One thing you need to know about SEO is that it takes time to make it work. How much do you value your time? When you price out search engine optimization services and think you’re getting a great deal you might actually just be getting a great deal of headache down the road.
The thing that separates good from bad in the SEO world is not usually seen with the naked eye. The two parts to SEO consists of work that is performed on-page as well as work that is performed off-page. On-page is taken care of initially, making sure that your website communicates effectively to the search engines, telling them exactly what your company does, services it provides, etc. Sounds easy right?
The second piece to the puzzle is off-page SEO which is where things can get a little tricky. When I say tricky I really mean that there are different levels of quality that oftentimes the customer doesn’t get to witness first hand, the biggest piece of the puzzle being the overall knowledge of the search engine algorithms.
I’ve ran into potential clients that have expressed disgust with their current SEO services and I always have to ask why. Nine times out of ten the problem I run into is cheap cookie cutter SEO techniques that end up burning the customer and giving the industry a bad name. There are three bad practices that generally make up a majority of the cases. The first one is referred to as “splogging.” This consists of putting your website link on useless pages all over the internet on splogs (spam blogs) which don’t provide value to the client or any end user.
These splogs are typically generated through programs that are told create blog posts and to put your company link somewhere in a trail of gibberish, providing zero value to the client or the end user. The second bad practice I see all too often is content/websites that are owned by the SEO company you hire being used to link to your website to improve rankings. Sometimes these websites may provide value to the end user, but in the end when you decide to pull the contract you get the short end of the stick because your links are instantly removed from existence. You spent all that money and didn’t get anything in return, plain and simple. The third is comment spamming for page rank. This is far too common as of late.
Companies come in and tell you that they will get you ranking on page one, oftentimes telling you they will give you your first month or two for free if you agree to a larger contract after they see progress. These companies typically don’t want to show you the work they’ve done in fear that you will see just how bad it is. Make sure that your SEO shows you where your links will be coming from or you may end up getting burned.
A high level of quality which consists of content that’s meant to stick and a vast knowledge of the major search engine algorithms will get your company website the outcome it deserves. In general you can expect a quality SEO campaign to take flight (start seeing results) in just several months time with seven to eight months being more realistic for competitive niches, and that’s being honest with our customers.
This is because building quality content and linking it back to your site takes time. This means that you should start to see movement in the search results within that period of time depending on the depth of your niche. If you’re in a competitive field in a large city then obviously it will take longer than if your field were less competitive or if you were in a smaller city or town. If you’re looking to rank on a national level for keywords in a competitive field then it’s going to take longer as well.
In short, SEO is a durable marketing effort. Regard search engine optimization as a continuing investment and treat it as such. Look for SEO companies that use tactics that include great content and strategic content distribution methods. The cookie cutter just won’t cut it anymore.
