SEM / SEO Companies Archives

When you're in the hiring phase for an SEO expert, you should get to know a little about the potential candidate you're considering by asking the right questions. The SEOpranos blog has 10 questions that should be asked at every interview. One of them in particular resounds well for webmasters:

Can you tear this website apart?

Chance are, if they don't find anything wrong with the site, they're not ready for "SEO expert" work. That's not to say they can't be trained, but they're beginners, not experts.

Other questions include asking what types of blogs they read, how would they go about building links, how they track results to prove success, and others.

While some folks have trouble believing that the list is accurate at Sphinn, a good number of Sphinners believe it to be very useful. And if you're not an SEO expert, it definitely provides advice on how to hone your craft. You can't really go wrong with having some knowledge of these questions and their answers.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

A Sphinn thread has discussion on if an SEO is worth $350 per hour. The Sphinn thread is an off branch of a blog post that portrays an SEO who seems to not be such a great SEO but is yet able to charge $350 per hour for a minimum of 2000 hours per year. Yes, that turns out to be $700,000 per year, before taxes.

In this case, it appears that the SEO consultant is getting away without providing that much value to his client. It is hard to tell for sure, because we only see a small snap shot of one specific meeting but it just seems that way from the blog post.

In any event, are any SEOs out there worth $350 per hour? I believe so. But at what point. I am not sure I know many SEOs who charge $350 per hour with a 2000 hour commitment. Normally, an SEO with such a huge commitment will come down on price - i.e. more hours, less per hour. An SEO can drive an incredible amount of relevant and converting traffic to a site. Yes, it can be worth much more than $700,000 per year for a client.

So how much are SEOs worth? Is it industry dependent? Is it skill dependent?

Here is a poll. How much would you pay a top top SEO, if you couldn't do it yourself?

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

A Cre8asite Forums member tells us his client is about to leave him for another company. The reason is because this other company claims to be a "Google partner" and proved so through a letter they received for participating in, what appears to be, the Google Video upload program.

The Cre8asite Forum member claims that this other company came in, pointing to a letter from Google that they host on their web site proudly. The letter reads:

On behalf of Google Video, I'd like to commend [Company Name] for being an early adopter to the terms of the distribution of video content online. We're happy to host your videos in our index and make them accessible to a worldwide audience, resulting in greater visibility for [Company Name] and the subjects of your video.

I look forward to continuing this relationship into 2006 and beyond.

Regards,
George Strompolos, Google Video

To be fair, it appears that all this company is doing is saying they will help them get ranked well in the Google organic results with a Google Video result for their company name. Now that is not too hard. But the thread claims this company is using the "partnership" with Google as the selling point. Google, as we know, was eagerly pushing the video upload program, see Search Engine Journal's write up on that. Dated in 2005, Google did not yet own YouTube and was trying to play catch up. They did what they could to encourage people to upload videos directly to Google Video. Now, since they own YouTube, it is a different story.

The thread asks if the company who is pitching the Google partnership bit being unethical.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

Traffic Power is the name of an SEO company that most SEOs probably still remember. They sued Aaron Wall of SEO Book for writing about their SEO practices. You can see the details of that civil lawsuit over here.

Well, Traffic Power is back in the news. SEO Company CEO Arrested, Jailed: Accused of Foreclosure Scam from Search Engine Watch reports that Traffic Power's CEO, Matt Marlon, was accused of a major foreclosure scam in Las Vegas. The KVBC News reports Marlon was "accused of preying on those who were about to lose their homes."

At least sixty valley homeowners thought Marlon could help them. He offered to save them from foreclosure. "He would locate victims by doing a search of the public records on the Recorder's Office (website) for notice of default that are recorded then contact the victims saying he was interested in purchasing your home," Ellsworth explains.

"He'd come to the house with a notary in tow," Ellsworth continues. "He'd give them documents saying he'd take care of everything. Take care of the payment, take care of paying off the mortgage and I'll pay you some cash too. He'd have them sign a contract of sale."

Shocking!

