Do people really still buy this crap?

19 replies
"we are a team of search engine marketing professionals that help websites rank on the first page of Google and other major search engines through strategic search engine optimization (SEO) services."

This is the opening headline at a MAJOR online marketing firms website. Seriously, do people, specifically businesses, still buy this? I mean, I know that everyone wants to rank on Google... But, with all seriousness, if 25 companies in the same niche want to rank on the 1st page of Google, and they each pay a different agency to help them out... Well, only 10 customers are going to get what the doctor ordered.

But more importantly, there are BILLIONS of word combinations and long-tail keywords that people could want to rank with... In which case Ego-bidding very precise key words is ultimately the only sure-fire way to deliver the goods to your customer without deception. My brain is sort of all over the place on this topic.

I know a guy that ranks 1st each and every month strictly based on his picking up the phone and talking to his ad rep at Google and paying her somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000 a month. No SEO involved.
The two keywords that he ranks for, are very sought after and SEO "beat to death" by the competition, but in the end, Ego bidding wins the war.

I posted this in the offline section because my rant is specific to offline businesses who "need" SEO services and those who "accommodate" them.
Pre 2012 I probably wouldn't make this fuss, but even then, my friend was buying his #1 position. Again, all the hoop-lah surrounding SEO, and training courses, and forums, and "professionals"... C'mon now, If 100 online frog selling businesses each purchased SEO "services", how do you give those clients a fair shake? How are you giving ANY of your clients a fair shake knowing that you can't promise anything where SEO is concerned.

Anyone care to give me some insight?
#buy #crap #people
  • Profile picture of the author Aaron Doud
    He isn't buying an organic number one directly from google that much I know. If that were possible it would be a huge money maker for google till word got out and they would lose a load of customers. There are people who complain that PPC results show up first as it is.

    If he is doing PPC that makes sense and if his ROI is good why wouldn't he spend $10k plus a month? I assume he is spending as much as he can since a good ROI means you keep spending as long as the ROI holds.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dustin Lyle
      Originally Posted by Aaron Doud View Post

      He isn't buying an organic number one directly from google that much I know. If that were possible it would be a huge money maker for google till word got out and they would lose a load of customers. There are people who complain that PPC results show up first as it is.

      If he is doing PPC that makes sense and if his ROI is good why wouldn't he spend $10k plus a month? I assume he is spending as much as he can since a good ROI means you keep spending as long as the ROI holds.

      People who search this key word "phrase" are money spenders in bigger privately owned companies. His page doesn't have a boatload of backlinks or ANY REAL content aside from the landing/sales page, request quote page, disclaimer and privacy policy. He even ranks above the Exact Match Domain which might I add, has more back links AND real, relevant content.

      Now, I'm sure he's paying per click, because his bill fluctuates month to month, but not once in the past 2 years has he dropped below #1, and the clients pour in daily spending to the tune of a 2k retainer and atleast a 2k/month minimum spend.

      But yeah, I have to agree with Jonbones on the naivety, they really are just buying the pitch and not so much the result.. Because the result can be had with less risk and more certainty.
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      • Profile picture of the author JustinSch
        I think maybe you don't have all the relevant details here. Google does not offer rankings for sale, if they do it's news to me and... well... everyone else whose expertise I trust.

        Yes people buy it, and some of us actually guarantee our results. They buy it and we guarantee it because it works.

        So far 100% of my clients have 1st page rankings for their most important, highest trafficked, keywords... not long tail keywords that are easy pickens with little potential ROI.

        Sure your argument about 100 competitors sounds good at first, but the truth is you could say that about any competitive system. 100 brands advertising on TV how can you expect yours to make any sales? 100 landscaping companies servicing your area how can you expect to get any clients?

        Unfortunately most SEO providers actually don't do much of anything of value that actually makes any real difference in their client's rankings... so when my clients hire me even for highly competitive keywords (SEOMoz Difficulty 50-60+) it's actually very very realistic to guarantee them a 1st page ranking within 6 months because the 100 other SEO campaigns targeting those keywords really pose no competition at all for real effective SEO work.

        If I had to guess I'd say 99% of those competitors with active SEO campaigns being done for them, have a company that is relying on methods that kinda worked a little 10 years ago and probably do more harm than good today.

        Basically I am hired to run a marathon for my clients and that's what I do, the other 99 guys who were hired pretty much just sit at the starting line staring at their belly buttons (which makes me feel bad for their clients but really helps make my job easier).

