Thu 8 Mar 2007
5 Ways To Tell If You’re Being Screwed By Your SEO Company
Blurb by Shaun Anderson (Hobo)1. Their whole strategy is based on registering hundreds of domains you have to pay thousands for, EVERY YEAR, (which they mark up 50% of course) duplicating single content pages for these domains, and doing something like creating a directory and stuffing it full of these fake domains (not telling you when you stop paying them, they’ll just put a competitor in there in your place).
2. They don’t mention article submissions. They don’t mention Digg. They don’t mention Delicious. They don’t mention internal link and external link optimisation. They don’t mention blogs or ethical forum participation and they are not enthusiastic about web 2…. oh, and they don’t point you in this direction.
3. They constantly bleat on about meta keyword tags without mentioning they are useless in Google and that you need a unique title element and unique meta description on every page to enhance your visibility in Google.
4. They don’t mention that to have a well ranked site you generally need to be always adding fresh content to it.
5. They’ve not touched your site in 1 year (and that JavaScript navigation system is still there although you have no idea what the f*ck JavaScript is).
Bonus – When you try and hold them to account for the “ethical” nature of your expensive seo campaign (that you’re tied into for 3 years), all you get back is a keyword performance report that tells you you rank 30 for your company name but number 1 for “youvebeenhad” (a wee bonus keyword you never even thought you where targeting – sweet!)
The above isn’t fantasy. It’s an actual campaign one of our new clients was paying thousands for every year… an example of what we call “unethical seo” that might have worked yesterday, but which wont work “tomorrow (and could get you booted out of Google).
It’s not the client’s fault. This type of campaign cannot be long term.
Did you know when you link to a Hobo SEO post we have search engine friendly links back to your site if approved? Our comments are also search engine friendly you know (once you've commented on a few posts)! Do you need any more encouragement to get involved in the conversation ;)
Ruthless! Kudos to your candor.
Your “bonus” I feel should be right up there at the top. An a la cart key word report = laymen at best, scam artist at worst. We’ve got a simliar list, thought it’s more customer focused, as relating to PPC. Check out the PPC Customer’s Bill of Rights at http://www.industrialsearchenginemarketing.com/blog/
Cheers! A scam is right!
There are plenty of “Snake Oil SEO Companies” out there selling top positions in Google for only a few hundred pounds in double-quick time too – if it sounds too good to be true, it normally is.
Reputable SEO companies are not out to make a fast buck – they take pride in their work, will always add extra key benefits to a campaign if they think it will help the company in the long run and most importantly have a good communication channel between them and the client.
Its always wise for clients to seek out reputable companies like Hobo for example among others that ply their trade in Scotland and the UK as a whole. If a client is serious about getting to the top of the rankings then their approach to hiring an SEO Company should be serious as well — sometimes getting to the top cannot be done on the price of a decent night-out.
Quite right NSM… the largest problem with the business side of SEO today is people offering “optimisation” for a couple of hundred quid and then doing next to nothing.
This puts site owners in a difficult position where they know that SEO is important if they are to do well, but are deeply suspicious of it and reluctant to allocate a decent budget.
Sadly, more and more people seem to be offering “optimisation” now, leaving businesses very sceptical about something that should be a great marketing investment.
This is a little obvious no? Are there really still companies doing this? More importantly are there still companies paying for this? I think the best way to figure out if your SEO company is bogus is to look at their clients, if you cant find them – it doesn’t matter what they are telling you, they suck.