Are You Giving Your SEO Consultant The Bird Without Even Knowing It?
The relationship between site owner and SEO consultant can be something truly special. The SEO is getting guaranteed income via the contract agreed upon and the site owner is getting more traffic and additional sales from their website. For this relationship to reach it’s fullest potential each party has to trust and put equal parts effort into the project. With that said, as the site owner are your actions the equivalent to giving the bird to your SEO consultant? Let me cover several situations that without even knowing can be detrimental to both your website and the relationship with your SEO consultant.
Unrealistic Expectations
SEO can be very frustrating. Techniques that work well for one website may have little to no value on the next site. Anytime you feel like you have it down Google makes sure to unleash it’s next algorithm update. Even with all of that said, everybody wants to rank for million dollar keywords. However, not many people have the type of websites or budgets necessary to compete for such keywords.
Keyword expectations are just the beginning. If your contacting your SEO after just a couple weeks because your sites traffic or sales havn’t sky rocketed you might as well be giving your SEO the middle finger. SEO takes time, and you need to remember that it takes continuous effort. If it was as simple as sprinkling SEO pixy dust on a site then no self respecting SEO would work on any projects outside of there own.
The first couple months can be hard as your paying monthly dues but not getting the ROI you would like to see. SEO is like gardening, you need to plant the seeds before your flowers can bloom. Please, give your SEO campaign some time before deciding that your getting ripped off. TRUST is extremely important in an SEO relationship.
Using Non Search Friendly Technology
Are you insisting that Flash and or JavaScript be used heavily within your website? If so, your SEO is probably pulling their hair out of their head. While the search engines get better each and every day, they still have issues fully recognizing and indexing Flash and JavaScript. SEOs take every effort within their power to make sure that everything added to the website is not only recognized by the search engines, but also adds additional search value as well. Take a moment to have a conversation with your SEO, odds are you can come up with a solution that makes both of you happy in addition to the search engines.
Ignoring SEO Suggestions
A quality SEO will not only draw up an SEO audit, but will continuously offer SEO suggestions to improve your site. Sometimes it’s as simple as tweaking a title tag or content within a page, other times it can be as extreme as adding entire content sections to your site. You hired the SEO because you acknowledged the fact that they have proven SEO success with their past suggestions. You wanted your rankings, traffic and subsequently your conversions to increase and in order to achieve such goals you absolutely need to listen to your SEOs suggestions. Ignoring your SEOs suggestions is one of the biggest insults an SEO can receive. A truly invested SEO wants to see your site succeed. Your site can’t succeed if you don’t listen to the professional you hired.
Not Creating Frequently Updated & Linkable Content.
Choosing not to create new forms of linkable content is one of the first signs of a failed SEO campaign. Your SEO should be looking at your sites analytics and sharing with you new opportunities and topics to blog about. One of the discussions you should have with your SEO before you agree to a contract is determining who is responsible for creating content. Most SEOs will offer their content generation services for an additional monthly price. If you choose to decline their service then you need to make take full responsibility for the content. You also don’t get to be upset if the SEO questions the quality of the content. Your SEO wants your campaign to succeed. SEO success is built off of content and links, if you choose to neglect your content then your also neglecting your SEO consultant.
Micromanaging SEO
Constant communication with your SEO consultant is essential for successful SEO. However, having to check off on every little change your SEO wants to implement is something completely different. You hired the SEO consultant because you believe they know what their doing and you believe they will do whats necessary to improve your sites performance. If the SEO has to check with you for absolutely every little change they want to make to your site then you might as well give your SEO the finger. Your SEO should be putting together an SEO game plan that you checked off on in the very beginning. Most likely you will be receiving monthly reports or scheduled phone calls. This is a good time to ask questions and give your input on decisions being made or techniques implemented.
Making Site Changes On Your Own
SEOs absolutely love the participation of their clients with their own sites. In fact, client participation levels typically have a direct correlation with the success they have with their SEO campaign. While participation is important, it’s extremely important that no changes to the website are made without talking it over with your SEO. Believe it or not, the simplest changes can have catastrophic effects on your sites rankings. You should assume that things are the way they are for a reason and consult your SEO before making any changes. If you don’t this is the surest way to give your SEO a panic attack.
SEOs Want You To Succeed!
