10 Signs That Your SEO Is a Quack

[Webnauts]

Can you add something to what Jill Whalen at Highrankings.com might have not mentioned?

I would like to make a kind of guidelines for protecting customers from unprofessional SEOs.

10 Signs That Your SEO Is a Quack

Fantastic resource — keep up the good work!

As you know there are a lot of so-called SEO/SEM experts/gurus claiming all
sorts of things. The analogy to me is like “quack” doctors compared to the
genuine article.

Are there 6 or a dozen questions that would expose those purporting to be
experts?

Thanks in advance - I await your answer!

Paul

++Jill’s Response++

Hi Paul,

This is a great question, and one that I hear a lot from businesses looking
to hire a search marketing firm. So in an effort to help you distinguish the
quacks from the professionals, I’ve written the following article.

10 Signs That Your SEO Is a Quack
By Jill Whalen

There are so many SEO/SEM firms cropping up that talk a good game but don’t
deliver results. This is in part because there’s so much information that
is freely available about search engine optimization. On the surface, SEO
sounds easy — and it really is — once you’ve had a number of sites to
experiment with. What’s even easier than SEO, however, is discussing SEO as
if you know what you’re actually doing (when you don’t)!

Here are 10 signs to watch out for that may very well indicate that your
potential SEO is a quack. Please note that one of these individually may
not be bad, but if you notice more than 2 or 3 of these when speaking with
any SEO company, you may just want to head for the hills!

1. Your SEO company talks about Meta tags and Google PageRank (PR) as if
they are the magic bullet to high rankings. For the most part, there’s no reason
to even bring up the keyword Meta tag nor toolbar PR in a discussion about what
needs to be done to get better search engine exposure for your site. Both of
them are issues that quack SEO companies will talk about because they actually
believe they are the key to SEO success. They are not. I’ve discussed in previous
articles the Meta keyword tag’s lack of importance, so I won’t go into that again here.
In regards to PageRank, increasing the little green bar graph’s number should
never be the ultimate goal of a professional SEO campaign. A good campaign
will automatically increase your real and true PageRank (as measured by
Google) without your specifically setting out to increasing it on your own.
Since PR doesn’t bring you traffic and sales (nor rankings), increasing it
should not ever be the main goal of your campaign. This fact is of course
lost on SEO quacks.

2. Your SEO company’s site (or those of their clients) has the same Title
tags on every page. Sounds crazy I know, but I’ve seen this more than once!
I once got a client who had previously used a very major SEO company that
most people have heard of. They had been with this firm for a whole year,
and yet the Title tags on every page of their site were all the same (the
name of the company). Since Title tags are probably the most important (and
easiest) thing to change on a site, any SEO company that can’t do this one
basic thing for their own site or their clients’ is most definitely a quack!

3. Your SEO company talks only about optimizing for the “long tail.” Now,
don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with long-tail keyword phrases, as
they can bring a lot of traffic when all is said and done. But you don’t
need an SEO company if those are the only phrases you’re interested in –
you can do it yourself just by writing articles. Your SEO company should
not be afraid to optimize for the actual keyword phrases that most people
would use at the engines to find your site. Yeah, it’s gonna take time and
money to go after the most competitive keyphrases, but there’s usually a
happy medium. Most sites have plenty of phrases that are somewhere between
long tail and highly competitive. Those are the ones you definitely want to
target.

4. Your SEO company tells you it’s ALL about links (or ALL about content).
SEO isn’t ALL about anything. It’s about lots of things all added together
to make the perfect combination for your site. A linking campaign alone
will never be as effective if you neglect your on-page content, and vice
versa. Be sure that your SEO company looks at your site from all angles and
makes sure all your bases are covered. Otherwise, they’re probably a quack!

5. Your SEO company tells you that you need a linking campaign even though
you already have tons of links and are a well-established popular site in
your niche. Not every site needs every SEO service out there. Just because
your SEO company likes to sell link-building doesn’t mean you actually need
it for your site. Why should you pay for something you don’t need? The same
thing goes for sites that already have great, well-written, optimized
content. If you’ve got that, perhaps you just need a linking campaign to
help boost your traffic and sales. Don’t allow an SEO quack to fix what
isn’t actually broken.

6. Your SEO company is almost surely 99% quackish if they tell you that they
can rank your brand-new site in Google for keywords that will bring you
traffic within a few months. In fact, if they claim they can do it in less
than 9 months, they’re either inexperienced or lying. Google has an aging
delay that is most certainly related to the age of the site, as well as a
certain trust factor. It is only the very rare and wonderful site that can
get around this delay. But if your site is like most, you’re going to have
to look to the long term for your Google results, regardless of what the
quacks might try to convince you of.

