What’s an SEO Schmoe?
Yes, there are reliable folks out there who do a great job with SEO. They make sure they benchmark their work, they understand the platform the site is on and more importantly they work with a client’s knowledge of their market and what they want their site to accomplish to ensure the SEOing going on is what the client needs to reach their stated goals.
More importantly, those who really get SEO, do a reality check to make sure clients understand the process, what is involved and they work towards creating realistic expectations.
An SEO Schmoe is either…
- An individual or entity that sells SEO services but in reality doesn’t fully understand SEO to do right by their clients. Their main tactic is to take advantage of what clients don’t know to get into their pocketbooks..
- A potential client who hasn’t made the effort to know just enough about SEO to avoid being taken advantage of by the Schmoes mentioned above.
The onus however, is on the client to have enough information to not be taken advantage of or to fall for the pie-in-the-sky hype some of these individuals/companies promise.
Here are 5 issues you need to get definitive answers on, and information you need to investigate, before you start throwing your hard earned dollars when it comes to finding SEO help:
- Search for the the terms that describe the services the individual or company is offering. Do they rank highly for their own site? If not, why not? If they cannot get their own site found for the terms you would use, why should you believe they can then do so for your site?
- If the SEO individual or company is offering high ranking guarantees – how is that possible when no one can control or influence search engines? Google’s own published guidelines state: “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. Beware of SEO’s that claim to guarantee rankings…” Google also offers some useful questions to ask an SEO, some of which include:
- Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?
- Do you follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines?
- What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe? How do you measure your success?
- What’s your experience in my industry?
- What’s your experience in my country/city?
- What are your most important SEO techniques?
- How long have you been in business?
- How can I expect to communicate with you? Will you share with me all the changes you make to my site, and provide detailed information about your recommendations and the reasoning behind them?
- Get referrals before you make any commitments. Do they have long-term satisfied clients? Make sure they prove it with client testimonials and references (not just one guy who happens to be a friend). And testimonials on their site don’t count — anyone can embellish those. Get names and phone numbers of satisfied customers for you to call. Then before you call, ask for info on those client’s Web sites that they have optimized and which keywords they optimized for. They should be able to show you where in the search engines that client is appearing. If they can’t give examples, they probably don’t have any.
- SEO best practices call for building links to your Web site. Ask what link building strategies they plan to use. Getting “links” from hundreds of sites is a big red flag. Slow consistent link building from authority sites is what works best. How do they plan on attaining quality one-way inbound links to your site?
- Goals and Outcomes: What goals will they set for your site and targeted keyword phrases. You know the saying “if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is”? Guaranteeing improved rankings is one thing but if an SEO individual/company guarantees actual placement results, be suspicious. Real search engine optimizers will tell you, there is no exact way to know in advance where your Web site will be ranked in the search engines after their initial optimization is complete. It is an ongoing process. Not something you set, forget and that remains in place.
While SEO techniques are pretty universal, SEO in of itself is not a one-size-fits-all. Site owners need to understand what is involved and, more importantly, what is possible in order to fully be able to determine what SEO approach is best for their project.
I have a bunch of articles on SEO so that you can empower yourself with the knowledge and understanding to make educated decisions moving forward.
So don’t be an SEO Schmoe!
At your service,
Judith
You might also like...
