Search Engine Optimisation – separating the wheat from the chaff…

Your optimisation expert may not be all they promise. They may not be an expert, for one thing. Equally, they may be as knowledgeable as you would ever need them to be. That still doesn’t guarantee that they will devote the time and attention to your site that it really requires.
They may, of course, just be bad eggs.

The good, the bad and the ugly

This isn’t a piece about how search engine optimisation isn’t worth the laptop it’s written on. It isn’t a piece warning of the evils of all optimisation companies. And it certainly isn’t a piece advising you not to optimise.

Search engine optimisation is real. It is valuable. It can and will make an enormous difference to your search engine rankings and it will bring more visitors to your site.
Most optimisation companies are genuine, and have real ability. Some are better than others, of course, but that doesn’t make them fraudsters and hucksters.

This article isn’t about sticking the boot into an entire industry. But it is about flagging up a portion of the industry that does it no favours at all. It’s a frustrating element that seems worryingly all too prevalent. We know it’s worryingly prevalent because there are few of our clients who’ve come to us without some prior, disappointing experience.
They’ve had their fingers burnt by the SEO specialists who aren’t special. By the optimisers who don’t optimise. By the people who will charge you the earth and leave you no better off then you were when they started.

SEO - Search Engine Opportunists

There are ways to minimise your exposure to these people. Here’s how they’ll operate, what you need to look out for, and a few tips on how to get the best from your optimisation experience.

1. Looks can be deceptive.

If they have a website that looks as if it was built on a budget of 20p and is held together by sticking tape avoid them. But then you probably would anyway.
More worrying is the number of quality websites out there that mask what will ultimately be a poor service.

Lesson #1. Just because the site looks good doesn’t mean it is good.

2. Jargon for jargon's sake.

Search engine optimisation is a dense and often complicated topic. It operates with its own language and acronyms.
Any quality optimisation specialist should be able to cut through the jargon to explain clearly what you need and what you don’t. They should be able to explain the benefits of any given course of action and be able to apply their knowledge to your site in a way you clearly understand.
If they can’t (or don’t) do that; if they attempt to blind you with science, they’re hiding something.

Lesson #2. If they can’t clearly explain what you need and what they are going to do without resorting to jargon then don’t trust them.

3. What did you agree?

It’s sadly all too common for work to commence without a proper agreement of what will be done. Make sure you understand each other with some form of agreement or contract between you.
It should confirm what will happen, what won’t, and will help avoid any misunderstandings further down the line.

Lesson #3. Both parties should sign up to an agreement or contract of work.

4. Keep talking.

Your optimisation team should in regular contact with you. It certainly needn’t be every day, or even every week, but it’s not unreasonable to expect an update call or e-mail each month.
They should return your calls. They should be available to talk when you need them.

Lesson #4. If you don’t hear from your optimisation specialist from one month to the next you have to ask yourself why. Mitigate against that using lesson #5.

5. Payment up front.

Any optimisation company worth their salt will have confidence in their capacity to get results.
There is a strong argument to be made that payment up front is entirely fair and reasonable, so on its own this is not a determining factor of someone’s authenticity. Combined with the other elements, though, this should set alarm bells ringing.

Lesson #5. Even if it’s not apparently on offer, try to negotiate payment over a number of months. That way you can drive regular action on your site and limit the chances of someone taking your money and doing nothing for months at a time.

6. The write stuff.

There are dozens of tools an optimisation company may employ to push your site up the search engine rankings. Not all of them may be appropriate to your particular site so it’s difficult to specify any key element you can easily look for to ensure the service you’re receiving is as it should be. Except for one.

Optimisation requires unique copy to function most effectively. Regular changes to the text on a website, and hanging much of the optimisation work on that text, is a key tool in the optimisation armoury.
It may be that there’s little text on your site and, therefore, limited scope for much in the way of changes to the copy. But some of it should change – and should continue to change - periodically, throughout the life of the optimisation.

Lesson #6. If the copy’s not fresh, neither’s the optimisation.

7. Results take time.

True. Results do indeed take time, and this is the key element that the disreputable optimisation company can take advantage of.
With an established website the earliest green shoots of optimisation success will generally take two to three months to appear. Real advances up the search engine rankings could easily take six months to become evident.
With brand new sites it could take six months for Google to even start recognising you.

This, of course, plays right into the hands of the unscrupulous. Haven’t seen any results for six months? Well that’s absolutely standard, sir – nothing to do with me. And sadly that may be true. But if your site has been live on the Internet for a number of months you should start to see something, no matter how small, by the end of month three. You should then see a gradual improvement over the following months.

Don’t check your analytics daily. The vagaries of Google mean that on any given day you can drop dramatically for no apparent reason. But the overall trend should be up.

Lesson #7. If your established site isn’t really starting to move up the rankings after six months, at least in respect of some of the more minor and less competitive keywords, then it’s time to ask questions.

Lessons summary:

Lesson #1. Just because the site looks good doesn’t mean it is good.

Lesson #2. If they can’t clearly explain what you need and what they are going to do without blinding you with science then don’t trust them.

Lesson #3. Both parties should sign up to an agreement or contract of work.

Lesson #4. If you don’t hear from your optimisation specialist from one month to the next you have to ask yourself why. Mitigate against that using lesson #5.

Lesson #6. If the copy’s not fresh, neither’s the optimisation.

Lesson #7. If your established site isn’t really starting to get somewhere by the end of the six months, at least in respect of some of the more minor and less competitive keywords, then it’s time to ask questions.

Don't have nightmares.

Search Engine optimisation could and should be the salvation of your website. It should prompt an upturn in visitor numbers that, in turn, leads to an increase in sales.
Your search engine optimisation specialist should be able to boost you up the search engine rankings and there are some truly excellent optimisers out there.
But as in any trade or industry, they’re not all good. Take heed of these seven lessons and enjoy a successful optimisation experience.

*Article written for XP Web Services by Word Forge Copywriting Services