You don’t know SEO, and they know that
It has become an unfortunate reality that business owners are often taken advantage of, especially when it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The lies are vast, but here is some of the bigger ones we’ve encountered working with clients.
We can get you ranking on the first page in a month!
Business owners, it is very important to understand something about SEO… it is the long game. The rewards are larger, but if you’re looking for instant gratification and want to play the short game you’ll have to pay for Google Ads. That’s just the bottom line. Your site may be able to rank for your name in a month. This is only if you have a truly unique business name however. If you’re named the Johnson and Johnson law firm you might have a little uphill climb. Or— or, the SEO providers have chosen a keyword to rank for that nobody ever searches for. You want to be ranking for the most commonly used keyword in your industry, right? Who cares if you’re ranking for “Law firms near me with lawyers named Johnson.” Only one person searched for it. In 2006. In a different country. And they misspelled Jonson.
Professional SEO services for $20 a month!
Hey we understand budgets are tight when running a business, and yes, you’re reading an article written by an SEO service provider, but let’s just put it this way… you get what you pay for. If you really have hired a professional to optimize, analyze data, outreach to backlink providers and tend to the technical SEO needs of your site for twenty bucks in a 30 day period, we can say without hesitation that your money would be better spent on a lottery ticket. The odds are more in your favor you’ll win than actually receive quality SEO on your site.
We can complete all your SEO in a few months.
WRONG. Business owners, please, we beseech you. There is no finish line for SEO. There is no done and done. Search Engine Optimization is a garden that needs to be tended to constantly. If you neglect anything in that garden, progress will wither and eventually die. Google also loves to run a lawn mower through your petunias every so often with its algorithm changes, so you got that going for you as well. You car doesn’t just need an oil change after the first three months and then you can forget about it forever. The same goes for your website.
Your site speed isn’t 100 on GT Metrix or Google Pagespeed Insights (or whatever).
Having a faster site is definitely a plus for SEO, but sometimes achieving 100 means messing up the user experience, which Google vastly prioritizes higher. Optimize what you can and get your number as high as you can without ruining anything for your user. We are certain that the Lamborghini goes faster without any seats weighing it down, but the ride is sort of not cool at all.
We looked at your page and love it! But we noticed your Mexican restaurant doesn’t rank on page one.
Oh no! As a business owner, nobody likes to be left in the dust by the competition, but if these SEO snake oil salesmen are saying your restaurant isn’t ranking for “beans and rice near me,” you should probably tell them to take a walk. Because only 100 people search for that each month in the entire United States of America. Unless you happen to live in a city where all 100 of those people live, I think it’s safe to say you should try to rank for something else.
Amen! Having gone through a dozen digital marketing providers, I’ve seen most of this. They also try to sell you bad backlinks too
Undoubtedly Jeremy!
Unfortunately for small business owners, like myself, I do not have the huge budget to promote my product or service like Universal Pictures can, or have not mastered the versatility as Kevin Costner. However, we as small business owners are talented in the work we do and have built a great product or service but have not received the traffic as we expected. The disconnect lies in the fact that we may struggle to communicate the value of our products or services in ways that compel people to buy it. We constantly fall into the traditional marketing trap of thinking we must pressure our customers to buy now, buy now, don’t miss out, don’t miss out it is all about me, me, me, me you can only get this from me.