7. Your SEO company never mentions that they may very well need to redo your
site architecture so that your important pages are prominently featured
within your site navigation. In this case it’s very possible you’re dealing
with an inexperienced, quack SEO. This is usually something that is not a
quick fix, so most quacks are reluctant to discuss it with you (if they even
know it’s important). But if your site architecture is not
search-engine-ready, everything else you do will have much less impact.

8. Your SEO company can’t provide you with any quality references. This one
pretty much goes without saying, but do be sure to get references, and do be
sure to actually call them. Yeah, a reference may very well turn out to be
their cousin, but you should be able to get some feel for the company you’re
choosing if you can at least talk to some references.

9. Your SEO company tells you that you have to have a DMOZ listing or your
site will never be able to get high rankings. Sure, a DMOZ listing is
great, but it’s a link just like any other. Submit and forget about it. If
you don’t get in, it’s no big deal — there are plenty of other links you
can get instead.

10. Your SEO company’s site mentions that they’ll get you high rankings in
AltaVista, Fast, Inktomi, Lycos, Excite, HotBot and the like. If it does,
you are 100% positively dealing with a quack! ‘Nuff said!

Source: http://www.highrankings.com/advisor/seo-quacks/

[Paulo]

11) Ask them if they know or have heard of Jill Whalen ;)

12) Talking SEO terminology is a good way to suss the quacks, and nothing too clever either, although I must admit to having never heard the term "long tail" (in point 3 above) before... strange one, that.

13) Following on from that, make-up or misuse some SEO term and see whether your suitors are just head-nodders or man-enough to correct you.

14) Use example sites to show them what you've been told is a good idea ;) Show examples of keyword stuffing & doorway pages for instance, without using the terminology, and see what answers they come up with.

15) Ask them if you should need to re-write any content to be more SEO-friendly.

16) Beware any promises of "Top 10 ranking guaranteed"

17) Ask for examples of sites they say they've ranked highly and don't be afraid to approach the site owners and ask them who did their SEO, particularly high-profile ones.

[lacantina]

I might be a quack (lol) but in our particular niche it really looks like links and dmoz are all you need to rank in Google.

We're currently dominating MSN and Yahoo, but lag in the second page of the Google results for the same searches.

So who's ranking in the top ten? Appaling sites such as www. fattracks. com that have little to no content, keyword stuffing all over the place and guess what? A big fat link from Dmoz.

I agree that links and Dmoz are not everything in SEO, but I do think that in certain niches they make a huge difference!

[Paulo]

Originally Posted by lacantina

I agree that links and Dmoz are not everything in SEO, but I do think that in certain niches they make a huge difference!

Well, keep plugging away, Lacantina, and if Google and the SEs do their stuff and penalize your competitors for keyword stuffing etc then you'll naturally rise to the top :)

BAck to the topic... I have to say though, regarding point 6 above, that's all subjective... I've launched sites that have developed traffic for their keywords within just a few weeks, so to suggest expecting no traffic for 9 months from a non-quack SEO sounds like they're covering their asses in the event that their own "top-notch" services might not be so successful.

Just sayin' ;)

[meinking22]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

6. Your SEO company is almost surely 99% quackish if they tell you that they
can rank your brand-new site in Google for keywords that will bring you
traffic within a few months. In fact, if they claim they can do it in less
than 9 months, they’re either inexperienced or lying. Google has an aging
delay that is most certainly related to the age of the site, as well as a
certain trust factor. It is only the very rare and wonderful site that can
get around this delay. But if your site is like most, you’re going to have
to look to the long term for your Google results, regardless of what the
quacks might try to convince you of.

Jill needs to sharpen her chops. She's obviously lagging if she can't close that expectation. I routinely score my own new sites and those of my clients for primary and secondary keyword phrases within 1-2 months in all three of the major SEs.

The latest example: http://www.designerwalltapestries.com. My apologies for the shameless plug, but it's true. The site is only 2 months old, if that...

A lot of it depends on your competition of course. I don't tell clients to expect it to happen. I always tell them 4-6 months. When I deliver the goods sooner, they are that much more impressed. 9 months to me is an eternity, and frankly, you shouldn't be an SEO if it takes you that long, even for a new site...

Steve

[incrediblehelp]

I agree meinking22, I used to adhere to this 9-12 month rule as well. it just simple isn't true anymore. Depending on competition, keywords and how aggressive you market through social networking you can see result sin 1-2 months easy.

I think she is still just being on the safe side. It is kind of like when you create a budget for a project. It is better to budget slightly over cost so you wont be severely over budget when the project is done.