After reading this post you probably think that SEOs including myself are self riotous jerks. This typically isn’t the case. SEOs simply want to see their clients sites succeed. Several of the above mentioned issues add additional stress or difficulties to a campaign. Fortunately, all the above issues can be resolved. Remember that SEO is hard enough the way it is. No SEO wants to have an unhappy client. By addressing these issues early you only have to deal with the uncertainties that the search engines offer you. Trust us, this a lone is enough to keep any SEO busy!
Nick LeRoy
Nick LeRoy is a Minneapolis SEO consultant offering custom SEO audits & monthly SEO services to clients in all niches. He also regularly blogs about SEO at NickLeRoy.com
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A much needed post, Nick. I think that all SEOs have been given at least one, if not all, of those middle fingers.
Thanks for the comment Sam – I think a lot of SEOs can relate to these metaphorical middle fingers. I know many site owners don’t realize what their doing which makes this post even that much more valuable IMO.
Great post Nick. Very relatable
Great post. Now if only we could all pass this around to some of our more finger-happy clients.
Thanks Deanna, Appreciate the comment. Feel free to share this post via the social buttons on the left of this post!
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Jesus, learn how to write. Your grammar & spelling make it impossible to read this article without convulsing.
It’s unfortunate you felt the need to hide behind the user name “Good god”. I appreciate your comment regardless of your attempt to insult me. Hopefully you were able to overlook some of the errors in order to get the message behind this post.
Thanks for stopping by.
Would have chased him down and beat him up if he left his real name? Lol
I agree with a lot of your post, but as Brian Greenberg mentioned, clients just can’t trust SEO’s with complete access. We get clients all the time who have come from other agencies and have had terrible experiences. They did all of their research and felt confident in their decision to hire and then BAM! They get screwed.
It’s easy for us to complain about stuff like this, but I completely understand why some clients don’t want to trust SEOs, at least in the beginning, with complete access to their website/business. It sucks, but it’s part of the job.
thanks for visiting Alex. My comment by no means was meant as a threat. I definitely don’t want to harm anyone who takes the time to visit my site. Even if they don’t care for my writing.
Unfortunately, you are correct. Trust is hard to earn off the bat. Hopefully the client will feel better when site audits and several conversations have gone on between the client and SEO. Overtime, hopefully trust continues to build.
Thanks for writing this Nick. You highlighted some awesome points that I think a lot of clients don’t even realize they are doing.
I love the garden example. People want instant results and although there are some things that you can do (read “fix”) that could create a quick jump in traffic or conversions, the overall strategy will take a while.
Another situation (which falls under unrealistic expectations) to add is insisting that the SEO target keywords that are either too broad or unrelated. I worked at a marketing firm where we had to debate with an attorney why we weren’t targeting “arm,” “leg,” and “gas tank” for his 10-page law firm website.
In response to the previous comment:
Even as a copywriter/editor, I was more concerned with the content of this post than the overall grammar.
Thanks again.
Hi Amy! I think a lot of clients have no idea that they are doing this to their consultant. This post is by no means an attempt to slam them but to help educate them with tips on how most SEOs work.
Proper keyword expectations are key. Ego keywords are fun and all but they typically aren’t the ones that pay the bills.
Very true Nick. I think I may need to steal your line, “Ego keywords are fun and all but they typically aren’t the ones that pay the bills.” I think this is something that would get a client’s attention (although I might not mention ego).
Thanks.
“vanity keywords” is what I would consider the more appropriate customer facing term.
Great post Nick!
Trust is such a big issue as well. Sometimes site owners are just so gun shy to trust an seo after a previous bad experience. Not allowing analytics access, admin access to the website, or needing to approve all content creation is a huge finger in my book as well.
Brian, your absolutely right! I think a lot of clients have been burned before by “SEOs”. It’s almost understandable that they don’t have a lot of trust and even want to micromanage their SEO. Unfortunately, it hinders their campaign more then anything else.
SEO is definitely a trust game. Simply said, trusting your SEO is the first step to creating a successful SEO campaign.
Thank you Nick, bookmarked! SEO is a marathon not a sprint
Absolutely! You nailed it on the head. Thanks for commenting Lucky!
@ author- good stuff but let’s clean up some of the comments here huh? They’re a bit over the top
Hi Haley – thanks for taking the time to not only read this post but to write a comment as well. I do like to give my readers the ability to comment freely. While I do monitor comments, as long as they are not vulgar I do try to leave them be. I also try to address any concerns and I find that if I do so publicly then people understand that I’m not censoring any of my readers thoughts.