SEO lies

OK, it's official, we're now out of the recession!

But with major corporations, banking institutions and high street giants still dropping like flies is it any wonder that we're all still a little twitchy about the future of our businesses.

In a nutshell, as the great Charlie Drake once sang, "Money's too tight to mention" (or was that someone else?). Anyway, the point is that when your finances are under pressure, you have to ensure that you are getting the very best return from your available marketing budget.

Unlike the traditional 'offline' media such as printed leaflets, brochures, catalogues, press and TV advertising, a website will always be the most cost effective and valued option as part of the marketing mix for any business.

When designed and constructed properly it's very difficult to argue against the intrinsic flexibility and, ultimately, the ease of accessibility by the target audience which makes them a very powerful revenue generating tool (whether that "revenue" is purely in terms of cash or more in terms of exposure).

There's no denying the staggering results that can be achieved simply by understanding the potential, trusting the media and investing the time, effort and money to realise a real return!

And the key to this success is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Any business that has a website will, or at least should, be aware of SEO as it is THE vital factor in the eventual success or indeed failure of your online marketing strategy.

Beware of geeks bearing gifts!

The problem with SEO is that, as with the early days of the '.com' revolution, every other person is an SEO "specialist" promising results with very little evidence to back up their claims.

Sweeping statements aside, Search Optimisation is a complex and skilled discipline beset by ever shifting oceans of rules and regulations, courtesy of the 'Search Engines' (Google, Yahoo, MSN etc).

It's on this constantly shifting platform that reliable 'Search Specialists' are charged with the task of ensuring that, wherever possible, your website excels in performance and return over and above that enjoyed by your competitors!

It's worth noting that there are of course some very reliable and reputable companies out there that are delivering great results for their clients. Indeed we're proud to number ourselves amongst them!

However web design and development is an increasingly competitive arena and there are a number of 'exaggerations' and, let's face it, downright porky pies being told in order to secure your business.

If you are serious about getting your website to the top of the pile, essentially, there is no quick fix! In fact, depending on your market sector and the strength of competition and (of course) your budget, it may even be impossible!

So, how do you know if you are being mislead by a potential web design/development/search marketing company?

Here are the top statements that should ring alarm bells:

"We can guarantee overnight organic results"

There is absolutely no way that ANYONE, no matter how good they are, can "guarantee" to generate organic search results within 24 hours. Up there with "Dr Abanathy's Miracle Hair Restorer" and Big Foot, this claim is entirely typical of SEO sales techniques.

Our experience is that, especially with new sites, the top three search engines will all take their own sweet time in indexing its contents. The unfortunate truth is that regardless of the quality or level of competition, a new website can wait weeks before it sees a decent page rank begin to develop. In some cases, especially if the competition for position is high, it could take months of hard work and patience to achieve anywhere close to a site's full potential.

The clue is in the word "organic".

Organic or natural search page position, as with most things organic, takes time to develop and you should expect to pay a little more and wait a little longer but, ultimately, end up truly rewarding results!

"We can guarantee you Page 1"

It's hardly surprising that the same experts who "guarantee" overnight page listing can also guarantee specific page positions - hurrah!

Guess what... this is of course baloney!

As with the "Overnight Results" there can be no guarantee of placement on the first page of any search engine especially if there is any level of serious competition for the same search terms that you are targeting.

Typically, there are only 10 results displayed on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP). So, obviously, if there were only 11 websites competing for a term who have all employed different SEO experts... one is bound to be disappointed.

"We can guarantee No 1 Position"

Yet another issue with "guaranteeing" page positions is that some SEO consultants will also consider "paid for" marketing (such as Google AdWords - Pay-per-Click advertising) as delivering a top level page position.

This is of course entirely misleading as you would, by the very nature of the technique, have to be paying to appear in a primary position!

The thing is, even this will not guarantee that you could retain that position for any length of time. It will really depend on just how much you are prepared to spend on a daily basis in order to keep that position, the quality of the advert itself and the integrity and relevance of the page on your website it is directed to!

