HELP! Should I fire my SEO expert for laziness or incompetence or am I missing the point?

15 replies
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I needed to compete for my Keyword in a regional market with focus on GOOGLE.CO.KE (kenya).

My market and users are in mainly Kenya. The site is a ecommerce site. When it comes to SEO our aspiration is to rank top in our regional Google. We do not care much for the global google ranking. Well if we rank global then it is plus.

The keywords I am targeting is "XYZ Shoes" (just an example) with 14000 monthly search in Kenya and in Google keyword tools its ranked high competition.

My seo guy is telling me it is too competitive and that I should instead go for "XYZ Shoes Kenya" which has just 800 monthly searches. I dont like this. Why should I compete for a small search keyword when I can compete for a more popular one? My main goal is to be found when buyers type "XYZ shoes". Will they still find me if I just optimize for "XYZ shoes kenya" when they search for "XYZ shoes"?

Now I find this a turn off but I need to know if I am missing something. I am just an SEO novice but how hard is it for a good SEO expert to compete for such a keyword in a regional market? How much competition can there be in such small region when people a optimizing for highly competitive keywords globally and acheiving it.

The explanation I get is that it is better to add country name to the keyword in order to localize the search. But the problem is that according to my research the popular search for the that keyword has no country name attached. They also say that it will take a long time before I will rank for the keyword,

But my website is 3 years old and already localized and pointing to Kenya in Google and in the website name and i am assuming that even if the keyword is global, if the right SEO work is done, when that keyword is search for in Kenya and from kenya my site can rank high there even if it is buried in #500 in the USA.

I am hoping you the expert reading this gets my problem and advice me. Is my SEO expert lazy and should I fire him?
#expert #incompetence #laziness #missing #point #seo
  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Keep in mind the paid SEO knows more about OPs budget than Warrior Forum knows.

    No SEO is going to rank anyone for a very competitive keyword If the budget runs out before they've had time to finish getting the page/s ranked on Google SERPs. Yes SEO takes time, sometimes it takes a long time depending on competition strength.

    There's nothing wrong with going after lower traffic volume keywords If it makes sense. Example, there's no point in wasting your time trying to outrank allstate.com for the keyword auto insurance, not happening unless you have millions of dollars to invest in SEO for years.
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  • Profile picture of the author jasonthewebmaster
    Banned
    Originally Posted by mybestman View Post

    I needed to compete for my Keyword in a regional market with focus on GOOGLE.CO.KE (kenya).

    My market and users are in mainly Kenya. The site is a ecommerce site. When it comes to SEO our aspiration is to rank top in our regional Google. We do not care much for the global google ranking. Well if we rank global then it is plus.

    The keywords I am targeting is "XYZ Shoes" (just an example) with 14000 monthly search in Kenya and in Google keyword tools its ranked high competition.

    My seo guy is telling me it is too competitive and that I should instead go for "XYZ Shoes Kenya" which has just 800 monthly searches. I dont like this. Why should I compete for a small search keyword when I can compete for a more popular one? My main goal is to be found when buyers type "XYZ shoes". Will they still find me if I just optimize for "XYZ shoes kenya" when they search for "XYZ shoes"?

    Now I find this a turn off but I need to know if I am missing something. I am just an SEO novice but how hard is it for a good SEO expert to compete for such a keyword in a regional market? How much competition can there be in such small region when people a optimizing for highly competitive keywords globally and acheiving it.

    The explanation I get is that it is better to add country name to the keyword in order to localize the search. But the problem is that according to my research the popular search for the that keyword has no country name attached. They also say that it will take a long time before I will rank for the keyword,

    But my website is 3 years old and already localized and pointing to Kenya in Google and in the website name and i am assuming that even if the keyword is global, if the right SEO work is done, when that keyword is search for in Kenya and from kenya my site can rank high there even if it is buried in #500 in the USA.

