There is no magic dust, no tricks : JUST ADD VALUE

This article is a response to few e-mails I got recently requesting some SEO services. It seems that the economical crisis makes people think a little bit different. Now, business owners think that they have to move or act quickly or else they lose. Most of them didn’t had a website, didn’t invest in marketing or web marketing and often responded to my e-mails with words like “who needs the Internet : I have so many clients I can’t keep up”. Now that the wheels are turning and they have less and less clients they are desperately seeking for alternative solutions: and one of them is the Internet.

Let’s go back to those e-mails I’m receiving :
“I want to be in top 3 on Google. Could you please check my website ?”. Usually it’s about new websites with only ten pages of poor content that have titles like “about us” or “contact us” or “our products” kind of thing. After I send them a quick response explaining what they have to do if they want clients from their website they usually back off. Why ? Because they had different expectations from this interesting thing called SEO. They thought that I will came with my magic wand, perform some technical tricks and that’s it.

The fact is : there is no magic dust or magic tricks. SEO is a sum of technical rules that are common sense : how many of you would name their book “About me”  or how many of you would go to a party and say to everyone “Hi, I offer SEO services at affordable prices. Interested ?” or “Hi, my name is … and I’m a web-marketing-guru”. The same rule applies to the web.

You can’t become someone’s best friend over night just like you can’t be top 3 in Google over night. SEO is something that you have to use (although there are examples in which the blog owner doesn’t need it : Seth Godin) and it’s also a good thing to know a thing or two about it yourself, so you don’t have to look for an SEO service provider all the time. But this is just the foundation on which you start to BUILD and ADD VALUE.

So, people : stop looking for the Holly Grail of SEO. There is no such thing. SEO can be effective in placing your website in top places but you also have to offer quality content. When do you know that you are offering relevant and interesting quality content ? When your bounce rate is under 30% and when people start subscribing to your newsletter and send you e-mails to talk some more on the subjects you wrote about.

If you are not a patient person or you are after quick money, probably the Internet it’s not the place for you. Go someplace else and stop wasting my time and other people’s time by requesting the wonder-SEO-cure that will save your business in 7 days.

What about you ? What are your experiences and how do you deal with this kind of clients ?