Recently there’s been a lot of blathering about “standards” in the SEO industry, due to the amount of shysters and conmen who have latched on to the fact that, as SEO is difficult to quantify and the client rarely fully understands what is involved, it can be quite easy to extract quite a bit of money from the unsuspecting without really doing very much. While this is deplorable and we need to do what we can to reduce it and clean up the industry’s image, I really hope standardisation isn’t the answer, unless we want to remove any element of creativity from our jobs so that they become like any other by-the-books daily grind.

Instead of reducing search engine optimisation down to a set of defined rules and standards, I feel it’d be much more productive if potential customers had access to the views and opinions of an SEO company’s previous clients, rather than having to rely on a sales pitch to base their decisions on. I know from my personal experience that if I’m considering purchasing a product or service, especially from an unfamiliar vendor, I am most likely to react based on reviews I have read. If I read mostly good reviews, chances are I will buy. If I read mostly bad reviews, chances are I will not. If I can find no reviews at all, I’ll feel like I’m taking a punt at best.

If more clients were encouraged to leave their reviews and feedback (good or bad) in a publicly accessible forum, this could quickly result in the kind of self-regulation we can see on eBay with a user’s “Feedback score”. Of course, as professionals we know that we’re much more likely to receive feedback for a job done badly than a job done well, as it is generally in our nature to complain more than to complement (without an incentive, at least). But it’s for this reason that, if we truly believe we are offering valuable services, we should encourage the feedback - companies who are consistently failing or leaving their clients underwhelmed and out of pocket would quickly be exposed and earn the reputation they deserve. And while the rest of us might hear back from the odd disgruntled customer, we should take that feedback on board, build on it and improve.

There are already a few SEO review sites out there, such as SEOInsider, but none of them (as far as I can see) are used frequently enough to get a balanced view of any of the companies listed. The best I’ve seen so far is the Review SEO Companies section of ReviewCentre, as it provides both a scoring system and a forum of sorts for you to write your own review.

So far there are reviews of the following SEO companies listed on the site;

Bensykes.co.uk - bensykes.co.uk
BigMouthMedia - bigmouthmedia.com
Neuro SEO - neuroseoservices.com
Search Engine Genie - searchenginegenie.com
1st Page Prophets - 1stpageprophets.com
AdWordsManagement - adwordsmanagement.blogspot.com
Codeweavers - codeweavers.net
Digital Clarity - digital-clarity.com
DirectBrand - directbrand.ie
Esummit - esummit.co.uk
Just Search - justsearching.co.uk
Majon International - majon.com

The following companies also have profiles on the site, and are awaiting reviews;

E Channel - e-channel.com
NCS - net-commerce-solutions.co.uk
Position Gold Ltd - positiongoldltd.com
David Naylor - davidnaylor.co.uk
Dolphin Promotions - dolphinpromotions.co.uk
Dvisions - dvisions.co.uk
Hobo Web - www.hobo-web.co.uk
I Have A Website Now What - ihaveawebsite-nowwhat.co.uk
Vertical Leap - vertical-leap.co.uk
WebPresence - webpresence.tv
White Media - www.whitemedia.com

So far noone has yet posted a review of the company I work for, but I’ll certainly be asking our clients if they’d like to leave their comments on forums such as this in future.

SO… what do you think? Should we be encouraging more open and honest feedback? Would you be happy about feedback about your business being made available to the public? How would you like to see the con men ousted from our industry?

What sort of gurantees do you give about your SEO campaigns?

It’s a fairly safe bet that, with a little SEO experience and work, you can improve a client’s traffic. With a lot of SEO experience and work you should be able to improve client’s traffic dramatically. Depending on the site you should also be able to improve their conversions.

But do you stop there? Do you ever guarantee rankings to your clients? Apparently leading UK SEO agency Greenlight do (see reason 3), and I’ve heard it included in plenty of other pitches.

Personally, I will not guarantee specific positions, ever. To do so suggests that your Google position is somehow static, that once it’s gained it’s there to stay. As the recent Google update “Dewey” has taught many of us, this just isn’t true! I’ve seen a competitive ranking go from 1st to 30th and back in the space of a day, repeatedly over the past few weeks. If I’d guranteed that client a 1st place position, I’d be in breach of trust, at best, and contract, at worst. Not to mention if I’d guaranteed them a number 2, 3, 4, 5 or any other number that they aren’t currently at.

It looks like not everyone agrees with me though, and if a company as successful as Greenlight feel that they can offer guarantees, perhaps there’s something to it.

