The Sad Story Of SEO

[morestar]

There's a sad story to SEO. It comes in the form of competitors, that's SEO competitors.

I guess it's like most businesses but when it comes to SEO a client can really be duped. It's always easy for another SEO firm to come in a check the SEO work of a website and make all kinds of claims about the lack of proper SEO on a site even if the site is "completely perfect" from an SEO perspective.

Now, as you will, so will I ask, "what's perfect SEO?" Well, that's the point, nothing much in the SEO world is really provable but even when you've done the greatest job and have even covered all your basic SEO bases, another SEO firm could step in and claim you've done it all wrong - and even prove it.

So what's the problem? It's just competition right? Well no, it's not. The client get's hurt and loses, many of the times. Of course there are many times when another SEO firm could take over and do it right, increase rankings and increase traffic but that doesn't negate the fact that a slew of the times the client loses everything they have, on a risk that they'll 'save a little money' - but then they don't.

I know this is an old story and beyond the obvious but it's still saddening when you see a company about to lose everything they've built after they've worked so hard to get there.

I'm still awaiting the day SEO can be regulated or a true SEO certification can be obtained from an institute. Maybe I should be just as industrious and get this work done myself. Why not? Canada could lead the way - fraud is fraud especially if it can be proven and if you're an SEO taking away legitimate business from the tried, tested and proven SEO firms, to line your pockets when you have no idea what you're talking about, well, I think you should be held accountable.

Those are my thoughts for the moment and now it's time to get back to work.

[weegillis]

For the client the same proviso has always held: caveat emptor. We're not babysitters. If they ignore the obvious signs, what can we do to stop them, or prevent them from falling into the quick?

Do we learn to talk faster? Do we learn all the suave techniques and special subliminal language to overcome the scourge of our shadier competitors? No, in either case. We sleep at night.

I'm coming to grips with watching years of work go down the drain when someone with a nicer personality comes around and offers 'to do a better job.' There is no, "I told you so," for this one. It's just sad to watch, is all; so I'm with you there @morestar.

[NickTyler81]

Problem is that there really is no comprehensive list, process or set way to suceed in SEO. The fact that Engines are perpetually changing their algorithm's and keeping them top secret will see to this for the forseeable future. So then it sort of comes down to experience and guess work.

Unfortunatley there will allways be companies that will say and do anything to get buisness, regardless of their ability/intention to deliver. Most even know they are doing this.

[SENtelligence]

Hey, morestar, I'm with you, man. SEO is a creative thing, and when you do a project it sort of becomes your baby. You put time and effort in it. And the last thing you want to happen is some smart pants to come and ruin what you've created, just because they want to make money. This is so stupid.
And the sad thing about SEO is the lack of standards, licenses or certificates. And sometimes lame ethics. All SEOs who've been around for a while know better than just to come and snatch a project from someone else.. Grrrrrrrrr

[OLYMPOS]

For most of our keywords we reached our desired positions in SERPs. Additionally, sometimes we do adwords, just to be visible twice and to gain more attention.

Whenever we are doing adwords, we receive mimimum 5 emails per day offering SEO services, telling us our website is not well ranked in search engines (In fact, our link is directly on position number 1 next to the paid add

I guess most of the money we pay to google, is used because gmail-based SEO firms without even having a website clicking on the add and then offering their services to us, telling us weird obviously copy-pasted stories about our website.

My latest solution: I am filtering for certain words in the contact forms. These words are disabling the "SEND" button :P

[morestar]

Hey, morestar, I'm with you, man. SEO is a creative thing, and when you do a project it sort of becomes your baby. You put time and effort in it. And the last thing you want to happen is some smart pants to come and ruin what you've created, just because they want to make money. This is so stupid.
And the sad thing about SEO is the lack of standards, licenses or certificates. And sometimes lame ethics. All SEOs who've been around for a while know better than just to come and snatch a project from someone else.. Grrrrrrrrr

Oh I know...and in our little case, I checked out the new firm and did some research - above all their a local computer repair company that seems to want to expand. Fine, they may be better SEO's than I am but after looking through some of the changes they've already made to the back end of the site (the client is still ours till the end of the month so of course I have access) I can't believe mine eyes and no, they don't know what they're doing.

I've made up my mind to continue running ranking reports for them over the next six months - at least that way I can see the progress or lack thereof of the work of the new firm...

[mjtaylor]

What do you use for ranking reports, morestar?

I don't meant to make this personal, but when I lose a client, it's not about my performance, it's about my relationship with the client.

[morestar]

What do you use for ranking reports, morestar?

I don't meant to make this personal, but when I lose a client, it's not about my performance, it's about my relationship with the client.

WebCEO, as always...

I don't believe it's personal, at all, their rankings roll but they aren't interested in the monthly costs which in my opinion are quite decent - a little too good...as we know the value of our work can be measured exponentially

[OLYMPOS]

May i add, the only tricky part was, not to disable real clients which are writing to us from SEOul, the capital of South Korea

@Morestar: Since the filter in the contact forms is on, competition is off! Thats perfect SEO, lol!

[SteveGerencser]

I think what MJ was saying is that we tend to not lose customers we have good relationships with, regardless of what the other guy claims.. All of my clients have been approached at one time or another by someone else claiming to be better or cheaper or pink or whatever.. Every time the client has called me to discuss it..

Also, there is no one path in SEO.. What may be perfect for you may suck for someone else.. There is no one way to do this so a set of standards would be nearly impossible to create that fits every scenario every time..