Needless to say, this could prove extremely costly especially if you are competing for very popular and lucrative search terms with well established brands.

Also, it should be noted that not all gyarateed search terms are going to be lucrative.

You may have a recruitment website… So, in an ideal World you would love your website to be page 1, position 1 listing for the term ‘jobs’. However, we’re pretty confident the expert won’t guarantee you such a broad, competitive term!

However, they may guarantee getting you up there for the exact term ‘I am looking for a catering job that pays more than £10 an hour in Nottingham’. If nobody is searching for that exact, specific term then there is obviously no value being listed for it.

"We’ll include 500 keywords on your home page!"

Erm, that's fine, but the question is... why would you?

It is best practice to market a maximum of just 2 key "search terms" per page. Therefore, unless you have a website with 100s of individually crafted landing pages that each require marketing, why spend time promoting irrelevant keywords?

The key is to find the most effective terms by comparing the search volume by the number of people competing for that term and sticking with them.

It's is also sad to see but there are still some "SEO consultants" out there who also cling to the belief that it’s all about "meta keywords"!

These days, the big search engines (Google, Yahoo, et al) do not consider the meta keyword tag and will ignore them in favour of judging the website by the quality of its "on-page" rich content (ie, what you and I can read on the page). We would advise it would still be best practice to include meta keywords, but there is no point adding ones that aren’t mentioned anywhere else on the page!

"We'll submit your site to 1000s of Search Engines and Directories"

OK... knock yourself out!!

It's fair to say that submitting your site to search engines and directories is the backbone of average 'SEO' and there are a staggering amount of options out there to have a go at.

But in truth, love them or hate them, the vast majority of search is dominated by Google with MSN and Yahoo just tagging on behind.

They will, without doubt, be responsible for the lions share of visits to your site via search.

All things being equal, just think of how few search engines you would personally use... why should you believe that your target audience would be any different?

There is, of course, no harm in embarking on a campaign of good quality – and therefore usually paid for - directory submissions.

"We can create 100s of inbound links"

You don't need to have much knowledge of 'SEO' to understand why inbound-links are key to climbing the ranks in organic, natural search.

As search engines evolve they are, inevitably, becoming more sophisticated and discerning. The result is that they are far more interested in the quality and relevance of links rather than they are in the quantity.

A single, good quality link from a relevant sector will contribute a far greater effect in your search engine rankings than any number of broadly unrelated links.

Again, as with search engine and directory submission, forging links in areas outside of your particular market or subject probably won't do any harm but you would be better served to seek out the more relevant links as this has become the more accepted practice.

Of course the downside may be that to gain the more relevant 'authority' links to your site, you may have some hard work ahead - particularly if writing industry related, unique and newsworthy articles - but, ultimately, it should be well worth the effort.

"Natural SEO isn't part of our standard design and development package"

Well, actually, it should be!

When you consider that Search Engine Optimisation, accessibility and design should all be working together to create the best user experience possible, it's simply astounding that any web design company worth its salt would consider them to be mutually exclusive!

Of course, this is how many company's will work in order to boost their income by up selling!

The promotion of a website should be considered before any aesthetic design is undertaken as competitor analysis and SEO best practice may dictate the site structure.

If SEO is address by a party other than your web designer after the site has gone live, it is likely they will identify some of even the most basic best practices are missing.

"We're ranked highly for all of our chosen search terms so that proves how good we are "

As a company that, amongst other services, offers design for web, SEO and Search Marketing, we keep a pretty close eye on our competitors in terms of page rank.

After all, web design is an increasingly competitive discipline and we are keen to excel in the field. This is why we find it hard to believe that any company can lay claim to page positions that they clearly can't back-up!

We're not in the business of naming and/or shaming these companies as that is there prerogative to make such claims, however if you would like to contact us, we will be happy to come and show you exactly what we can achieve given the time, dedication, budget and good old fashioned know how!