SEO Industry Trust is Very Complicated
The truth about SEO and who to trust in the industry is very complicated. That is why so many people are so confused when they are ready to pull the trigger and decide where and how they need assistance. Every company has a different approach and no two pricing models are alike. How do you know where to turn to? The reality is that things have changed over the last few years and they are even changing as we write this blog post.
Let’s look at some of the biggest factors and industry changes that have occurred just over the last few years that have changed the SEO industry and will most likely continue to change the industry as time goes on:
1. Social Media: Social media came in like a ferocious wave and just hit the entire world with an entirely new form of communication. Everything changed, how business communicate, how people communicate, where people go to seek information, how people meet, how people purchase, all this is just scratching the surface. All of a sudden marketers focus was not just around the search engines. All of a sudden their clients and their own audience were hanging out in this giant wave of chatter. SEO people had no choice but to get involved in this type of communication. Suddenly a quality communication approach was needed. You couldn’t just throw sub par press releases at these people otherwise you would be stoned in the town square.
2. Video Sharing: You can try to mash up a video using a generic movie maker software but chances are you will not benefit a great deal from it. Video sharing has created a new form of expression. Creativity combined with SEO makes for very powerful marketing efforts that could actually make an impact on a client’s bottom line.
3. Content Marketing: All of a sudden having a blog on a website and regularly writing and pushing the material out to the community is more important than ever. Creating link schemes and science projects to increase rankings are no longer the right approach. Content creates credibility and if a marketer can put out great writing in the right places their SEO can grow tenfold.
4. SEO Industry Trust – Practice What You Preach: It amazes me when I see so many sub par SEO consultants and firms that don’t know how to market themselves. The reality is SEO is so much more than just search engine rankings; it’s about marketing and building an online presence and reputation. The way I see it is if an SEO professional has no online presence then they should try another profession. If they can’t build it for themselves, how can they be trusted to build it for a potential client?
It is important to acknowledge that the SEO industry is changing very quickly and those who neglect to adopt that change will find themselves wondering what happened.
8 Responses to “SEO Industry Trust is Very Complicated”
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I have written an article very similar to this on the nuMantis blog. The face of SEO is constantly changing, morphing and transforming into something new every day. We all see the movement toward social networking and this is quickly being adopted by SEO specialists everywhere. The problem that I see is that the reputation of SEO has had a negative start, it was always considered to be “voodoo” or something of the sort, but has quickly gained momentum as the realization of GOOD SEO does impact a website’s viability. Choosing a quality company is difficult, be sure to check and see their reputation and who they are associated with as well ask for previous experiences and testimonials.
Hi Randy,
Thanks for reading and contributing your thoughts on trust within the SEO industry. Yes, I agree with you it seems that for some folks, from the first moment you are starting in an negative manner due to them either being burned before or using a non-reputable SEO firm or service provider. I agree that the trust is often tough to determine and for some clients takes time to earn based on the results and future relationship.
Hi Nick, I’m impressed that you responded to a comment, and I don’t know if you’ll respond to this, or maybe with another article, either way, I’ll be tuning in. I just wanted to let you know that I’ve been doing my own SEO/SEM since about October of 2009 which is when I realized that SEO existed, for several reasons, but mainly BECAUSE I don’t know who to trust. I’m self-taught, but only because I don’t like what I’m seeing from those who target market me. It’s really out of necessity. I’m a chiropractor, and not all chiropractors are the same, but every marketer thinks we are. There are huge differences in chiropractors and I have 100′s of marketers telling us what the best approach is to SEO/SEM, then they design a cookie-cutter website for us, even claiming that they will blog for us and it’s “all done for you” with no work. Use our system, we know best, etc. From just researching and reading information like yours, I’m finding that most SEO companies don’t practice what they preach. Why would what they are marketing help me? How would I know? Correct me if I’m wrong, but good SEO just takes time, and must be consistent. I’m not sure that a company can do a cookie-cutter SEO program for chiropractors, especially when all the content is nearly exactly the same and expect good results. That’s the very reason I do my own site and SEO, but it takes WAY TOO MUCH TIME. Which is why I would consider using another person to do it for me, but I’m hesitant because I don’t know if they really know what they are doing and if it would be worth the time and investment to do so. Just curious.
Hi Dr. William,
Thanks for reading and for sharing your experiences and thoughts. First off, I always try to respond to every single comment. Every visitor and comment is so very important to me
I believe that you have hit the nail on the head. There is NO cookie cutter approach to SEO or SEM that works the same. Every business, market, target audience, competition, sales cycle, conversion metric is different for every type of business. For my experience a good SEO/SEM firm or professional can help any type of business or industry but time developing a strategy and also taking time to really understand the business is essential. So many times I see companies that concentrate on a specific vertical market or industry. These types of companies usually can do a good job, but often do get tunnel vision as they might take 1 approach that is templated or the same for every client. For my experience, this is not always the best approach.
Anyway, if you ever want to take a risk and hire an SEO firm, hopefully my company, Brick Marketing can make your list
Hi Nick.
Trust in the SEO industry. Speaking as someone who got burned for over 12 grand, I can attest to the importance of that!
SEO is an easy area to rip people off because generally speaking, the customer has no clue what good SEO is or isn’t. They do not know how to check and verify what is being done. They are at the mercy of their seo company because they do not personally know anything about the subject.
That’s how I got ripped off. I trusted the jerks and just paid them and let them work with little oversight. A year or so later, after much back-and-forth and me giving them every benefit of the doubt, I became convinced that their business model was to take advantage of people who did not know any better. Just lie and tell them everything is being taken care of and gosh darn when that traffic never materializes blame it on everything but the fact that you didn’t actually perform this voodoo that you had said you were doing. I believe premeditated thievery would be an accurate description.
Then too, there are the many people who claim SEO expertise and then simply do not really have quality expertise. I have met other people who have been grossly mislead by SEO people who were terribly ignorant. Like putting ALL the text on a website as part of the images so the search engines have nothing to read. That particular website had cost them a small fortune but never produced results because it wasn’t even in the top 1,000 listings for their keywords. Sad.
Mr. Nick I trust you! You have been very helpful to me and if I had the power I would make those jerks give you that 12 grand I paid them.
Thanks.
Hi Lorraine,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and for your comment! I really do appreciate your kind words and being such a great loyal reader!
Hi Nick,
I’ve been getting your Brick Marketing SEO Newsletter since signing up for Marketing Sherpa’s resources. I’ve really enjoyed your posts. As a newbie in SEO and social media, yours is plain talk I can relate to! And why am I interested? Like Ms. Grula and Dr. Thomas, I now handle my own site because I have been burned and I am leery of trusting another provider. Until the dust settles (if it ever does), I will continue to be on a learning curve…
Now could you suggest tips for reducing spam blog comments?
Hi Doreen,
Thanks very much for signing up for our newsletter and for reading!
If you are using WordPress for your blog, here is a list of great Spam plugins to install in on your blog:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/
I hope this helps and thanks again for reading!
Nick