I would love to know how a “guarantee” of ranking can be justified. Maybe I’m missing something. I’d be very interested to hear from anyone at Greenlight or other agencies that offer guarantees.

Update: Long term readers of this blog might feel a little deja vu while reading this article, as it was originally posted back in February. I’ve reposted it because more and more of you have started visiting recently, and I wanted to put it in front of some more eyeballs in the hope of gathering more opinions on the subject. The article has also been revised a little to include some thoughts I’ve had on the subject since the original posting. For my older readers, apologies for the re-hash. For my newer readers, please do feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think of the issue!

ORIGINALLY POSTED 5TH FEB 2008

Late last week I was involved in an unfortunate turn of events that eventually led to the closing of the North South Media Top SEO’s Contest. A friend of mine over at WebWorkShop.net asked for opinions regarding the contest after coming across it for the first time, and the discussion that followed, sadly, went a little sour.

Beginning with the suggestion that a company who has high rankings for industry keyterms will not necessarily provide a good service, the conversation ultimately lead to the suggestion that these high rankings actually imply that a company with the time to spare to achieve them must actually provide a worse service than other “top seos” who do not, as they are spending their time working at that rather than on their clients’ sites.

Now, I understand and agree with the position that high rankings do not necessarily equate to a better quality service - I know this from experience. This does call into question the validity of whether the poll really does represent the “top seo companies”, but then who decides the definition of “top”? Achieving rankings for industry terms is a competitive task, and one that requires real SEO skills. At very least, you’re saying to potential clients “if we can do it for ourselves, we can do it for you”, and this is often enough to secure a contract. As I pointed out in the thread, just look at the success of Steve Leach’s bigmouthmedia - until recently they were number 1 consistently for the term “search engine optimisation”. I know for a fact that this point was used to help them win a lot of pitches, and along with some shrewd financial manoeuvering, including an aggressive reverse takeover of my former employers Global Media, become the largest independent search marketing provider around. Just Search also make a point of mentioning their high rankings for SEO-related terms and have recently been bought out for seven figures by “search giant” Getupdated (not that I’d heard of them before the buy).

I’m not saying I’d personally model a business after either of these examples, having been on the shopfloor in both. In my opinion, their success stems from flashy branding and sometimes aggressive sales allowing them to land high profile clients such as Hilton (as optimised by bigmouth) and Dejoria (as optimised by Just Search), perhaps at the expense of their smaller clients. I believe the branding and sales patter doesn’t always match the actual experience of the people who are to be working on the campaign, and while there is certainly a core of very knowledgable folk in both organisations, much of the work is carried out by relative young ‘uns, rather like I was back in my earlier Global Media days (and some might argue still am - we’re all still learning after all). There is certainly a big difference in the way they integrate their work into their sites, however. Check the examples to see what I mean. If you can’t tell the difference, back to SEO school for you!

All that said, one thing they have both got right is their rankings.

Update: In response to this post, Scott over at Fused Nation has written regarding his experience at bigmouthmedia, which lead to some very interesting comments - worth checking out.

I do understand that there are many, many top quality SEOs out there that are not working to achieve these rankings, and this does not reflect on the quality of their work one jot. However, to assume and advise that ranking for these terms suggests a poorer quality service is just sour grapes. Lets face it, with the available time and resources, ALL of us in the industry would like our SEO related sites to rank for “search engine optimisation”, “SEO”, or even “search engine optimization” (if you choose - sorry, chooze - to spell it wrong).

So live and let live, guys, however you decide to sell your services.

And Paul, thanks for the link love man, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

In his post “Why Bother with an SEO Company?“, Brent Yorzinski makes the point that “People hire SEO companies for the same reasons they hire attorneys”. The more I think about it, the more think he might be on to something. There are definitely several parallels that can be drawn against the services provided by SEOs and lawyers.

So without further ado, here’s my top 10 reasons SEOs are like lawyers.

