Proclaim!SEO Blog

…..that is, until it makes them wheel barrows  of money.

I am in, perhaps, one of the least understood professions.

And if you’re a small business owner who’s been taken by SEO “professionals”, or is just frustrated in understanding why I can’t tell you what’s going to happen, believe me, I feel your pain.

SEO, usually better termed SEM (search engine marketing) is still in it’s infancy, and it’s customers do often feel like they’re in the wild, wild west when trying to find someone to help them.  And with good reason, there are a lot of SEO professionals who either, aren’t very good at what they do, or, unfortunately, more often are trying to take advantage of the unsuspecting public following the “a sucker’s born every minute” business plan.

But I digress, this isn’t really the problem.

The problem is that this field is so new, and, well, mysterious that few people outside of SEO professionals understand how to think of it.  That’s partly because, most people don’t really understand what it is, and even when they do, they don’t really understand how it’s done.

And here lies the lynchpin – Google doesn’t tell us how they determine search engine result page (SERP) ranking.  And even if they did – it’s always changing.  Google’s algorithm changed over 400 times last year, and with every change, rankings change.

So how should we think of it?  The key to understanding SEO, much like anything, is to relate it to something we do understand.

After much thought, I think SEO and the SEO profession most closely resemble the professions of Law and Medicine. Here’s how:

Consider a doctor. What does he do? How do we see him? What is he paid for?  A doctor’s plight, much like that of a SEO consultant is that there are so many variables in the equation he’s trying to find an answer to.  Let’s look at some similar factors:

Doctor:

- Makes observations, does tests, applies best practices, but you still may die.

- Makes educated guesses about what’s wrong with you, but often he doesn’t know, and sometimes, he’s only able to find out what’s wrong with you by failing at a number of possible diagnosis.  He attempts to heal one possibility, if it doesn’t work, he tries another.

- Sometimes the doctor tries all known possibilities and still doesn’t know what’s wrong with you, because

a.) You have more than one thing wrong with you

b.) There are unknown factors that are effecting you, such as your environment

c.) You’re not telling him everything that’s going on

d.) You’re being a bad patient and not doing what he’s telling you to do.

Oh, and, even though you may spend tens of thousand of dollars with the doctor, he can’t guaranty you’ll be healed – there’s too many variables.

With that in mind, here are some questions the public might ask doctors (and that SEO consultants get asked all the time) if they weren’t understood:

• So why would anyone want to use a doctor?

• Why can’t my doctor guarantee I’ll get better?

• After two months, my doctor hasn’t figured out what’s wrong with me – I think he’s ripping me off, if he was any good I’d be healed by now.
• I have cancer, and you seem to be a good doctor, but I’m not sure.  Can you work on a performance basis?  If you heal me I’ll pay you, but if I die you get nothing.

• Do you have any proof of your expertise?  Can you show me some of your patients medical records?  Do you have 3 patients I can call and talk to about how you handled their illness?

Are you starting to get the jest of this?  Doctors aren’t asked these questions because their profession has been around forever and people understand doctors and they understand medicine, or, at least they understand how things work concerning this field.  Because of the many, many variables, many that are changing and many that are just unknown, the SEO profession and SEO professionals are much like the field of medicine and doctors.  Except that, for the time being we aren’t regulated.

Now, how are SEO consultants like a lawyer?

Well, the differentiating factor here is that like an attorney, we’re helping you to fight someone, or really, hundreds of people. Some of those people have lawyers (SEO Consultants) and some don’t.  Some of them have a lot of money to spend on the fight and some don’t.  And, like being sued, if you do nothing, you’re going to lose.  Google will hand out a default judgment. “Guilty by reason of insanity” or, perhaps a better example would be that you’ve been found guilty by group of your peers (customers who can’t find you!)

So what does all this mean to you Mr. or Mrs. Business Person?  It means, that if you understand the SEO profession and how it works, that you can make much better judgments about it.