        I would be willing to bet that there are more than a few good SEO providers here that can relate to exactly what I am saying.
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        • Profile picture of the author Dustin Lyle
          Originally Posted by JustinSch View Post

          I think maybe you don't have all the relevant details here. Google does not offer rankings for sale, if they do it's news to me and... well... everyone else whose expertise I trust.
          see... bidding for exposure...

          one thing alot of people forget is that there is actually a live auction taking place every time someone searches with Google. That said, Google is a publicly traded company with a fiduciary duty to its stock holders to make money wherever possible. Money may not be able to buy happiness, but it sure as heck can buy the #1 spot. no SEO needed.
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          • Profile picture of the author nickjoselle
            This discussion convinces me even more that the right business model for small business is to sell them actual leads, not SEO promises..
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            • Profile picture of the author Dustin Lyle
              Originally Posted by nickjoselle View Post

              This discussion convinces me even more that the right business model for small business is to sell them actual leads, not SEO promises..
              Ba-da-bing! In my opinion, SEO is a thing of the past for two reasons...

              1. Its pretty useless if you are at anything but the #1 spot.

              2. The #1 spot has a fluctuating price tag non inclusive of ANY SEO work.


              Yeah, selling leads is a pretty lucrative field, so is selling SEO though... The difference is that a man can stand with confidence behind the leads he sells... SEO, not so much.
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              • Profile picture of the author AndrewCavanagh
                Originally Posted by Dustin Lyle View Post

                Ba-da-bing! In my opinion, SEO is a thing of the past for two reasons...

                1. Its pretty useless if you are at anything but the #1 spot.

                2. The #1 spot has a fluctuating price tag non inclusive of ANY SEO work.

                Smart marketers know this is not an either/or proposition.

                You do every form of marketing that makes you a profit.

                Doing SEO and pay per click and buying leads all make sense
                for a business as long as each makes them profits beyond
                what they're paying for the service.

                Kindest regards,
                Andrew Cavanagh

                P.S. SEO is a thing of the past...I don't think so.

                I still have pages that have been ranked number one or two
                on google for over 5 years.

                And I've seen plenty of people get number one or two
                rankings by optimizing for keyword phrases with quality
                content in the last few months.
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                • Profile picture of the author kenmichaels
                  Originally Posted by AndrewCavanagh View Post

                  And I've seen plenty of people get number one or two
                  rankings by optimizing for keyword phrases with quality
                  content in the last few months.
                  Do you mind clarifying that?

                  I have 7 experts that all write extremely well, in the same field I would be
                  considered an expert in. We all agreed to write one article a day.

                  The plan is to make it an authority site on the subject.

                  Can you explian excatly what you mean by "keyword phrases with quality
                  content"

                  I think i know, but... only dumb asses think they know everything
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                  • Profile picture of the author AndrewCavanagh
                    Originally Posted by kenmichaels View Post

                    Do you mind clarifying that?

                    I have 7 experts that all write extremely well, in the same field I would be
                    considered an expert in. We all agreed to write one article a day.

                    The plan is to make it an authority site on the subject.

                    Can you explian excatly what you mean by "keyword phrases with quality
                    content"

                    I think i know, but... only dumb asses think they know everything

                    I've said it a few times.

                    The basic principle is target long tail keyword phrases that have
                    low or no competition first.

                    Especially keyword phrases that suggest someone wants to buy
                    something you have to sell.

                    Have one page of high quality unique content optimized to each
                    long tail, low or no competition keyword phrase.


                    Keep track of the traffic coming to the site and the searches
                    they're making to get there.

                    That can uncover some keyword phrases that will never come
                    up in any keyword tool.


                    When you have dozens of pages filled with quality content on
                    similar topics and each is ranking high in google then it gets a
                    whole lot easier to start targeting the more competitive keyword
                    phrases related to that topic.

                    The person who seems to be as good as I've ever seen at this
                    (in terms of smaller single person or 2 or 3 people operations)
                    is Tinu Abayomi Paul.

                    Tinu was blogging and ranking her blogs at the top of google
                    back when blogs first started.

                    At one time she ranked number one for the search term
                    internet marketing
                    doing it all by herself until she realized there wasn't a whole
                    lot of money in that search term and the money was in
                    longer tail search terms that suggest people want to actually
                    buy something (what she calls "lucrative" keyword phrases).