1. You don’t get one until you realise how screwed you are without one.
2. You judge them based on their success rate with previous clients.
3. You pay the best regardless of if you win or lose. The “No Win, No Fee” type tend to be bottom feeders.
4. If the service is any good, the provider will make it look easy. It wasn’t.
5. It’s not always true that “the more you pay, the better you’ll get”. Many of the best known and highest charging agencies are also the busiest, and you are unlikely to get the same attention as you might from a smaller vendor.
6. Equally, if you insist on going for the cheapest you can find, you shouldn’t be surprised if you find yourself locked up (or in Google’s case, locked out)
7. Imagine that your site is the case your lawyer (your SEO) has to present to the judge (Google). Do you have a good case? Do you have a trustworthy history? Plenty of good references? What’s to keep the judge from sending you down?
8. Choose carefully, because whatever happens, it’s your nuts on the line. If you choose a crappy service because you didn’t do your homework, don’t expect them to come to the rescue once the judgement is passed, they’ll as likely bail out with your cash and leave you in the clink. A good service will see you through and do everything in it’s power to get you out of there.
9. No matter what we say or do, at the end of the day, the judge has the final say. We might not agree with the judge’s decisions, we might even think he’s being a hypocritical idiot from time to time, but what he decides is what matters, and we’ve all just got to deal with it. You might have a chance at a lengthy appeals process once the judgement has been passed, but don’t expect anything to happen quickly (unless you happen to be BMW or bigmouthmedia).
10. As Brent puts it himself “People hire SEO companies often for the same reasons they hire attorneys. They need a trusted advisor who is engrossed in the industry on a daily basis. If something changes on the search engine landscape they want to know about it. Therefore I conclude the many times a firm is hired partly for an increased level of comfort and partially for the added expertise that can be derived from a company or person experienced in search engine optimization.”

I’ve been watching, bewildered, for a while now as Twitter continues to grow in popularity. I signed up a few months ago, even bothering to add the Tweet box to the side of this blog, but watching the way it was used, I decided straight away that I didn’t want to be part of the community until I at least knew some Twitter users in “real life”. As it happens, I have still yet to meet a single person outside of the SEM circle that even knew what it was, let alone used it on a regular basis.

However, amongst the SEM regulars, it seems to have become huge. And still it sucks, due to the sheer inanity of 99.99999999999999% of updates posted. I just don’t understand where you people are finding the time. Even after reading articles explaining the virtues of Twitter and about how it can be modified to “spice it up“, I’m still convinced it’s really only good for a) low-grade advertising and b) talking shite.

Speaking with Neil from Lucidite, I realised perhaps I’m not the only one thinking this way. Here’s the top 21 reasons why we’re thinking Twitter Is Bullshit.

1. I honestly couldn’t care less what you had for your tea, or how that sensitive medical problem is going. Neither do most of your followers, really.
2. The most followed ‘tweeters’ already have well establised blogs that they post on daily. However, not content with expressing a daily opinion on these blogs, now we’ve got to follow them minute by minute. They are that important and interesting.
3. Some ‘tweeters’ are ‘tweeting’ everyday hoping to ‘get in’ to the z-list Celeb list, then passive aggressively whining about it when it doesn’t happen.
4. “We feel that Twitter keeps us on the ‘cutting edge’ of the web marketing sphere - shit, where’s the past 2 hours gone…”
5. Asking to ‘follow’ someone is rather like a request to stalk them, especially if you’ve never met.
6. It is instant messaging for voyeurs and exhibitionists.
7. Spending over $200 on texting ‘tweets’ does not make you cool.
8. Just because you’ve got 30 ‘followers’, doesn’t mean you’ve got 30 friends.
9. When I do exactly the same thing on Facebook, my real friends get to read it.
10. Even though you’ve got nothing to say, 140 characters never seems enough to say it.
11. Just because you feel like you’re hanging out with A-list bloggers, doesn’t mean they’re aware you exist. Chances are they can’t even read your replies.
12. Even if they can read your replies, it doesn’t mean they will.
13. And for that matter, why do you care so much about what is going on in their minute to minute life?
14. In real life, it’s usually considered impolite to start banging on to relative strangers about how your day was before they’ve even asked. Why is this so different on the internet?
15. The size of your penis is inversely proportional to the number of people you follow. Jason Calacanis follows over 22,500 people. I follow none.
16. Most of your followers are fickle sycophants basking in your reflected internet-glory. You might be feeling the love right now, but you know eventually someone better will come along. Then you’ll be left ‘tweeting’ into the ether.
17. Just ‘cos you work on the internet, and Twitter happens to be on the internet, does not mean Twitter is work.
18. It’s a DOS version of the Matrix.
19. Using Twitter effectively can be a quick route to becoming an ‘Internet Rockstar’. Being an ‘Internet Rockstar’ as rather like being a regular rockstar minus a few important aspects, namely a) the talent, b) the money and c) the sex.
20. If people spoke in real life the way they write their ‘tweets’, the world would be a bland and inoffensive place indeed.
21. No matter how much you love it right now, face it, you’ll have forgotten all about Twitter just as soon as something better comes along. Following current trends, I can only assume that this will be some sort of wireless application to stream your innermost thoughts directly from your brainspace. Come on, admit it, you’d love that, wouldn’t you?