I frequent many SEO and Web
Marketing forums on a daily basis and every so often there is a debate about
the SEO industry and ethics. After being involved in a number of these debates,
it has become really obvious that the main problems are the facts that no two
SEO companies are alike and there is no unified methodology. It's very hard to
make statements about the industry as a whole because it's debatable what
exactly 'SEO' is. Mix in the fact that most SEO companies keep their
methodology and campaign strategies secret and we have a situation where every
company is totally different with very different results.
Fact 1 : There is no unified
SEO methodology. SEO is actually defined by wikipedia as a process of improving
traffic from SERPs to a site. Of course, HOW they do that is the real question
and causes the debates.
Fact 2 : The effectiveness of
an SEO campaign depends on the site structure, site content, keywords,
methodology used, and how popular the site is. A site cannot just rank for any
random keyword. SEO is also not voodoo. It is logic, problem solving, and Web
marketing mixed together. If your site provides no value to users, it probably
won't rank.
Fact 3 : Some 'SEOs' do search
engine optimization and some do search engine manipulation. Of course, it is
all marketed as SEO. Unethical optimization provides results at any cost and is
always short term (usually ends in a banned domain name). Ethical optimization
opens up the site to the search engines and provides long term benefits.
Fact 4 : Most SEO companies get
paid whether or not your site gets any rankings. Unfortunately, this is the
case with the industry. Most SEO companies implement A, B, and C and move on to
the next client. Hopefully, the site ranks. If it doesn't, they always have
more clients.
Fact 5 : Most SEO companies use
both ethical and unethical inbound linking strategies.To maximize profits, it
is very common for SEO companies to buy bulk links from India, links on
spam/scraper web sites, or sell large directory submission packages. It is also
common for SEO companies to place huge amounts of the contract into inbound
linking to make up for the poor quality of the site optimization.
I don't think it is fair to
characterize the industry as a whole without figuring out what is wrong with it
and how SEO companies can overcome it. So how exactly do we determine what is
good and bad about the industry? I have now been involved with the Web for over
10 years and, specifically, with the SEO industry for almost 4 years and I've
seen the inner workings of major SEO companies and worked with clients who had
been burned by their previous SEO campaigns. Combined with numerous Web
postings and forum debates talking about the same basic problems, I've compiled
a list of the most common issues.
Problem 1: Responsibility for
Results
It's no secret that the vast
majority of SEO companies take no responsibility for results. It is a fact that
no SEO company can guarantee results (and if they do, they are lying to you).
It is also a fact that the client is taking a risk by spending money with an
SEO company that basically says 'We'll do what we can'. SEO companies simply
guarantee they'll do the work to 'optimize' the site, but without full
disclosure of their methodology, what exactly is the client paying for?
No
other industry sells a product with no guarantees and no specific list of work
that will be completed. Of course, SEO work is basically the sales of
information and keeping the specifics of a methodology is important, but the
combination of secrecy and no responsibility for results really makes SEO
campaigns risky. So, how can an SEO company reduce the risk for the client and
provide the best grade of service?
Answer 1: Incentive Based
Pricing
The only real way to reduce the
financial risk of the client is to share the risk. Through incentive-based
pricing, the SEO company can charge a certain percentage of the total contract
(say 70%) to cover their intellectual property and time while placing the rest
of the contract price (remaining 30%) in incentives for success. Of course,
incentives and their percentage of the contract would be totally relative
depending on the campaign.
This first step into sharing in the risk provides
both reassurance to the client that the company believes in its methodology and
places some of the financial burden of the campaign on the SEO company. At the
moment, however, very few SEO companies are willing to share in the risk and
charge the same price whether the client gets top rankings or no rankings at
all (or possibly even lower rankings).
Problem 2: Unethical
Optimization
Unfortunately, unethical (or
blackhat) optimization is still very prominent on the Web. It's also
unfortunate that 'SEO' has been mistakenly confused with 'Blackhat SEO'. This
is still the biggest problem for SEO companies. Saying that all SEO companies
deal in blackhat optimization is like saying everyone who emails is a spammer.
Blackhat optimization is not optimization at all...it is search engine
manipulation.
Because there is so much money tied to top rankings, there will
always be a market for unethical SEO and search engine spam. Until companies
realize what is ethical and unethical and stop supporting those blackhat SEO
companies, they will continue to thrive. This makes the industry as a whole
look bad and does not reflect the ethics of good SEO companies. Blackhat
provides fast, short term results, but is never a good option in the long run.
Answer 2: Ethical Optimization
There is no quick and easy
solution to blackhat optimization's stain on the SEO industry. I would suggest
that all marketing departments research optimization techniques and educate
themselves on what techniques are unethical. No SEO company is going to say
they do unethical optimization. It's also not a good idea to immediately trust
a company or product based simply on their rankings. Unethical optimization
DOES provide rankings...just not for the long run.
It would also be helpful if the
major search engines would be more open and accessible to SEO companies.
Currently, the major search engines and SEO companies do not deal with each
other and have formed a sort of love-hate relationship. Because of this, many
ethical SEOs have slowly moved into dark territory. Ethical optimization seeks
to make sites more easily accessible to the engines and help to improve the
engine's search results.