    I am hoping you the expert reading this gets my problem and advice me. Is my SEO expert lazy and should I fire him?
    ur kidding right? LMAO this is crazy. You will NEVER rank for the top searched highest competitive terms UNTIL you rank for many more terms that CONTAIN the main one, llike long-tail keywords etc. sonds like the guy knows his strategy and u don't listen to him like every one of my seo clients ever did lol ridiculous try learning about seo before jumping to this conclusion man.
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    • Profile picture of the author PBScott
      Your SEO guy sounds like he knows what he is doing, and you obviously do not. He is correct in what he is saying, the longer keywords DO include the keywords you want, so they DO work you towards your ultimate goal, this way you will get better short term results along the way.
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by jasonthewebmaster View Post

      ur kidding right? LMAO this is crazy. You will NEVER rank for the top searched highest competitive terms UNTIL you rank for many more terms that CONTAIN the main one, llike long-tail keywords etc. sonds like the guy knows his strategy and u don't listen to him like every one of my seo clients ever did lol ridiculous try learning about seo before jumping to this conclusion man.
      That is not true. Technically, I would say the opposite is true. Often times by targeting more competitive keywords, you end up ranking well for the easier related ones.
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  • Profile picture of the author DABK
    xyz shoes has many more searches... because it includes everyone, even people in Romania, Pakistan, Australia and Hawaii.

    Are you selling in those places? If no, you have no business going for that keyword.

    If Yes, rank the local keyword first, then, if budget allows, rank a page for the one without country...

    Anyway, without knowing your budget, not possible to tell you if you've budgeted enough to rank for the keyword without country.

    Like Yukon said, it's possible to outrank Allstate for one of their main keywords. The question is, is it wise?

    Originally Posted by mybestman View Post

    I needed to compete for my Keyword in a regional market with focus on GOOGLE.CO.KE (kenya).

    My market and users are in mainly Kenya. The site is a ecommerce site. When it comes to SEO our aspiration is to rank top in our regional Google. We do not care much for the global google ranking. Well if we rank global then it is plus.

    The keywords I am targeting is "XYZ Shoes" (just an example) with 14000 monthly search in Kenya and in Google keyword tools its ranked high competition.

    My seo guy is telling me it is too competitive and that I should instead go for "XYZ Shoes Kenya" which has just 800 monthly searches. I dont like this. Why should I compete for a small search keyword when I can compete for a more popular one? My main goal is to be found when buyers type "XYZ shoes". Will they still find me if I just optimize for "XYZ shoes kenya" when they search for "XYZ shoes"?

    Now I find this a turn off but I need to know if I am missing something. I am just an SEO novice but how hard is it for a good SEO expert to compete for such a keyword in a regional market? How much competition can there be in such small region when people a optimizing for highly competitive keywords globally and acheiving it.

    The explanation I get is that it is better to add country name to the keyword in order to localize the search. But the problem is that according to my research the popular search for the that keyword has no country name attached. They also say that it will take a long time before I will rank for the keyword,

    But my website is 3 years old and already localized and pointing to Kenya in Google and in the website name and i am assuming that even if the keyword is global, if the right SEO work is done, when that keyword is search for in Kenya and from kenya my site can rank high there even if it is buried in #500 in the USA.

    I am hoping you the expert reading this gets my problem and advice me. Is my SEO expert lazy and should I fire him?
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by DABK View Post

      xyz shoes has many more searches... because it includes everyone, even people in Romania, Pakistan, Australia and Hawaii.

      Are you selling in those places? If no, you have no business going for that keyword.

      If Yes, rank the local keyword first, then, if budget allows, rank a page for the one without country...

      Anyway, without knowing your budget, not possible to tell you if you've budgeted enough to rank for the keyword without country.

      Like Yukon said, it's possible to outrank Allstate for one of their main keywords. The question is, is it wise?
      No, he said it gets 14,000 searches a month in Kenya. You can set the Keyword Planner to a specific region.

      We do not have enough details about the competition in this particular case, but many times when an SEO suggests making long tail keywords the primary focus it is because they lack the skills to go after the better keywords. They want to go after the easier keywords so that they can show ranking results and convince you to keep paying them. Ranking results don't always mean money in your pocket though.

