SEO Training

I live in an area prone to flooding.  Last night there was a warning issued and we were to be lashed by high winds with massive amounts of rainfall.

Myself and my neighbour discussed sand bags two days ago.  Having early warning is vital.  I prepared to move everything in the house to waist height.

Sure enough the winds started to pick up last night.  The rain came with the winds and it was cold enough for it to turn to sleet.  I went to bed wondering what the morning would bring.

Last nights' severe weather results in mild puddles. Put away the sand bags!

This morning I couldn’t believe it.  After battling my way through the sand bags (which had been deployed by councils in other parts of the coastline) I was confronted with what can only be described as mild puddling.  How could Met Eireann (Irish weather service) have got it that that wrong?

After the build up it was a real let-down.  It did bring to mind how people must feel when promised the earth by us SEO’s though.  DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE about SEO.  It can change your websites profile hugely.  But when people start to build up what they can do for you to biblical proportions, it is probably time to start ignoring them.  It is all too easy to get caught up in a whirlwind of vague promises.

The truth is that like the winds that circle our planet there are so many parameters for SEO to be taken into consideration that giving really accurate predictions is about as likely as Met Eireann getting the weather right.  As an SEO the best you can do is say that there is a probability of an event happening.  This ability to predict a probability based on actions results from experience.  It does not take into consideration what will happen as a result of those actions in 6 months time.  That is because the playing field will have changed by then.  Will it effect your actions now?  Maybe.  Maybe it will in a positive way and maybe in a horrifically tsunami like negative way.

So how do you protect yourself?  How do you differentiate between inaccurate forecasts and accurate ones?  Standards, that’s how.  The SEO consultant who tells you that he / she can’t guarantee you will get results, but that there is a likelihood based on past experience gets my first vote.  They get the contract if they also say that they will only operate within Googles guidelines.  If they also show you where to find those guidelines and are open about what they are going to do then you have found yourself a responsible SEO.

If on the other hand they keep their processes secret, will not talk in plain english to you and promise you the earth… well then break out your sandbags!

It’s happened again.  I got another one of those emails.  Somebody claiming to have ‘inside knowledge’ that could help me beat the competition.  They all share a common theme…. “We work with/ are friends with/ once worked with / are a trusted partner of/ sleep with Google, or people who work there.  The implication is that these people can help you to rank higher than your competition because they are in possession of information that others do not have.

If you get one of these emails RUN AWAY!

There is no such thing as a Google Trusted Partner for SEO!

They are at best treading a fine line between legal and illegal in their claims.  Google does not have ‘trusted SEO partners’.  SEO is an annoyance to Google and to other search engines.  Google made it as big as they are by providing better (for better read more relevant) search results than the competing search engines.  They did this by building algorithms that catch people trying to ‘cheat’ their way to the top of the rankings and not showing them prominently – or indeed at all sometimes.

Google publish webmaster guidelines.  This is a list of what they deem to be acceptable behaviour when it comes to SEO.  What it boils down to is that they want website owners to publish useful material for their human visitors – not search engines.  What this essentially amounts to is a cap on what is acceptable in terms of SEO efforts.  Breach that cap and your website can fall like a rock into complete obscurity.

Any company that offers SEO services and is willing to claim that they have some association with Google is not likely to be ethical enough to use practices that will not get your site into hot water.  They are preying on ignorance.

In my last post I mentioned that I am not an electrician.  There are cowboy electricians out there.  Luckily there are also regulations in place to ensure some standards (even though I bet some of you can tell me some stories!).

On the web, and particularly with SEO there are no common standards to adhere to.  There is no SEO qualification (not by a recognised body at least).  There is just experience and results. This lends itself very nicely to the sort of people who like to take your money in return for little or nothing that you think you are paying for.  In the real world we call them con artists.

How do you know your SEO consultant is not a con artist cowboy?  I’ll get to that in a future post.  For now though, the easiest way is to talk to several SEO consultants.  There are quite a few SEO consultants in Ireland.  Some are very good, some are excellent, and some are good at talking, but not so much at producing.  By that I mean offering things like directory submissions, which frankly don’t hold a lot of weight these days (although they did years ago).

Please don’t be fooled by the “Google Trusted Partners” line though.  That is a blatant lie.