The problem is that the search engines mainly clump
all SEO companies together the same way as uninformed users do: search engine
manipulation. This is just not the case. Search engines do not want to reveal
what they consider unethical because it would basically be providing a list of
holes in their algorithms that blackhat SEOs would be able to manipulate
further, but a defined list of 'what not to do' would provide a definitive list
for businesses looking for an SEO company.
Basic Rules of Ethical
Optimization
Any campaign that does not
abide by the following rules is dealing in unethical optimization techniques
and should be avoided.
1.) What the user sees and what
the search engine sees should be exactly the same. Do not hide anything.
2.) Your keywords (and the
resulting optimization) should exactly reflect the content of the page.Keywords
should always reflect what your site is about.
3.) Do not build out pages
exclusively for search engines. The site should always cater to both audiences
(users and search engines). Catering to only users is why optimization is
necessary. Catering only to search engines is optimization gone too far into blackhat.
4.) Do not participate in
manipulative inbound linking schemes like link farms, bulk links, triangle
linking, or any other unethical manipulation of your Google PageRank or link
authority. Inbound links should be relevant to the content of your site and you
should always know who is linking to you and where your links come from.
Problem 3: Assembly Line /
Software SEO
With the growth of the SEO
industry has also come the automation of SEO. The absolute first thing any
prospective SEO client should know is that all effective SEO campaigns are
custom. There is no checklist of items that will work exactly the same on every
site. If the SEO company claims there is, then they are not doing full
optimization and the campaign is minimal. A good optimization campaign
optimizes the site architecture, text content, and code of the site.
Assembly
line SEO does not take into consideration the unique needs/design of the site
and may even deal in blackhat optimization. SEO software especially should be
looked at closely. There are really only two things SEO software could do that
would work for any site: doorway pages (showing engines one thing and users a
different thing; which is unethical) or a system of pages build exclusively for
search engines (often called info or information pages and linked in an out of
the way part of the page). Doorway pages are 100% unethical and info pages are
deep in the gray area.
Neither of those two methods address the architecture of
the site, proper keyword analysis, or effective text content. The following
links are examples of automated SEO software freely available on the Web.All links contain 'nofollow' to
prevent the sites from getting inbound link credit from our site. These sites
are NOT recommended by TreeHouse SEM.
http://doorwaypagemaker.com/ - Doorway page system; UNETHICAL
http://www.doorway-wizard.com/ - Doorway page system; UNETHICAL
Answer 3: Custom Campaign and Assessment
'SEO Software' may be cheap and
affordable, but you get what you pay for. Any campaign that is going to slap on
additional pages are simply sell you links is NOT an effective SEO campaign.
Any SEO effort that simply has you add a few 'optimized' pages to your site is
not going to be optimal. If you wanted to convert a street car into a race car,
you don't simply add racing strips to it. Don't think that dumping a few pages
on your site targeted to some random keywords is the same as a real SEO campaign.
If your SEO company will not
sit down and talk about the layout, architecture, and aim of your site, then it
is not providing a top-end service. Remember that the vast majority of 'SEO
software' either is for building doorway/landing pages or simply providing you
with data about your site (data that is already free to everyone on the Web).
Good SEO campaigns take into account both the user and the search engines...not
one or the other.
An SEO company should have a commanding understanding of user
experience and search engine optimization and use these in combination to
create a campaign that will provide the best ROI. The end goal should always be
leads/sales. Bringing in piles of non-targeted traffic often leads to extremely
high turn over rates and very low lead conversion.
Conclusion
Do your research. Find out what
you want from an optimization campaign and then ask the right questions. Make
sure that the sales representative you talk to knows what they are selling. If
they do not, they are definitely not the person to get information from. A lot
of SEO companies use hard sale tactics and the reps are less than knowledgeable
about what they are selling. Ask the following questions and see what they have
to say.
1.) How do you assess keywords?
If an SEO company simply optimizes for whatever keywords are sent to them by
the client, the SEO campaign starts off on very shaky ground. Keyword analysis
should be performed that takes into account the number of searches in all the
major search engines and the relative competition for those terms. The site
should also be compared to the keywords to see if they support each other.
2.) Do you plan on building out
pages specifically to house keywords? Landing pages and doorway pages are not
effective long term SEO options. SEO companies like them because they do not
have to touch the rest of the site and it's very easy to simply add band aids
instead of performing surgery.
3.) Will my SEO campaign also
help improve the user experience of the site? Proper architecture and usability
goes hand in hand with SEO and helps increase ROI. You should want to bring in
new traffic and convert it.
4.) Does my revenue model
affect my keyword selection and the optimization as a whole? Any SEO company
that does not optimize based on the target audience is NOT providing the most
effective campaign. An ecommerce site marketing to comparative shoppers will
want to optimize heavily for product names and model numbers. An online
magazine wanting to bring in recurring traffic will want to optimize for
article topics and specific themes. Local companies will want to optimize for
geo-targeted keywords.
5.) I want to optimize my site,
but do not want to change any of the existing content or layout...how would you
go about this? Any SEO company that says they will simply add on landing pages
or hide text is selling blackhat. This goes back to the earlier analogy. You
are really saying that you have a car that you want to modify to be very fast,
but do not want to modify the engine and the mechanic simply adds racking
stripes and charges you full price.
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