Maybe someone can explain to me what’s so difficult about selecting an SEO service (as in, find someone to pay to optimize your site for search engine rankings).
The “how to select an SEO service” question, in its various forms, pops up with amazing regularity on a lot of online business/publishing discussion forums I check periodically. I always thought that was strange since I didn’t think it would be any more involved than the following:
• The service must deliver what it says it will, which is high search rankings for specific keywords, so…
• How does the service’s own website rank for its industry’s keywords? Most of them fail this test immediately (would you believe a few don’t even have sites?).
But to be fair, maybe their business model doesn’t involve being found through SE searches. OK. So I then ask…
• Does the service have other sites or clients? I want to see how those do on search results for their keywords.
Most fail that too (surprise!). Some services like to make us laugh by saying, “Sorry, that information is proprietary and can’t be revealed.” Hehehe, that still cracks me up.
Some services have the gumption to claim top (even #1) search results for certain keywords as examples of what they can do for you… and they’d be telling the truth! As you’ve probably figured out, however, they’re talking about keywords no one uses anyway, so who cares? (This site is #1 on Google, for instance, for the keyword wordpreneur… Big deal. It’s not like anyone uses that in a search.)
Want to try it out? Add a meaningless word on your home page that doesn’t exist anywhere else. The next time Google revisits your page, do a search for that meaningless keyword — Voila! You now have a #1 search result! On Google no less!
We haven’t even started talking yet about the money part of service provider selection, and we already know from the obvious tests how much most of these services are really worth. Please, good people, what’s the big mystery? What am I missing here?
On a related aside, not that I ever cared enough to give this much thought, but I got to wondering recently why this particular SEO question is like the Energizer bunny and just keeps going and going and going. Then I realized: Besides the fact that there’s no barrier to entry into the field (not even cost), these guys are very active in seeking out clients. Put up a site or blog, they’ll find you. Heck, sell on eBay or craigslist, and they’ll find you (places where you’d never think an SEO “expert” would go trolling for clients, in other words).
So, wordpreneurs, be careful out there. Being communicators, you know all about how powerful putting the right spin on things can be… and some of these blokes are really good at that. Do the tests I describe above to see what the Emperor’s really wearing… Unless, of course, I really truly am missing something big and you can set me straight.
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