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Ask the Experts: Follow the SEO: An Hour A Day Plan…or Else? ask the experts

Ask the Experts: Follow the SEO: An Hour A…

  • April 16, 2007
  • by Jennifer Grappone

Q: Our web development and web marketing consultant thinks that SEO, and all authors, seminar-givers, etc., are scammers. I’m concerned with that assessment, as I have found the contents of your book to be very rational, applicable, and relevant. Don’t know if they work or not – yet, but I believe what you’re suggesting is far better than the “let’s wait and see” plan that he proposes.

I’ve gone so far as to outline the hour-a-day plan you suggested, and for him to follow it, and provide reports, or start looking for other employment. Do you think that’s too harsh?

A: While we get a lot of questions about how to identify good vs. bad SEO strategies, I can honestly say you’re the first person who has threatened to fire his consultant if they didn’t follow our strategy! Is it too harsh? I can’t really answer that, but I can give you some pointers on dealing with your consultant.

First of all, no surprise here, but we don’t agree that all SEOs are scammers! To be sure, there are some slimy SEOs out there, but the industry itself is well established and generally well respected. We talk about how to spot the snake oil peddlers in our book, but in a nutshell: mass autosubmittals, guaranteed high rankings, or guaranteed quick results are signs that an SEO is not reputable. Why, there are even so-called SEOs who send letters to Google engineers, suggesting that they need help getting into Google. Duh!

Having said that, we are happy to admit that SEO is not brain surgery. It involves lot of common sense, concern for your site visitors’ experience, and a good deal of research and documenting. But it doesn’t take an expert, or a degree in anything in particular, to do good SEO. Perhaps that’s what your consultant is trying to express? I suggest pressing him on this point, and really trying to get his reasoning behind saying that Google is impossible to optimize for.

A good reason might be: Your site is in far too competitive a space, and standard SEO tactics like content building, site optimization, and link building will really not get you anywhere. This might be true if your site sells, say, printer toner or something with a similarly high level of search competition.

A bad reason might be: SEO doesn’t work because it’s all a scam. Good SEO does work, and what’s more important is that it ultimately benefits your site’s users!

Regarding the SEO Plan in our book, we wrote it to be as helpful as possible to as many different kinds of sites as possible. So yes, it’s probably a good plan for your site, and your web consultant would probably do well to follow it. But following it to a “T” isn’t necessary if you want good SEO results. It’s important that your consultant make significant efforts in keyword research, site optimization, link building, and making sure that your site structure isn’t somehow preventing the search engines from indexing you.

It’s really important that you get regular reports from your consultant, especially if you’re not sure that he’s bought in to the SEO process. His reports really don’t need to follow our exact format from the book, but you clearly need him to tell you what he’s doing for your site, why he’s doing it, and what results he’s getting. And this kind of feedback needs to come to you on a regular basis, at least monthly, but maybe more frequently if the guy is on shaky ground with you.

The bottom line is, most sites will benefit from SEO. It’s your site! If you want SEO and this person is unwilling to do it, he’s not the guy for you.

Ask the Experts: Should I Buy SEO Software Tools? ask the experts

Ask the Experts: Should I Buy SEO Software Tools?

  • February 11, 2007
  • by Jennifer Grappone

Q: The question I wanted to pose to you is regarding third party software tools such as IBP and Arelis, that on the surface seem to provide a number of features that could be useful in analysing competitors and improve your own site accordingly. I am very wary of such programmes as I am cautious of the sales hype that surround them.

If there is any other software that you could recommend that might make the task a little easier then I’d appreciate some advice.

A: We generally lean strongly toward a manual process of SEO, and you’ll see this mentioned at various points in our book. While there are many automated tools for SEO tasks, we find that taking the “slow road” provides many insights that using automated tools do not allow. For example, checking ranks manually can allow you to get a better sense of what the competition’s doing, and see changes in the search engine results (only today, I noticed that Google was showing image results for one of our client’s top keywords – that’s the kind of thing you could easily miss by using automated software).

One scary thing about automated software is that it sometimes can point newbie users down the wrong paths. For example, one that you mentioned in your email includes this quote: “[Our Software] also finds web sites with link exchange forms and it automatically fills out the forms for you. That allows you to get hundreds of backlinks in no time. It is a unique software program for the success of your business. Don’t wait any longer and download it now!” Now, this probably wasn’t the best advice even in the late 90s when having hundreds of backlinks was temporarily helpful – today, links like this could be downright damaging to your search engine rankings. The emphasis on finding the “perfect” keyword density is also not the greatest advice.

So, use tools like ARELIS and IBP with a grain of salt and only in conjunction with a more holistic SEO plan or some good advice from an SEO professional. For example, you can use them to mine the web for potential linking sites, and then mail your link request emails manually.

Of course, we are not totally averse to getting a little help with some of the more tedious tasks in SEO. We often use on-line tools, and many of these are discussed in our book or can be found on our SEO Blogs and Tools page. You may find enough time-saving (and free!) tools there that you won’t feel the need to pay for more.

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Gravity Search marketing is led by SEO industry veteran and author Jennifer Grappone in Los Angeles. The company was founded in 2006 following the success of the book Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day (Wiley, 2006, 2008, 2011), which Jennifer co-authored. Gravity’s clients include Fortune 500 companies, global entertainment brands, niche B2Bs, large and small retailers, and nonprofits.
Our small, talented California-based team specializes in SEO, advertising, analytics, and online brand visibility. Senior Technology Manager Andrew Berg, who joined Gravity in 2009, elevates the company’s technical SEO expertise to an elite level.
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