The Aaron Wall vs. Traffic Power lawsuit was actually a beautiful thing. The SEO/SEM community go together and backed Aaron with their support including money, links, advice and guidance. Even more, Matt Cutts of Google went above and beyond and helped Aaron Wall by officially confirming Traffic Power was banned by Google, something Google never did until that date. So the whole process, although very problematic for Aaron, helped the SEO industry grow tremendously. Finally in April 2006, the Traffic Power vs. Aaron Wall case was dismissed.

Now Traffic Power's CEO is behind bars. The Secretary of State's Securities Division asks if you recognize Matt Marlon as the person who tried to buy your house or you thought bought your house, call them at 702-486-2440.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

I have been following a WebmasterWorld thread that has a site owner asking why his SEO company is requiring him to remove his verification code and add only access to Google Webmaster Tools for the SEO company.

Again, Site Owner A has hired SEO Company B. SEO Company B is requiring that SEO Owner A drop his verification for Google Webmaster Tools and then add SEO COmpany B to that access. But they are saying only they can have access and not Site Owner A.

What is the rational of this SEO company? And I quote:

We need to change our Google web master account due to some technical reasons, we have informed you to change the Google site map verification code. We will not be able to verify the site if more than one verification code is added in the server.

This seems extremely weird, since most of us know that it is perfectly fine and acceptable to use two verification files to give multiple access to your Google Webmaster Tools data for your site. In fact, Google recommends it over here:

How can I give other people access to my Webmaster Tools account?

Each person that needs to access data for your site in Webmaster Tools should be verified separately.

There is even a way for a site owner to manage who has verified ownership of your site.

So either this SEO company doesn't know that two verification files is doable or they are indeed hiding something. Either way, it seems way to sketchy for my taste. Either they don't know their business or they are not telling the truth about something.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A Cre8asite Forums thread asks if a PPC company has the right not to hand over their client's keyword list for the PPC campaign they are running for the client.

For example, ABCChairs.com hires XYZPPC Inc, to set up a paid search campaign for the company. ABCChairs.com asks XYZPPC for a copy of the keyword list that they set up for the PPC campaign. Can XYZPPC tell ABCChairs.com no?

Personally, I never heard of a PPC company who owned a client's campaign. But I suspect it is possible. How so? Well, if a client only pays a percent of spend to their PPC company and the PPC company spent a month setting up the perfect campaign. What happens if the PPC's client drops the PPC company after all the hard work is done? What is keeping the client there?

That is why typically a PPC company would charge a set up fee or set up a contract for a minimum term contract. But I guess if a PPC company doesn't want to set up either a set up fee or a minimum term contract, then they can hold the keyword campaign 'hostage.'

Projectphp got it right in that thread, it is totally based on what the contract between the two parties has in it.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

SEMPO is running a short in-house SEM survey to get more information about the "salary and structure of in-house marketing teams," according to their blog announcement.

Why a survey? There's too much guesswork when it comes to in-house SEMs.

Urban legends of someone who knew someone who got a $300,000 a year job mixed with stories of large companies looking to hire a director of search marketing for $80,000 a year, [SEMPO co-chair Duane Forrester] said.

But don't worry, your answers are confidential.

The survey is still in process and SEMPO plans to release the results in November, so if you are an in-house marketer and want to provide your input, take the 20-question survey.

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Yesterday, Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz announced that there were big changes ahead, and he's right. SEOmoz, a search marketing firm in Seattle, has decided to take in venture capital funding. This means that SEOmoz will begin to focus on a lot of exciting projects among other things.

Rand is active in the forums world, and Cre8asite Forums members wish him well. They're really excited for SEOmoz. I am too. This should be good.

Congratulations, Rand, Gillian, Rebecca, Jane, Jeff, Brandon, Scott, (Matt: I'll miss you), and the rest of the new team.

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

An interesting Cre8asite Forums thread sprung up over the weekend. Miriam (aka SEOigloo), a respected Cre8asite member, has a client where he has been provided web development work over the past several years. Miriam never provided any SEO services for her client, just standard web development services.

