The Internet is big: we all know this. Everyone provides SEO services and every website owner is looking for cheap SEO services. So it’s a situation when 10,000 websites hire 10,000 SEO experts trying to be number 1 or at least on page 1 of Google. The obvious thing is that there will be 9,990 losers. There are only 10 places on the first page of Google.
So, this means that only 10 SEO experts are worth their payment? This is the narrow way to think about SEOs of many website owners. If you can’t get me to page one for this keyword then you’re nothing. Ok, suppose I take to page 1 and next week I’m paid to take another website on page 1. How long do you think you’ll last there? In my opinion, not too long.
That is why I think that SEOs need to change the way they think and the way they advertise themselves. We are victims of our own advertising message. Who said “hire me and I’ll get your website on the first page of Google in one week”? The answer: an SEO. Not the client.
But with what the Internet represents these days and with the direction in which it sales this simple way to think about SEO will not get you any far. That is why there are businesses that make money online and businesses that don’t. Because there are some people that understood that SEO is no magic formula and if you plan to always generate leads from your website is not sufficient to optimize for keyword X.
There are hundreds if not thousands of articles on the Internet that speak about the need of optimizing your website for hundreds of keywords and maybe thousands of long tail keywords. Developing a solid base for your website dictates the way it will grow. Too many people think that all you need to do is launch a website, put some content on it, pay $100 to be on the first page of Google for some keyword they think it’s the “source of success” and in 6 months they expect to see money pouring in.
Good SEO that is meant to last after you’ve done paying for it is not cheap is not easy to do and it will not happen overnight. You need at least 6 months to work on a website as an SEO. You need to perform lots of tasks, analyze the results, adjust and analyze the results again. You need to correct the existing content and add some more. You need to see changes in metrics. You need to receive e-mails from your client saying: “it’s great, my phone is ringing” or “why my phone isn’t ringing if I have 500 visits/day?”.
I’m trying to send a message about all the SEO providers that promise to take you to the moon and back for $100. If you believe that by just paying few hundreds of dollars you’ll make millions then you’ll wrong. If that would be the real price to do SEO for a business and generate thousands of dollars from sales do you think I would still do it for you? No.
Let me know what you think about this. Maybe there are some of you that paid almost nothing and now their online business is doing great thanks to that service.
There is an old saying: “I’m too poor to buy cheap things”.
Your message is well received Toma. It seems to me that things are moving at a much faster pace than they were just a few years ago. I find it increasingly important to emphasize that it’s not just about cost (while still trying to offer solutions for those with smaller budgets). Now-a-days it’s more about embracing SEO as an ongoing process. Quick fixes are short-lived. SEO needs to be a sustained and continuously expanding process in order to prove valuable over time.
I thank you for your subtle insights.
Donna