Let’s look at some common questions concerning SEO and how you might handle them:

• How do I find a good SEO consultant? How do I know if they’re good?  How can I be guaranteed that my money will be well spent? Answer: How do you find a good doctor? or attorney? How do you know your money will be well spent?  There’s no really good way to find any of the 3, other than how most people already find the latter – they a.) ask friends, b.) look for someone that seems to know what they’re doing and whom they feel comfortable with, and c.) try again if “a” or “b” fails to be correct.  Think about it, this is how you find most of your help in life – doctors, lawyers, movers, maids, etc.  Sure, you can ask for references, but which references are they going to give you?  The crappy ones?  And should I (the SEO consultant) really be telling Google that I’m working on your site?  Or for that, do you want your competition to know what you’re doing? Well neither will a SEO consultant’s clients.
• What level of performance should I expect from a SEO consultant? Answer: That, over time, you will be better off than if you didn’t hire him.  Anything more than that, and possibly that, is pure speculation.  Much like the weather man, I can check the gauges, look at the way the weather (Google) acted previously, and make a prediction of what may happen.  But don’t be surprised if it doesn’t, and I may be right some of the time and wrong others, as conditions change.
• I’ve seen a program advertised that guarantees 1st page rankings on Google, and it’s only $49.00  Should I buy it? Answer: Well, that depends, do you buy those special elixirs guaranteed to make you thin and cure cancer?
• Can’t I just do it myself? Answer: Well, you can, and if you have no money and are just starting out that isn’t a bad idea, however, stick to the basics so you don’t get in trouble.  However, remember that unless you’re in a very specific niche that’s not competitive at all, or choose a noncompetitive keyword, you’ll be up against competition that will often employ hired guns like myself.  You always have to ask yourself..what’s the best use of my time?

Brian Marsh is a search engine marketing consultant who helps small businesses.  If you’d like to hire Brian as a SEO consultant or to manage your Google Adwords (PPC) campaign, you can email him at Brian [at] ProclaimSEO {dot} [com] Dallas SEO

5 Mistakes Business Owners Make in Search Engine Marketing
by Brian Marsh

1.  Not realizing they’re in a race with their competitors.
Here’s the deal Mr./Mrs. business owner: you have competitors, and now, they’re from all over the world.  And all of them want to be #1 on Google.  But Google only lets say..10 of them even be on the first page.  So you have to be one of the top 10 companies in the world in search engine ranking prowess to rank on the first page of Google.  Tough, huh? Well get this…Google looks at things that take time, money, and strategy to obtain as significant factors in search engine ranking.  So, if your competitor hired a SEO a year ago and you didn’t…guess what?  You’re in a race.  Sooner or later most of your top competitors will hire SEO guru’s to aid them in their ranking.  They’re running, their posting, they’re getting links, they’re building content, their site is optimized (and being optimized).  They’re climbing up the mountain of Search Engine Rankings…hugh, puff, climb, it’s hard, but they’re making progress.  Where are you in the race? Have you begun?  Do you think having a website is enough?  If you aren’t gaining ground you’re loosing it my friend (John McCain lingo).

2. Hiring a big company to do their SEO.

Now, I know, this doesn’t seem to make sense.  Obviously a big SEO company got big because they were doing something right…right?  Well, no, not necessarily.  P.T. Barnam said “There’s a sucker born every minute.”  If you’re a big company, at this point in the internet world, the quickest way to a buck is through deception.  And, lets face it, most people don’t know they’re being deceived.  And, the ones that do, have spent far too much time studying SEO.  This is a tough scenario, huh? How do you know who you can trust?  Well, the truth is you don’t. But with a smaller SEO company and especially a small SEO company, you can talk to the owner, not a sales rep.  And a small company has something to lose.  Sure, there are lots of SEO clients out there, but sales takes time, and a small SEO company needs referrals.

3. Not paying attention to on page factors

I’m constantly amazed at how many sites I see with a large number of links that have no on page SEO, or, so little it doesn’t matter.  Look, your on page SEO tells Google what you’re about, and that you’re a real company, not some fly by nite spam site or some mom and pop website with nothing significant to offer.  Yes, with enough links and anchor text you can rank a blank website, but often I can rank a website with on page SEO alone.  You need both.

