2018 was another major year of change in the world of SEO and some recent experiences I had with some new clients and how they were treated in the past, has shown me a lot of the old scams still exist today, so I thought this post is still as relevant as ever. I recently had a company show me the SEO report they asked for from their current provider, and it was a prospect report telling them what was wrong with their SEO. This is what we do for free to help people. This company was supposed to be preventing these errors, not presenting it as their monthly SEO report. It is scary what companies are getting away with.
It has been a transformative year in the world of SEO with some major Google changes that have caused a lot of business owners to alter some of their core approaches to their website and their business. Though frustrating, change can be a great test and can expose even more those that don’t know what they are talking about.
I have seen this happen increasingly in 2017 in the world of SEO. Unfortunately, these days ignorance can not only keep you from moving forward but can cost you thousands in mistakes. With SEO being more and more important for a successful business in most markets, I have seen more examples this year of companies trying to fake their way through and claiming to know SEO, when in actuality, they are clueless. Don’t get caught up in the hype of an overpromised sales pitch. SEO can get you an impressive return on your investment, but it takes hard work and time.
I have been brought in to fix more messes this year than I have ever seen in the past. From basic things like companies that claim to be SEO savvy doing a site redesign and not including 301 redirects, costing the client thousands worth of SEO investment, to telling clients important aspects of SEO (that happen to be hard to do, but they don’t want to do it), don’t matter anymore.
Get Out of the BSEO Mess
When it comes down to it, when you hire an SEO company, just make sure they have a positive client history and have shown that they know what they are doing over time. There are basic aspects of SEO that should be taken care of in month 1 of an SEO relationship that I have seen untouched a year into a contract. I have seen some companies invest all of their resources in one aspect of SEO, and avoid the rest. I have seen companies provide a monthly report just listing how many hours they spend on SEO, but not what they were doing. Because SEO is confusing and there is a lot of unknown to the average business owner, many organizations take advantage of it and claim they are doing SEO when they aren’t, or do things that actually get you in trouble. You should invest in SEO, but you should invest with someone who has a history of really knowing how SEO works, not just a developer who wants to add an extra few dollars to your bill so says they did your SEO for you too, or worse yet, a company that claims to be great at SEO but doesn’t really have any idea what they are doing and doesn’t have anyone to verify that they’ve actually helped them.
SEO is Constant Change
SEO is hard work and you are going to have months where you don’t move forward, but if you are doing it right, you can adjust to steps back and then take two steps forward. There is a constant adjustment to keep up with Google. They improve their algorithm quickly and most improvements are for the end user, so most of what we do for SEO, also helps your visitors, which in turn should end up with more customers because of a better user experience, but make sure your SEO has a real plan and not some canned approach from 5 years ago. I have had to pivot my client plans substantially twice this year based on Google updates that changed the way small businesses need to work on their sites. SEO is about change. If your plan isn’t changing, you probably aren’t moving forward.
Give us a call if you want to experience SEO the right way and actually make it an important part of your marketing plan. Don’t fall for BSEO and end up paying a monthly fee for nothing in particular, or worse yet, to move backward. Give us a call!
Leave A Comment