people to judge quality of SEO work and most don’t realize the order of magnitude that it can vary.
Transparency, client references, and case studies are all fairly reliable quality indicators to help separate the wheat from the chaff. Make sure to ask any client reference, “Was there an impact to your business?” and “how did you measure it?” A client who has worked with a good SEO should have empirical proof that the work done had a measurable return.
[...] I just had an article published in Edmonton’s Unlimited Magazine. Check out my take on How to Deal With Greasy Search Engine Optimizers. Note to any SEOs in the audience that the editor wrote that title not me [...]