4. Leaving their SEO to their employees. Sure, your programmer or marketing manager may know something about SEO.  Heck, they may know something about brain surgery too. But do you want to hire them for either one?  For that matter, why are you distracting them from what they specialize in?  Don’t hire a criminal lawyer for your divorce; don’t hire your dentist for psychotherapy.   SEO is complex, it’s specialized, it’s constantly changing.  I spend several hours a DAY learning and keeping up with the changes.  You can’t expect your employees to suceed in SEO.

5. Not paying enough / Thinking they can stop

Yea I know, I’m an SEO guy giving you advice to pay more…not exactly objective, but it’s true just the same. Let me explain.  I’ve owned several small businesses and have been in sales and marketing for more than 25 years.  I understand cash flow.  Really, I get it.  Cash and profit, cash and profit, cash and profit.  But you probably know by now that no sales = no cash and no profit.  Period.  That’s why good sales people get paid a LOT of money. That’s why Google is making a LOT of money.  If you want to make a LOT of money, you’ve got to invest in SEO for your company.  And often, the small expenditure hurts you the most.  Why?  Because it doesn’t produce much.  I mean, sure, I can help you make sales by on page optimization and some mimimum monthly maintenance alone.  But in most cases, you’re not going to get to the top page of Googe.  Maybe on some “long tail” words and phrases.  But the fact is, the business from search engine rankings (and it’s not even so much rankings any more, but that’s another post) exponitionatly increases as you climb to the top.  Most experts say that the #1 listing on a Google page gets 40% of the clicks from that term or phrase.  #2 and #3 maybe 20%, etc.  You do the math..how much is a 3rd page ranking on Google worth? How much is a #1 spot worth?

Need a competent and trustworthy SEO expert on your side?
Contact Brian@ProclaimSEO.com

Have you checked your Google search today?

Quite unexpectantly, and without much hurrah, Google has added a “Wiki” feature to it’s results.

My guess is that this is really more of a response to Jim Whales, the founder of Wikipedia, working on a Wikipedia style search engine, where the results are determined by searchers.

Even though the press on this happening is, well, almost nonexistent, it is, in my opinion, a HUGE happening!  But before I tell you why it’s huge, lets look at what they’ve done.

The first thing you may notice is that, well, it’s not very noticable.  Google has placed three small, translucent symbols next to the results.  The first two really allow you to do one amazing thing…you may now get your listing to the top of Google results with one click!  Just click on the up arrow.  Of course, it only places the listing at the top of YOUR Google search, and the corresponding “x” will place the listing back in it’s Google determined order.  The second, and more significant feature is the “call out” symbol.  This feature allows you to make a PUBLIC comment on the listing.  For example, if your site is www.mywidgets.com, I can place a comment of “mywidgets.com sucks. They never give you what you order.” and it will appear below the listing for all the world to see.  Or, you could say how pleased you are.

And here lies the problem…what’s to stop me, Mr. SEO, from giving RAVE reviews to all of my clients, and for that matter, what’s to stop me from dissing all of their competition?  Or, wait, I think I have some Viagra to sell…maybe I’ll advertise it on your listing comments. See the problem?

I haven’t seen instructions by Google on their new feature.  Will other users be able to delete my comments? Will users be able to delete spam?  Will the comments have any value at all, since you won’t really know the users intent? (this is why I give user review sites so little value).  Will I be able to hire some Chinese company to create a thousand user accounts and make positive comments for my clients?

Geeze…this just looks like a big headache for Google.  And if it works, it will, no doubt, create more job security for us SEO guys, as someone is going to need to feed your comments.

But lets not get too excited about the feature. Google has stated on many occasions that it’s operating model is to create a product, place it out there, and let the public tell it what to do.  I’m guessing we tell Google to put this feature back on the shelf.  But, hey, I thought blogs were a stupid idea…