SEO Douchery
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- canoe
What's the best way to get a straight answer out of an SEO consultant?We've been talking about security, hosting, and cms for 6 weeks.
It's a simple automotive dealership website without any kind of back end integration into their business systems.
Are "simple Wordpress websites" that difficult to develop these days or is this guy trying to milk his hours and take advantage of the newbies in the room?
- _niko2
milk. They're pretty useless fucking snakeoil salesmen. you can do what they do and more with a simple wordpress SEO plugin like Yoast or the SEO Framework
- free plugin that takes you 15 minutes to configure._niko
- Yoast is awesome and if you have some tools like screaming frog you can easily check everything, there is no need for seo fuckerysted
- Title/description lengths, max/min. number of words/page so Googie can index, alt tags on images, etc. That's pretty much it.elahon
- cherub0
Waterboarding.
- sted2
No they aren't, wp is fucking easy, it's the text content where you have to be careful but that can be researched using free tools.
let me show you some low-budget shit we made in 32 hours or less with all the content and some consultation for the text:
http://truevaluesolar.com.au/
http://wa.energy/
http://bodegabaylodge.com/ (all woodside hotel sites).
http://wwww.askabreeder.com/
http://virginiaspirits.org/ (client was the designer so it's shit)40+ (+16 hours in design by me)
http://www.bernarduslodge.com/- hope viginiaspirits don't google themselves and find this link...fruitsalad
- detritus0
They are the figuratively-literal scum of the Earth.
- at least of the industry, placed right next to Account Doucherycanoe
- Strategic planners can be pretty douchey, too, if they're allowed off the leash.Continuity
- canoe0
it's not just the cms, it was the ongoing conversation about security and we vetted like 10 different hosting companies.... and talked about having a decoupled CMS situation as well...
I mean, is that really necessary?
- smatras0
SEO consultant talking about hosting etc.?
Why? What have you asked him to deliver?
...straight and concise answers are rare to get from someone who is selling their time.
- plash1
there's a lot more to customer conversions than any website designer or SEO ‘guru‘ can deliver. The online industry has surpassed websites and SEO optimization as a means of presence. Honestly, I don't know how people make any real money doing websites anymore.
- canoe0
We try to sell integrated marketing as much as possible...
- canoe0
I just got off the phone with the PM - first time working together and he has a new project, so I slipped in, "So have you ever worked on a project where it takes 6 weeks to figure out hosting?"
He kinda shrugged it off, blamed himself, emphatically, but subtly said no
- trooperbill0
hey guys this is my chosen profession... if you need to know something just ask... all the haters are so pre 2010. its all changed and is now legit.
- trooperbill0
*sigh* theres so much more to seo than yoast!
- of course but yoast and Wordpress enable a client to manage it themselves. I am sure you are great at what you do but so many cowboys out there.fadein11
- "it" hmmtrooperbill
- is search engine optimisation not an it?fadein11
- fate0
SEO is snake oil territory.
That said, hosting really does matter.
But it's not complicated.
Don't use GoDaddy. Don't use Windows. Don't use local companies and startups. And don't use any host held by EIG (HostGator, BlueHost, et al)
DreamHost, InMotion, LiquidWeb, RackSpace are all perfectly valid answers, then just get on with it.
- What has the choice of my opearting system or my domain provider to do with my SEO results?mekk
- ETM0
Without stepping on anything trooperbill can add...
Literal SEO, the optimization part may very much be technical, and both achieved through automation/tools and best practices in code and deployment. SEM is far more broad and in-depth, from content dev, social strategy, data/analytics reviews, paid advertising, partnerships etc. etc. Yes, it's very time intensive and an ongoing process.
So did you hire them for SEO, SEM or both?
- vero_vandal0
depends on the SEO guy. there are good ones and there are bad ones
- trooperbill0
its true that if designers, developers and content writers DID THEIR JOBS PROPERLY you wouldnt need SEO. unfortunately corners are cut and creativity often trumps common sense.
- Only in terms on on-site SEO, what about offsite?breadlegz
- trooperbill0
@Canoe pick the fastest host locally to your clients. make sure you have a dedicate ip (if such a thing exists any more with virtualisation). ensure the host is set up with the best caching and locdbalancing money can buy. Get a high encryption ssl certificate. ive had clients who move hosting company for something heaper and lost their rankings. they denied this was the cause then 12 months later with 0 organic traffic per month they agreed to trial swapping back for a week. (a lot of) their organic traffic came back in 24 hours.
- https://wpengine.com…pablo28
- its more about not sharing an ip with dodgy sites.trooperbill
- if the shared ip is not blacklisted, you don't need a dedicated ip http://mxtoolbox.com…pablo28
- yeptrooperbill
- monoboy2
Nothing trumps good compelling content and a bit of creativity.
Sadly, clients and SEO types do things by machine thinking. Mitigate risk, show me the figures etc. Seldom works.
A few things to ask.
Is SEO business critical?
(Unless you are sell things through a website and rely on search it isn't. Spend your budget on proper old fashioned marketing).Have they set goals based on the client needs?
What are they trying to achieve?
In my experience, be very wary of SEO folks offering results too good to be true. They always are.
I bet they offer you a series of researched keywords based on competitor analysis. Then a monthly retainer for ongoing 'SEO' content work to target them.
You'll get monthly reports full of meaningless graphs and recommendations to tweak button colours and layouts.
Or bemoan a 'low' budget if it goes south.
None of which will address the real problem; That your audience couldn't care less about your company or content. Becuase it's dull as fuck and not relevant to their needs.
As for hosting. That's just to tie you into paying way over the odds for a basic package and they can hold your website to ransom.
Even if they get rankings and traffic up, the client still has to convert them into a sale. Effective SEO doesn't equate to good sales.
Good design and marketing is what works best.
- true datfruitsalad
- good seos will be non specific about targets as we dont control the playing field.trooperbill
- layouts yes - to prioritise IPR flow, button colours notrooperbill
- depends what you mean by good - if you mean more then yes seo can deliver thattrooperbill
- 'good' design and marketing is still a gamble and subjective at best - its no different than seo and outreachtrooperbill
- Not if it;s matched with good brand thinking. A good offer that's relevant to your audience needs. Without that, you're shouting at the clouds.monoboy
- As for non specific targets, I don't meet many clients willing to pay thousands a month on a unquantifiable goal.monoboy
- wheelBoy0
SEO is relevant for ecommerce websites, but SEM is mush more in depth and can produce better result across the board.
- seo delivers better long term roi 12-18 months+trooperbill
- SEO works great for SEMs as well.breadlegz