Miriam learned that her client was using, whom she felt, was a shady SEO company. The SEO company provided services that are typically found of SEO companies that fall under the "shady" practices. Let's assume this SEO company is a shady SEO company and doesn't offer their clients any SEO value - I am not saying that, let's just assume that for the case of this article.

Miriam presented her concerns to her client, explaining that this SEO company is not providing them any value in increasing their search rankings. Miriam's client was shocked by what she learned and now understands the issues with her SEO company but she is not ready to drop her SEO company. Miriam's client is concerned that if she stops paying her SEO company, her rankings may drop.

So Miriam decided to post a thread at Cre8asite Forums to get advice on what her client should do in this situation. Should the client drop this SEO company or should the client continue with the SEO company?

So far, the responses are saying Miriam's client should drop the SEO company. But put yourself in this client's seat - it is a tough decision indeed.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

An article about lack of research into sales pitches has Cre8asite Forums members reeling.

A new study by the Intelligent Business Group, a UK-based marketing think tank, provides a devastating critique of the performance of most advertising and marketing agencies ... Eighty-five percent of the survey respondents believe that the agencies pitching them do a lousy job of researching their basic business issues before making their pitch. Astonishingly, 61 percent believe that the agency did no research at all.

That's a huge number. The forums discussion wonders how much time members spend to pitch their SEO or SEM services.

Everyone says that they do research in some form or another whether to determine the industry, the type of product or service being sold, and information about competitors. Some of the participants don't generally make sales pitches at all; instead, people seeking services call them.

But this much is true:

The statistics are staggering but not unexpected. Too many people want to do their job w/o doing it.

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

A Search Engine Watch Forums thread reports seeing the first ever Search Marketing commercial on CNBC. I am not sure if this is the first ever commercial on TV offering search marketing solutions, but I have personally never seen any by third-party SEM shops.

Here is the commercial, via YouTube:

The date on the YouTube upload is from a month ago. I am not sure if it was first aired on TV yesterday or before.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

It appears that Network Solutions, the domain name registrar, is now in the search engine optimization. They have a page guaranteeing top search engine results or your money back.

Here are the various plans:

• You can pay $1800 and get no guarantee to rank 10 keywords well
• You can pay $2800 to submit 20 keywords of which 5 are guaranteed to be top ten
• You can pay $3800 to submit 30 keywords of which 10 are guaranteed to be top ten
• You can pay $5800 to submit 50 keywords of which 20 are guaranteed to be top ten

There is fine print, of course....

• No flash sites
• No adult keywords
• No hosting service downtime allowed
• No changes can be made to the site
• Top ten rankings in any of the 12 search engines within 10 months from completion date
• And more

If you look at the process they laid out for their top 10 search results plan, you can see a bit more. For example, they recommend their "Link Building Service package and/or an optimized Press Release" with their "Top 10 Search Results package." So right there, we see that link building is not included in the main package. They conduct keyword research and a site analysis, they write the content for you, they submit to search engines (I don't know why), they make links from your current home page to your new "optimized pages," they do reporting and then watch.

I am honestly considering giving it a try, just to see the quality of work. Should be fun. Any ideas for a site topic?

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

A Search Engine Watch Forums thread has discussion about a service one member was offered.

In short, the service is composed of two offerings:

(1) Damage your competitor's search engine rankings
(2) Protect your own search engine rankings

They use threats in their email marketing message, such as "Pay up or have your forum spammed!" and "Your forum will be spammed in the next few days" and then "Pay up to this url or have your forum heavily spam."

What should you do if you get such an email? Forward it to Google or let me know.

But seriously, all you need to do is "just hit the delete button," as forum administrator, Robert Kerry said.

The big question is, can a competitor hurt your rankings? We discussed this most recently in August 2006 and October 2006. I mentioned that Google has a FAQ that addresses just that.

What can I do if I'm afraid my competitor is harming my ranking in Google?
There's almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index. If you're concerned about another site linking to yours, we suggest contacting the webmaster of the site in question. Google aggregates and organizes information published on the web; we don't control the content of these pages.

