Mythbusting: The Magic Formula
In the 19th Century the world was awash with travelling salesmen peddling a cure-all “for whatever ails you”. These “medicines” were at the best ineffective and at worst fatal.
Modern medicine is based on the principles of diagnosis and study combined with the experience of qualified doctors.
There are plenty of “snake oil” SEOs on the Internet, offering to sell you the magic formula for Search Engine success at a knock-down price, but let the buyer beware!
SEOs, proper SEOs, are website doctors. We appraise your site with a critical eye, identify the symptoms and use our experience to diagnose the problem. Then we treat it.
We get to care for some sites from the day they’re born, others we see only briefly as troubled-teens, but the process is the same. Diagnosis and testing are our watchwords.
So how can you tell the difference between “snake oil” SEO and the real thing? Well, just as you wouldn’t expect your doctor to have decided what treatment you need before they’ve even asked what your symptoms are, a good SEO won’t sell you their services until they are sure what you need.
Sometimes client expectations, especially when on a tight budget, can be far too high. It is the job of your SEO company to ensure you are fully aware of what is and isn’t possible within the scope of your industry and budget. Only when this consultation process has been completed, and both parties are happy, should you be ready to part with your money. Anything less, and you should look for another SEO.
So that’s that, the “magic formula” is a myth that is well and truly busted.
Don’t let your SEO sell you a universal cure-all, because there simply isn’t one.
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on Monday, May 14th, 2007 at 3:48 pm and is filed under Mythbusting.
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May 29th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
What would you recommend as a good consultation process? One where the client is just told “yes, we can work with your site” or something more?
(This comments field is a bit narrow in Firefox btw!)
May 29th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Richy C, I would expect any SEO company to discuss their potential client’s expectations of the service and ensure that the company can meet those expectations before going ahead.
I would also expect them to make clear, up front, any limitations or caveats to the service before they take the client’s money.
Whilst you can’t expect an SEO to tell you exactly how they are going to gain your positions (much as you can’t expect your mechanic to teach you how to fix your car) you should be fully aware of what aspects of the site they will deal with - will they make the optimisation changes, will they write body content etc. This makes the process more comfortable both for the client and the optimisation company.