                    All her information products on the topic are filled with quality
                    information.

                    See freetraffictip.com Her free tips are filled with more quality
                    information than most paid products.

                    Kindest regards,
                    Andrew Cavanagh
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                    • Profile picture of the author taranisman
                      I think that it's safe to say that using an expensive SEO service for a small business without a lot of revenue is a risky business. The problem with SEO is that business owners who don't know anything about SEO think that they can pay someone money and "get on the first page of Google" in a week. This is the reason that I chose to focus on reputation management for this year. The results are more easily quantified and converts to real, tangible income. Doing SEO on a restaurant website is pretty much a waste of time of they have bad reviews online.

                      That being said, it is also important to do some level of SEO for any website. Sure, if you have bad reviews you will be losing a ton of business, but this generally applies more to real, offline business than it does for an online-only company. If your business is online-only then SEO is crucial.

                      I have found that there is a sweet spot when it comes to the combination of SEO and Rep management for any offline business. You can't do just one and completely ignore the other. I'm not the most experienced guy around, but I know good marketing when I see it, and in today's online world, you really need to have all your bases covered.
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                • Profile picture of the author Dustin Lyle
                  Originally Posted by AndrewCavanagh View Post


                  P.S. SEO is a thing of the past...I don't think so.

                  I still have pages that have been ranked number one or two
                  on google for over 5 years.

                  And I've seen plenty of people get number one or two
                  rankings by optimizing for keyword phrases with quality
                  content in the last few months.

                  Andrew,

                  Ranking #1 or #2 are night and day from one another... See image

                  #1 gets 3x the response as #2 and response goes town at that exponential decline the farther you go down in rank... That said, ANYONE can rank "specific" keywords so long as thay are specific to their site/business alone, so long as they do the minimal SEO work (novice work).. But I'm not ranting about people selling SEO services as a niche tweek to a highly targeted destination.. ie "Decatur Georgia Dentist"... Any one can do that!

                  What I'm ranting about, and you sort of helped state my point, that people are selling a promise that they can't ALWAYS come through on... Selling SEO on the promise of ranking for Long-tail keywords is small time. I'm talking about this as an example....

                  Keyword: SEO agency
                  #1 response : Marketleaderseo.com
                  Google backlinks: 0

                  They don't even have a SITEMAP!

                  "SEO agency" has over 10K exact match searches... And the term "agency" denotes that the searchers are not everyday individuals but people that know what they are looking for.. (for the most part)

                  MarketleaderSEO.com ranks #1 "most of the time"... And it's not because of their SEO... On the second page though, SEOgadget.com fits an even better SEO target profile for ranking, but its lost in obscurity somewhere down on page 2..

                  I'm not even going to disclose how much MarketLeader spends with google PPC.
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                  • Profile picture of the author Hogre
                    Originally Posted by Dustin Lyle View Post

                    Andrew,

                    Ranking #1 or #2 are night and day from one another... See image

                    #1 gets 3x the response as #2 and response goes town at that exponential decline the farther you go down in rank... That said, ANYONE can rank "specific" keywords so long as thay are specific to their site/business alone, so long as they do the minimal SEO work (novice work).. But I'm not ranting about people selling SEO services as a niche tweek to a highly targeted destination.. ie "Decatur Georgia Dentist"... Any one can do that!

                    What I'm ranting about, and you sort of helped state my point, that people are selling a promise that they can't ALWAYS come through on... Selling SEO on the promise of ranking for Long-tail keywords is small time. I'm talking about this as an example....

                    Keyword: SEO agency
                    #1 response : Marketleaderseo.com
                    Google backlinks: 0
                    Just because you can't find their backlinks,doesn't mean they aren't there.There are ways to hide them from the prying eyes,you know?And that means they've done their work well.
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                  • Profile picture of the author AndrewCavanagh
                    Originally Posted by Dustin Lyle View Post

                    What I'm ranting about, and you sort of helped state my point, that people are selling a promise that they can't ALWAYS come through on... Selling SEO on the promise of ranking for Long-tail keywords is small time. I'm talking about this as an example....
                    You're right.

                    I find it ridiculous and exasperating too.

                    But selling SEO as a service is still a valid and high
                    value business.

                    The promises a lot of these guys make are ridiculous as
                    you say.

                    But smart marketers doing SEO can make their clients
                    a ton of money.