"Almost nothing" are the words used here, so technically, it is possible.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

If you are in the business of doing SEO, what is an appropriate job title for you? I'm sure many of you have grappled with that question, similar to a member at the HighRankings Forums.

Tough question, really. I've seen people spend a ridiculously long time explaining what they do.

thanks for asking about something I've struggled with. I call myself a SEO consultant, but than I end up having to explain myself to the general population. You call yourself a plumber or a realtor and people know what you do. You say you do SEO or SEM and they get a blank look on their face.

Some people try to say that they work in "Marketing." Others, like administrator Jill Whalen, use a more specific and to-the-point title:

o the general population (like what I tell people I meet at a wedding) I just say that "I help businesses get their websites found in Google."

To businesses, however, I'm pretty much an SEO Consultant or Search Marketer.

Another good one is a business card with the following text:

WEB OPTIMIZATION The art and science of producing targeted website traffic and converting that traffic into sales.

What do you use?

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.

There is an excellent thread over at Search Engine Watch Forums that discusses how one Google AdWords advertiser is too busy these days to manage his account. He asks, what is the safest way to delegate those responsibilities to a third-party company.

For the last several years, I’ve always setup and managed my own Google AdWords campaigns and ad groups. In the early years, when I could devote the proper time, we did very well with AdWords.

As time went on and I got pulled in many different directions with other non-PPC-related aspects of the business, ROI declined. I sense that Google AdWords could still work very well for us, if someone competent would just put in a good 10-15 hours/week.

So I’m looking to outsource this task.

There is some excellent feedback in the thread.

(1) Agency reputation is critical. Speak to people in the SEM community, do searches, speak with their clients, try to track down past clients, just get as much information about the SEM company that you can, so you can be comfortable with your decision. If you are second guessing yourself, you will probably end up spending more time reviewing the work of the SEM company than just doing it yourself.

(2) The Google AdWords interface does not enable someone to view the full credit card number, after it has been entered. So you do not need to worry about your credit card getting into the wrong hands. However, most PPC companies will put the bill on their credit card and then bill you at the end of the month for the spend.

(3) If you want to test the waters with the company, maybe set the daily spend lower than you normally would. One thing is that this may restrict the PPC company from strutting their true potential.

(4) Sign a legal contract detailing everything you are worried about and then some. Spend amounts, daily budgets, keywords, and so on.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

A WebmasterWorld thread revisits an old topic and debate on if SEOs should request from their clients a site credit link. You know a link that says, "services provided by Company ABC."

We covered this topic in November 2006; Should Search Engine Optimizers Request Site Credit Links? and my personal thoughts were:

I am not sure which way to go on this. I see both sides. In my opinion, I think, that it is up to the client.

As we noted, Google themselves recommend:

You should never have to link to an SEO.
Avoid SEOs that talk about the power of "free-for-all" links, link popularity schemes, or submitting your site to thousands of search engines. These are typically useless exercises that don't affect your ranking in the results of the major search engines -- at least, not in a way you would likely consider to be positive.

Quadrille recommends that if you do link your client site to yours, you should nofollow those links.

Marcia said she sees "nothing wrong with "consulting services" in the anchor text back."

Good, old, debate that will continue for a really long time.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A topic that is often revisited in Search-related forums is how to pick the right SEO company. This is a subject that would fit just as easily in other industries' forums, as business owners are constantly wrestling with how to best pick service-providing vendors. Since SEO is still a relatively new field in consulting, it is possible to find people that may seem to know as much about the subject as others, but in fact are lost in tactics that were successful years or even months ago and no longer carry much value.

A recent thread at Cre8asite Forums started with a member asking how to find a good SEO in the Denver area. Moderator Bill Slawski (bragadocchio) started off by suggesting local resources such as the Denver-area Craigslist. He also asked exactly what he was looking to accomplish, which is an important question to help determine of the need to outsource actually exists.

Li Evans (storyspinner) ads a good point, agreeing with Bill that looking local first may be the best method for finding someone you can work with face-to-face.

