9 Apr 2017

7 Things You Should Know About SEO as a Client

seo

Search engine optimization, or widely known as SEO, has gained lots of attention in the recent years. But it’s not a surprise, as the search engine giants like Google and Bing managed to enhance their algorithms to serve better results. Of course, this new wave brought an increased demand of SEO services and most importantly – the professional SEO services, which actually get you traffic, leads and exposure. But as you can probably guess, this new wave in the search engines also got us tons of so-called “experts”, who just decided to ride the trend and make a buck. Unfortunately, these people ruin the industry and what’s worst – they actually take real clients and real money just to fail them after a few months.

So, here at Sematigo, we’ve decided to educate our readers a bit and give you some pointers on how to spot these fake “SEO pros” and their false promises. Let’s start with:

1. Ranking for your brand name is not an achievement

Let’s say you have a cool and unique brand name for your business and you want to spread the word about it. You do a quick search and find a freelance SEO expert, which offers you 1st position for your brand name in no time. Sounds great, right? The problem is that this is not an achievement at all, because no one is going to search for your unique brand name without knowing it. Also, you probably already rank for your brand name and it just needs a little push for 1st position.

2. There is no 100% guarantee in SEO

With more than 200 factors that contribute to your rankings and probably even more, which are not disclosed publicly by Google, 100% guarantees about exact rankings should be the first scam alarm. And it’s even more inadequate, when the “SEO expert” hasn’t even taken a look at your website. Professional SEO agencies will not promise you 1st position in X months; they will guarantee you traffic and leads. Potential rankings can be projected based on the initial audit, but without any guarantees.

3. SEO is a long-term process

Yes, this is the right word – process. Getting to first page in Google could be the best thing that happens to your business, but if you think it’s easy and cheap, well, you’re wrong. Much effort and months of work are required for a website to start ranking on the first page for a competitive keyword. But this is how life is, great things don’t come easy.

4. SEO and web design/development are close relatives

You just can’t have the one without the other. The early steps of the optimization start with the web design. If you’re aiming for a successful SEO campaign, then you should consider SEO involvement in the development process. You can save countless hours and lots of money, if you design a website with SEO in mind. In reality, most non-tech business owners are not aware of this fact and most of the time they do not get the right advice in the early stages of their online presence.

5. Backlinks alone will not get you higher rankings and authority

Although backlinks are still one of the strongest indicators for the search engines, the game has changed significantly. Link building manipulations don’t work anymore. Lucky spam tactics may still get some short-term results, but those don’t last long. So, if you are approached by an “SEO expert” with just a link building plan in his SEO strategy about your business – red alert.

6. On-site SEO is more important than you think

The search engine giants are constantly pushing for better and secure web. Naturally, this agenda is reflecting on their algorithms and a great amount of factors are closely related to the on-site SEO. In fact, the great on-site SEO can give you the initial boost in rankings without a single backlink.

7. Think twice before hiring the “SEO guru” for 10$ per hour

Sadly, the vast majority of “SEO gurus” will simply disappoint you after several months of “constant work” with little to no results. New businesses and websites should see an increase in traffic and positions in the search engines in about, or below, six months. It’s a good timeframe for keywords with medium to relatively high competition. The bad thing about amateur SEO executives is not the wasted money, but mostly the mess they leave behind. The SEO specialist have to deal with many more problems afterwards (and charge you extra, of course), clean the mess, get rid of the toxic backlinks or fix terrible onsite mistakes. All this work takes time, and even more time for the search engines to reevaluate the website.

We hope that this piece of writing will somehow help you tackle the SEO scammers and save you time, money and effort. Here at Sematigo, we believe that spreading the word about these problems is essential, because the “so-called” SEO experts not only fail their clients, but also hurt the whole industry and undermine the honest and professional SEO specialists.