SEO and Customer Expectations

I’ve been in the Search Engine Marketing business for over 10 years now and of the many issues I have come across perhaps the most important is that of managing customer’s expectations. Why is this so important? Well in my view it is because many people don’t really understand what SEO is all about, often thinking that all you have to do to get a good listing is to build a website, sit back and wait. Others though are more aware of all the issues, but whichever group they fit into, both want the traffic that getting a good ranking for the right keywords will bring and want it asap.

Guaranted Rankings?

Some want to know if you will guarantee getting them rankings. This is really a double edged question, as some customers will walk away if you do offer some them, whilst others will walk away if you don’t. Answering the question is however very easy for us, as we simply won’t offer guarantees, this for the simple reason (in our view) that you can’t. We say this as we cannot know how the competition are going to react, what changes the Engines are going to make and to some degree what ‘hidden’ factors are in play for that particular customer.

Examing the site

Our first job is therefore to explain why a customer’s site does not have the rankings that a competitor enjoys. In 99% of cases the reason is pretty easy to spot, it being down to a lack of links and / or poor On Page optimisation. In a few cases the issues are more difficult to deduce, but thankfully these are few and far between. We then go on to show how we will remedy the situation, detailing a project plan covering the next 3 to 6 months. This plan will cover getting links from a whole range of sources, changing the pages to make sure they are ‘talking’ in the way that the Engines understand, and, with Google, ensuring that there is enough activity being registered (i.e. visits to the site).

Our well trodden path

For one of our recent customers we followed our normal path of not guaranteeing results, just the normal promise of hard work and the application of our extensive knowledge in the area of SEO. This customer, Shire and Co, was it happens among the group that would be suspicious of anyone promising results, but they still wanted results, and wanted them quickly...We therefore started our normal SEO programme with a set of Directory listings (not submitting to the Engines though, we always like them to find the site via the links we build), this being a great way to kick start the linking programme. We also started building links via blogs, articles and social media, all again a part of our proven plan.

Making the on page changes

Time then came to start on the pages of the site, to make sure that they were SHOUTING the keywords Shire wanted rankings for (these of course being selected from the extensive number located during the keyword research phase). This is where the fun really began as the site had been built using Joomla. Joomla is a Content Management System (CMS) and is widely used in websites around the globe. However, it’s flexibility can lead to ‘unusual’ set ups and this was the case here (at least as far as our Joomla experts were concerned). Nevertheless, after we had taken stock of the build, we installed the iJoomla SEO component and set about allocating and weaving in, the target keywords to the most appropriate pages on the site, adding a number of new ones to cover areas that the site initially did not.

Amazing results

What happened next was amazing. As normal, we had advised the client that it could take between three and six months before real gains were made. But here, in just the second month, the site had got page 1 rankings on Google for a main (highly competitive) keyword and then a week later, the number 1 slot for ‘company lawyers’. Both I and the customer were to use the vernacular ‘gobsmacked’, and I was quick to warn that the rankings might slip (this often happens to new sites which have yet to build a firm enough base) but to date this has not happened, quite the reverse in fact, the rankings continuing to rise across the board.

Not the first time - but unusual

This is not to be fair the first time this has happened to one of our customers (and I’m sure to other SEO companies could same the thing too), the same thing taking place to others as different as a boat trailer supplier and a business intelligence consultancy. However, it is not usual and cannot be counted upon so we will continue to advise our clients that SEO is a long haul commitment for most at least.

I f you would like to keep track of the progress for Shire and Co, please see our website as we will be featuring this site as a continuing case study.