Have you contacted your local Chamber of Commerce? …Being from a small town upbringing I'm a big proponent of using local folks - sometimes the best people aren't the biggest or the priciest. A lot of time you can really find a "diamond in the rough"

If someone is worried about getting into SEO, it is best to try and schedule a face-to-face meeting in order to get a feel for the vendor that may prove priceless. Naturally, if your account is only going to generate a few hundred dollars a month, the likelihood of the vendor visiting from afar is much lower. The Digital Point thread goes on for quite a few posts and was rejuvenated in early December with some more interesting observations. Highly worth a read, and it includes some links to some other good resources and sites about the outsourcing SEO.

It gives me great pleasure to congratulate Patrick, Bill and the rest of the Text Link Ads team for being bought up by a bigger fish named MediaWhiz. The good news is that the folks who run TLA, including Patrick and Bill, will continue to be running the company. The Link Building Blog and Search Engine Watch Blog have more details on the acquisition.

Text Link Ads was our first ever advertiser here at the Search Engine Roundtable. But more importantly, my company, RustyBrick, has a huge part in the growth of Text Link Ads. We are proud to have helped, from a technology standpoint, in making the text ad business grow into a main stream advertising solution for many businesses.

Congrats again to the whole Text Link Ads team and those in the industry as a whole.

Forum discussion and congrats are currently at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread asks, Can any SEO company be black hat free from google view? Well, we know from a Yahoo! employee's view, what makes for a Luminescent pearly white SEO.

Tim Converse from Yahoo! explains;

Luminescent pearly white: This would be a case where the SEO designs a site to show up for relevant queries and not to show up for irrelevant queries. Do luminescent SEOs exist? Well, Jon Udell is one anyway.

What about simply a white SEO?

White: The SEO starts (if lucky) with a site full of content you can't find anywhere else, and that answers a need that searchers actually have. Then the SEO makes sure the site is crawlable, and that titles and internal links make sense and are descriptive. Then the SEO thinks hard about the queries that really should pull up this content, and tries to discover if the right terms are present. Then (the hard, artful part), he or she rewrites content with a dual consciousness of the infovorous human reader and the termnivorous spider, making sure that the most important terms and phrases for the spider are present (in all their forms) and forefronted for the spider, without degrading the quality for the reader.

He goes through 9 different shades between black and white to describe the colors of SEO; Dark inky black, Charcoal, Dark gray, Slate gray, Gray, Light gray, Off-white, White, and Luminescent pearly white.

But he has created definitions. This may be the first time any search company employee (obviously Tim is not representing everyone's thoughts at Yahoo or even Google), on defining the different types of SEOs.

That is the problem. One "white hat" may consider himself/herself to be a white hat but in reality, they may just be a form of gray.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

I received this email this morning from an individual who asked, "Is the below mentioned email id belongs to any of your company official?" The email was sent from web.rustybrick@gmail.com and read as follows:

From: Rustybrick [mailto:web.rustybrick@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 1:37 PM To: [removed] Subject: Cost for SEO and Link Building

Hi [removed],

I saw your Website its quite rich in content and also ranks on some keywords i am the marketing consultant in usa and i am having various Link building and SEO projects which i wanted to outsource in India.Can you let me know about your Link building and SEO charges in brief and also the portfolio of the websites which your company have been handled.Do you also provide web development services if yes please let me know in breif

Thanks&Regards

rustybrick
Marketing Consultant
web.rustybrick@gmail.com
skype :webrustybrick
aol:[removed]

I was shocked by this, RustyBrick is such a unique combination of words, why would someone in the SEO business use that for their gMail account?

The email is incredibly hard to understand, based on the English used in the email. I emailed this email address asking if they are the official RustyBrick and they responded very quickly saying, "sorry i am not the Concerned person." He then later emailed me a gmail invite, to my gmail account?

Imitation is a form of flattery but I don't want others to think that my company is emailing people trying to sell SEO services or outsource them.

I am not sure what I can do to prevent this?

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

There are many ways to seek the right SEO company for you.