                    Selling leads would make them LESS money but I'm guessing
                    you already know that.

                    The positives to selling leads are you make money money when
                    you have a client and the client is not paying for a service until
                    the see results (although this isn't always true...a smart marketer
                    will charge an upfront fee just for the right to buy the leads).


                    The negatives are you might do a lot of work and find it difficult
                    to sell the leads at a good price.

                    And the negative for the business compared to SEO is they have
                    to keep paying you.

                    Well created content targeting long tail low or no competition
                    phrases can bring in leads for years to come without having to
                    pay the SEO expert for every lead.


                    Ideally a smart business would do both.

                    Kindest regards,
                    Andrew Cavanagh
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          • Profile picture of the author SirThomas
            Attachment 16481
            Originally Posted by Dustin Lyle View Post

            see... bidding for exposure...

            one thing alot of people forget is that there is actually a live auction taking place every time someone searches with Google. That said, Google is a publicly traded company with a fiduciary duty to its stock holders to make money wherever possible. Money may not be able to buy happiness, but it sure as heck can buy the #1 spot. no SEO needed.
            Dustin, what you're describing is Adwords section. It appears on the right hand side of the page and above the #1 "organic" search result.
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            • Profile picture of the author vndnbrgj
              Umm... this person has several backlinks.
              I don't know who looked in to them, but over 2,000 are there.
              See for yourself: Open Site Explorer

              If they really were buying keyowrds, they would be ranking better for others as well.

              ....
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          • Profile picture of the author JustinSch
            Originally Posted by Dustin Lyle View Post

            see... bidding for exposure...

            one thing alot of people forget is that there is actually a live auction taking place every time someone searches with Google. That said, Google is a publicly traded company with a fiduciary duty to its stock holders to make money wherever possible. Money may not be able to buy happiness, but it sure as heck can buy the #1 spot. no SEO needed.
            That is not correct. That is in reference to PPC not SEO... you cannot pay Google for a #1 spot in the normal listings. Sure you can bid to be the #1 spot in the paid listings, but not in the natural results.

            And while you are right that the #1 natural result gets significantly more traffic than those directly below it, even those get a lot more traffic than the #1 PPC result.

            I honestly can't tell if you are confused or are conflating the 2 on purpose but it looks like you are talking about how bad oranges are while waving your finger at apples.

            For anybody else following this thread, or trying to, no you cannot buy a #1 ranking in the natural results on Google... yes you can obtain a 1st page or even a #1 ranking on Google with an SEO campaign if you do it right.
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  • Profile picture of the author squark192
    I had a friend of mine fall for that for his pest control business. He had visions of money streaming in from his page 1 ranking.

    What he didn't know, however, was that he didn't get to pick his keywords. The company evaluated the competing keywords and pages and they picked the keywords he would rank for. They were still relevant to his business, but they were also very narrow long-tail keywords.

    Still a sound business strategy... but I would agree that it was definitely *not* what he was thinking when he hired them.
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  • Profile picture of the author HKSEO Jonbones
    Yes, they do. that's why there are still SEO companies that are able to sell this dribble, with out showing any proof.

    If the sales pitch is more than "look at what we did here, we can do that for you, too, and we have proven it time and again" and goes on for hours, then all they have to sell you is the sales pitch, itself.
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  • Profile picture of the author AndrewCavanagh
    Many people assume that to get traffic you need to rank for
    the big short keyword phrases related to a business and its
    products or services.

    In reality often the longer tail keyword phrases that few or
    no people are searching for are far more lucrative.

    So someone making a search like:
    silver toyota hybrid for sale denver colorado

    is a MUCH better prospect than someone searching for
    used cars


    A lot of really great SEO is about finding high net profit
    products and services a business is delivering and using
    high quality content targeting low on no competition
    long tail keyword phrases to get just tiny trickles of
    amazingly high quality prospects.

    Create dozens of pages like that and you're going to be
    bringing in some serious business and you're not going
    to have to work hard to do it.

    I have pages that have been ranking in the top 2 or 3
    spots on google (often number one) for 6 years or longer
    without making any changes or updates.

    And if you're really smart you create high quality targeted
    content that also educates your prospect on why they
    should do business with you.


    Having said all that many of the big SEO firms don't do
    anything I've listed here so your rant is pretty valid.

    Kindest regards,
    Andrew Cavanagh
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