Can I Ask You a Quick SEO Question?
In the world of SEO, there are very few “quick” questions. Sure, I can give you the basic definition of what SEO and SEM are, explain why link building is important and give you a bullet list of blog post topic ideas, but what good is that really going to do for your website? All that information you could learn in ten minutes from the Google Webmaster Tools page on SEO and a few blog posts, but those sources aren’t going to give you any radical insights into how to make SEO work for your site. And neither can I in a ten minute call.
In order to answer your “quick” SEO question, I need to ask you ten not-so-quick questions about your marketing and your website as it stands right now. I need to dig through your site’s analytics and see what kind of visitor growth (or decline) your site has seen in the last year, how many inbound links your site has and where they are coming from, what keywords are driving most of your traffic, how well your site is converting and much more. In short, if you want me to give you any real SEO advice I’m going to need full access to your site!
That isn’t going to happen quickly.
Some SEO consultants may not mind, but I’ve never been a big fan of shooting from the hip. Sure, I can do an once-over of your site and give you my initial impressions, but there isn’t much SEO gold to be had in that. I would much prefer to give you a sound, educated answer. A great SEO campaign isn’t pulled out of thin air, it’s created based on the goals and objectives of each site, finding ways to leverage their online assets and bulk up weak points. There is no way I am going to know all that from just clicking through your site for a few minutes.
Another reason I’m hesitant to answer “quick” SEO questions is because they are almost never quick. While I appreciate a site owner who wants to learn more about SEO and how to properly optimize their site, I don’t have the time to spend two hours on the phone answering every question someone asks me. I don’t have a huge SEO company with dozens of employees, sales managers, client service representatives and the like to pick up my slack. I still handle a lot of the daily work needed to keep my company afloat and can’t afford (literally!) to lose that much time to “quick” SEO questions.
I’d be interested in hearing from other SEO professionals, or even business owners in other industries about this. Do you take the time to answer every “quick” question that gets asked?
7 Responses to “Can I Ask You a Quick SEO Question?”
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I try to provide a quick answer, then qualify it by explaining the context in more detail. In terms of strategy and planning think it’s very important to be honest when the outcome of a major change is not certain – explaining the most likely outcomes and their relative probabilities, as well as how each might best be addressed. Effective SEO is about building relationships and credibility that enable you to be as open and honest as possible.
I provide lots of free advise and answer many “how do I” questions. In my industry, bookkeeping, relationships tend to be very long-term. You hire a bookkeeper, and as long as they do good work, the relationship carries on until someone retires or relocates. Rarely can I replace a bookkeeper that the prospect is already happy with. But, hopefully my help with answers, and the expertise I have demonstrated, will get me the referral when current bookkeeper retires/moves.
By the way Nick, I have greatly enjoyed your terrific blog.
Nick,
I always answer quick questions from my clients and manage to keep the answer quick too. After I answer, I say, “Why do you ask?” Usually, there is something that got them thinking. They are not looking to learn SEO in 10 minutes. Something is just bothering them and I try to put the issue to rest.
However, some people are looking for more with questions like this, “What are the best SEO practices?” In this case, I recommend several SEO resources.
But to answer your question, I do not mind quick SEO questions at all, even though I completely agree with your assessment of them.
I think answering a few of the more popular, generalized questions is a worthwhile use of your time. These responses can then be placed in an FAQ, which in turn can actually generate some quality traffic for long tailed keywords on your site.
At the end of the FAQ you can put a form or call to action to schedule a formal evaluation that begins the sales process.
Thanks for reading Steve, I actually took this exact approach to our full service SEO and created pages that serve almost as an FAQ for our SEO solutions here:
http://www.brickmarketing.com/search-engine-optimization-firm.htm
Take Care!
Nick
Hi Nick,
From my own experience, more often than hearing, “Can I ask you a quick SEO question?” I hear, “I don’t get SEO, how do I do it?” So it’s not about a single issue, it’s the whole enchilada. Still, it’s usually clear the answer they’d prefer would be a short and simple one.
That being said, the best quick answer to a quick SEO question is often, “I could give you a brief answer that would still leave you in your current situation, but I’d prefer to review your website and develop a customized plan with you that would actually get you where you want to be; where you should be.”
Good point, Nick, and in all the comments.
Thanks,
Ben
Nick,
Great article overall. I get this question all the time, particularly because my company has built a solid reputation for practicing “true” SEO and showing incredible results.
We have had some huge engagements – very successful. One that I have permission to mention is cars.com. Two very large ones I have strict NDAs (I feel like there is always a sniper ready to take me out if I violate the NDA
). I can say that one is one of the largest coffee franchises on the west coast and the other is one of the largest hospitals on the west coast. That I was given permission to relay.
It is unfortunate that so many “SEO Experts” really know very little about SEO and make people skeptical about the industry. Therefore, I find myself going into great detail about what SEO is. I would say that 90% of the time, my comments are too overwhelming, and convince the person that I know what I am talking about. At that point, they usually say something like “This is too confusing, I am convinced you know what you are doing.”
However, the 10% of people – in general highly intelligent individuals – love to hear all about SEO and I am so passionate about the subject, I can talk about it for hours.
In fact, I was at a banquet once and talking to a very smart friend about it, and what we were doing. Sitting next to me was the Director of Marketing for the hospital I mentioned above. I noticed that he was listening into the conversation, so I included him. Later that evening, he came up to me, introduced himself and told me his position. He also told me that the number one initiative on his plate now was to hire someone to optimize the hospital’s site. He said he has spoken to many professionals and read many articles and never once heard 90% of what I said. He offered me the job right then. So, it is sometimes beneficial to get into the details.
The number one question that potential clients have is “What is this going to cost me.” This question is pretty quick to answer (not provide an actual number – just “a fair amount”, or “not that much”) as I can tell by looking at the source code, site architecture, navigation, hosting server, content, etc., whether or not this is going to be a big job, or not so bad. Most of the time, it is a big job, as the original developer did not consider SEO in coding the site, the designer did not do a good job on the site architecture/user experience, and so on. Often the answer is that it would cost them less to scrap the current site, and build a new one.
Not to be annoying – just to provide advice, I have two comments on statements you made in the article.
1. “Sure, I can give you the basic definition of what SEO and SEM are…” – SEM is commonly used incorrectly to describe paid search. It is actually the umbrella term that includes both SEO and paid search. Most people do not realize this.
2. “…explain why link building is important” – Inbound links was the foundation and most critical factor in Google’s algorithm, when Sergei and Larry first launched. Now, because people abused this knowledge, it plays very little role, if any, in determining SERPs. When we SEO a site, we do no link building at all. We simply follow the guidelines and best practices that both Google and the W3C have provided to us. We actually often get First page SERPs, positions 1 – 3 in 2 weeks or less now (HTML5 is a huge factor). We let natural inbound links occur. Google will actually penalize you if your site suddenly has tons of inbound links, as they consider this a “Black Hat” technique. They published a manual called something like “A Beginners Guide to SEO” and they mention the concept above, while placing little emphasis on its importance.
You see – this is the longest reply and I held myself back from writing more – I am very passionate about the topic.
Hope this information was useful.
Best,
Yoni