1) You can search on the keyword phrase you want to rank well for, and find the top ranked sites, then dig deep to find out who they hired (if they hired anyone) to make that happen.
2) You can go to SEO Consultants and search by a lot of criteria.
3) You can go shopping at an SES or WMW conference during exhibitor hours.
4) You can go to the forums and post a RFP (request for proposal)
5) You can go to a directory listing of SEO companies or search on "seo"
6) Go to a local directory like Craigslist

Members at Cre8asite Forums are discussing this now.

Some related topics we covered in the past on this subject:
- Outsourcing Search Engine Marketing & Optimization? Questions To Ask
- Hiring an SEM: Is it Hard?
- Stuck with a Bad SEO Company; Here are Some Tips

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

Google does some sort of update and your client's rankings fall. The client is furious and angry and ready to leave you. What do you do?

That is the topic of a thread at WebmasterWorld.

I have a seo client. All the client's keywords are in top 20. Their website is targeting a very competitive niche where they have to compete with many embassy and consulate websites as well as branded services and networked websites. In some keywords they tries to rank in top 10, there are 8 listings from embassy and consulate websites. In the previous updates, embassy and consulates websites took more top 10 listings. As a result, some of the keywords falls out of top 10, but still in top 20. Now the client threats to dump my service. Do you think their expectation is too high? What do you think I should do?

Well, if it is a "very competitive niche" then maybe the client should leave. :) But seriously, if this was due to one single update and the client use to rank well, why should they leave if they had positive experience with the SEO in the past? This is most likely the case with you and I am sure you had such cases. So how do you encourage them to stay?

I always felt honesty and a sense of caring about your clients rankings would be enough. If the client feels that you are a partner and friend and you truly care about their success, they most likely will stay. Oh, but of course, you go those who have no soul. Do you really want them as clients? If you do, SEOcritique at WebmasterWorld says you should try sending them this style of email.

Continue reading "How to Convince Clients to Stay After Rankings Drop"

A Search Engine Watch Forums thread tells a tale of what I see every now and then from an SEO. Basically, if you mess with an SEO, they can put up a page, optimize it for your name plus a negative keyword and ruin your reputation.

For example, let's say I bought a car from a local dealer and I was very upset with the whole process. I can create a web site or even post an entry on a blog with the title "Car Dealer Name Ripped Me Off." Typically, ranking well for a company name is easy, unless they are huge brands. But when it comes to a local guy or even a person's name, typically, it is easy.

SEOs can do this almost at any time and some may. Scary? Well, many jobs have their perks. :)

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

So you are considering outsourcing search engine optimization, and you have in front of you a statement that guarantees you will get rankings. Should you be impressed? Should you laugh out loud? The answer is and always has been "buyer beware." It is virtually impossible to trust a guarantee of true organic listings within any search engines results page for any keyword phrase, no matter how obscure.

A recent thread at WebMasterWorld Forums has a member posting a promise that comes up about every few months in the big forums:

I was shown an SEO services offer with all the normal submission to 400+ engines, resubmission, keyword research etc. etc. etc. but with one strange new entry Guaranteed Google Listings

The bogus 400+ submissions jargon aside, this is just an invitation to disappointment, in the opinion of many of the responding members. One of the best replies came quickly from 5400 post monster TrillianJedi, who says:

Never trust any SEO (no matter who they are) that says they can guarantee you a position in the SERPS.

Personally, I feel this is not only an invitation to disappointment, but actually a possible invitation to disaster. If you enter into a business relationship with any company that guarantees search engine rankings within the organic (free) results, you may become the subject of future Google or other search engine bans, because if someone is guaranteeing rankings, chances are they are not doing it legitimately within the webmaster guidelines. OK I’ll get off my white hat horse now and let others comment.

Please join the discussion at WebMasterWorld Forums. There is also a nice older thread at Search Engine Watch Forums related to this, and you can find an even older thread back at WMW.

WebmasterWorld has a featured thread named Three Warning Signs of a Nightmare Client. I find this thread very important for most business owners to read. I have been living by these signs for a long time now and I believe it works well. So what are the three warning signs of a bad client?