      There are exceptions like the one that Yukon mentioned where your budget might be limiting what can be accomplished, but that should have been discussed BEFORE you ever paid them unless you only paid them for a proposal.
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  • Profile picture of the author pororo
    If I were your SEO Guy, I'm going to resign after hearing this scenario.
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    • Profile picture of the author mybestman
      Originally Posted by pororo View Post

      If I were your SEO Guy, I'm going to resign after hearing this scenario.
      Thanks. I noticed this sort of emotion with my SEO expert and this is why i am asking to be educated here before I have a talk with him. I will appreciate if you read my latest additional coment below and help me make sense of this occult world of SEO.
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  • Profile picture of the author mybestman
    Thanks for the POVs from every one. I stayed up late to do more research after reading some of the initial comments. Fact is I have never handled SEO myself except for writing articles and Press releases then hand it over to the SEO expert to do what he does best.

    I went to ahrefs.com to register and check the keyword performance and I also used Rank tracker v7 (unlicenced version that I downloaded) . I found that my site already ranked #27 for the "XYZ shoes" in google.co.ke. This is without even starting any SEO work.

    What I did not add in my earlier complaint was that XYZ in the "XYZ shoes" is a brand name for the company that owns the shoe brand. XYZ is a Kenyan company. That XYZ have their own shop and dominate the page 1 on google for that search in Kenya. But the next highest ranking website for that "XYZ shoes" has 0 (ZERO) backlink to the page that ranks second on page 1 for that "XYZ shoes".

    Then i began to check most of the pages that rank #10 - 30 (this includes my page that ranked 27) and none of them has any backlinks that in my own view gives them serious authority apart from, maybe, domain age and how optimized their pages are for that keyword "XYZ shoes".

    So I now even wonder more, since my page that ranks #27 is very optimized for "XYZ shoes" because it is a product listing page full of XYZ shoes along with a well optimized meta title and page title and page url shouldnt quality backlink work fire up my SERP? Why is my SEO guy not seeing opportunity I am seeing?
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by mybestman View Post

      Why is my SEO guy not seeing opportunity I am seeing?
      Simple solution. Ask him.
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      • Profile picture of the author mybestman
        Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

        Simple solution. Ask him.
        Yes, I certainly will. But first, I needed to make sense of this SEO issues first. Even if I drop him, I will have to deal with another SEO consultant. I therefore need to run all this by your experts.

        By the way thanks for your insight.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by mybestman View Post

      What I did not add in my earlier complaint was that XYZ in the "XYZ shoes" is a brand name for the company that owns the shoe brand. XYZ is a Kenyan company. That XYZ have their own shop and dominate the page 1 on google for that search in Kenya. But the next highest ranking website for that "XYZ shoes" has 0 (ZERO) backlink to the page that ranks second on page 1 for that "XYZ shoes".

      That doesn't mean anything for SEO.

      The 2nd ranked page could easily be ranked because of multiple strong authority internal pages with their own good link profiles linking to the ranked page. Also no 3rd party link checker will have all the backlink sources & most link checkers are slow at updating.

      That's the problem with forum threads, they never tell the whole story. I understand not posting the domain/keyword on a public forum but you're wanting detailed info. for a game plan while only supplying a fraction of the domain/keyword info.
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  • Profile picture of the author Campbell24
    Anything in .co.ke is pretty easy to rank for.

    I rank Nigeria fine.

    I would get a different guy.
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  • Profile picture of the author MrMintyBluez
    Ive had more luck ranking for very competitive keywords AFTER having successfully ranked for lesser competitive keywords, not the other way around.
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by MrMintyBluez View Post

      Ive had more luck ranking for very competitive keywords AFTER having successfully ranked for lesser competitive keywords, not the other way around.
      Of course that is what you think. With closely related keywords, which are you going to rank highly for first, the hard ones or the easy ones?

      That's like saying, "I ran a marathon and I finished the 1st mile before I finished the 26th mile."
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