"I need to do this as cheap as possible"

If price comes up right away in a phone call or email, I am not afraid to tell them. I know my company does not offer cheap services and if they are looking for cheap services, then they will tell me we are over budget. The thing is, when I give a price and then they try to pick it apart. "Well, if I just wanted this piece, how much would that only cost?" I tell them that we do not build sites in "pieces" if you want to use us, we build out the site from scratch. Now that is me and most companies do work on portions of sites. But having this policy, of only working on brand new sites, makes it much easier to say no to the "cheap client."

"I need it yesterday"

Good thing we are busy, I tell them an ETA of a few months and then they jet. Anyone who needs it yesterday, and seriously needs it yesterday, has not properly done their planning. If they have and they have the budget to cover expedited services, then go for it, if you want the stress. But often, the stress is not worth it.

"My current web designer won't call me back"

This is classic and I have fell for it in the past. I got a big brand client, who hired us and soon we learned that the design they are using was from another design firm. The thing is, any changes we want to make to the design, we had to do on our own. The design firm was not available to make those changes on our behalf. That made me think, why? Guess what, 75-percent through the project the client became horrible to work with. The deliverables were not there, the people in the company did not respond to our needs and we had a deadline to meet for the VP. What happened? I gave them a full refund and walked away. Learned a lesson and moved on. Why a full refund? That is just how we operate and we are fortunate enough to be able to do that.

It is often not feasible to walk about from a project 75% through, so it is important to look at these warning signs.

Let me be clear, after they become a client and do continued work for you. You can expect that the client may want to cut some costs and have the occasional "need it yesterday" email or call. That is expected. And since they are a client, you do your best to meet those needs. Building a client base is also about building a relationship. You want the best for your client as you do for yourself. So you work through these times with them. But before you have established a relationship with a client, they should not be asking you for the above three, in my opinion.

Continued forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

There is a good new thread at Search Engine Watch Forums named Some questions to ask when souring an SEO/SEM company. The thread creator posted a dozen or so questions that he feels it is wise to ask a SEM/SEO company in order to make an informed decision about which company best suits your needs.

Lee Odden in the thread also points to two past cases of helpful resources on this topic, one at Stuntdubl and the other at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Continued forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

A Cre8asite Forum thread asks SEO training- is it worthwhile? There are many ways to train oneself to become an SEO, they include;

• Seminars
• Conferences
• School
• Books
• Forums
• Friends
• Trial & Error

A great way to begin is to pick up a basic book and follow that up with a seminar or conference. Then once you get the core principles down, joining a forum and reading and sharing in the discussion is often very helpful. Make friends and then experiment through trial and error. Finally, go back to the conferences and also read the more technically written books. Rinse and repeat.

Ammon warns;

The one thing I would caution against is if anyone were considering a course being an investment to make them an instant SEO. It won't. The course is merely a fast way to get all the basic principles into your mind so that you can then set off to learn more advanced and specialized skills from there.

Does the order I listed above matter? I don't think it has to be in that order, that is why it is listed in bullet format and not number format.

Join the discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

I'll admit I like a good juicy story, especially one when crooked SEM companies are involved. They seem to have some of the most creative ways to bend the truth about search engines. There is a entertaining thread on SEW Forums about the ways that SEM companies bend the truth in order to get more business. First off, the main problem is the difference between experts and the average user. The experts are supposed to have the knowledge and information that will enable the average website owner a better chance in ranking in the search engines. When the supposed expert doesn't have this information, or has false information that he is selling, he becomes a liar and crook.

The members at SEW explore some of the "truths" that SEM companies could use to convince you of their capability.

1. With Yahoo and Google you can do Paid Inclusion and get higher ranking. We can get you in top 10 quickly.

2. Our engineers know what Google will do with their algorithm in the future.

3. Google Site Maps is a great thing to get better results in rankings.

4. Our expertise includes a SEO Knowledge Transfer session for your development team.

5. We have several Fortune 500 clients on our portfolio

6. That was the fault of an overzealous junior optimizer who is no longer with the company.

7. We have extensive connections within the SEO industry that are on hand for consultation.

8. We share a deep rapport with industry experts such as Danny Sullivan, Matt Cutts, Tim Mayer

I am sure you can think of some rebuttal for all of those. Some are really really bad representations of the truth that anyone worth their salt should be able to recognize as false. Yet some of the arguments are harder to root out the truth. Take the last one. How can you prove they don't know the celebrity ring of experts?

Interestingly enough, the fact remains that even though years have passed where these tactics were quickly identified, there are still plenty of SEO/SEM companies deceiving the public with tactics the schew the truth and disrupt the progress of those businesses on the web.

If you have opinions on the subject, continued discussion at: Search Engine Watch Forums

A WebmasterWorld member posted a thread asking how critical it is to register a domain name for longer than a year. He asks, because his hosting company claimed that registering a domain name longer than one year, will improve his rankings in Google.

First, there is no conclusive evidence that the patent that Google issued that shows how a search engine can use domain registration length to determine the 'spamminess' of a site will be applied to Google results.

Second, if it did, why wouldn't spammers who can potentially make millions a month, spend an extra few hundred bucks to register a throw away domain for ten years.

Three, it is not right for a hosting or domain registration company to profit off of this, in my opinion.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Chris Boggs, our Associate Editor here, has announced that he will be joining Avenue A | Razorfish as their "Search Strategist." This is a major move for Chris and I am very happy for him.

What is very interesting, in terms of our community, about Bogg's move was that part of his conditions in joining Avenue A / Razorfish was to remain a part of the SEM community. He has expressed to me that this was part of his conditions in joining the company. G3 Group, his previous employer, also allowed and encouraged Chris to be involved in the SEM community. I am so happy to see large, medium and small SEM companies understand the importance of being a part of the community that they are working within.

Chris Boggs not only writes valuable articles here, he is a moderator at Search Engine Watch Forums and speaks often at the Search Engine Strategies conferences. Expect to hear a lot more from Chris Boggs in the coming weeks.

Congrats Chris!

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums & Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

SearchKing has regained its PageRank valyue for its Web site, after a four year penalty. The Search Engine Watch Forum thread, Four Years Later, SearchKing Regains Google PR has Danny Sullivan providing the historical guide as to explain why this is important. In November 2002 Google was sued over PageRank decrease by SearchKing. Since then the PageRank value came back but soon went away. SearchKing case was the first of its kind.

Bob Massa, owner of SearchKing, is a frequent visitor of Search Engine Watch Forums. I would not be surprised to hear a comment from him at Search Engine Watch Forums. Also, on a professional note, he is a wonderful person to work with.

We all know about Google calling folks to sell them AdWords assistance directly, we reported it back April 2005 when Top PPC Names Say No to Google AdWords Professionals. Heck, even cartoons were created Explaining the SEM & Google Relationship. But reports at WebmasterWorld show that since Google opened an Israel office Google is now calling Israeli AdWords customers that already have PPC management companies.

WebmasterWorld member Yelled_Boy says that Google has called every client of his (for whom he already manage AdWords campaigns) and attempted to convince them that they would do a better job then his company. He said after speaking with Mayer Brand head of Google Israel, he confirmed that Google was contacting "selected clients." Now is that fair? No, but it happens all over.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

There is a new SEO scam out there, one that seems honest and forth coming. A reported SEO calls site owners that have well-established rankings in the search engines. They warn them that Google will be banning their Web site and that they should switch over to his SEO company so they can fix the issues prior to being banned. The so-called SEO lists reasons why the site will be banned, such as some bad links (that are out of the control of most site owners) and then gives examples of other sites that have been banned, such as BMW, BigMouthMedia and Traffic Power.

The thread at HighRankings Forum documents this very nicely. After the Web site owner discovered this person was up to no good, and declined the person's services. The scammer sent the Web site owner back and email; "I make sure to report you to Google for link farming. I'm sorry. Your website will be banned and you will not be able to be found on Google not even with your company name." How professional?

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.