A column recently posted by Greg Gifford, the owner of popular SEO news agency Search engine land, explains the struggles of maintaining client expectations when it comes to the results of their SEO campaign. Many times it is difficult to give definite answers that so many clients are expecting to hear. Questions like “How much extra traffic should I expect?” or “How long is this going to take?” or “Why aren’t I seeing results sooner?” leave us SEOs with an anxious feeling that our client might leave us if we don’t have these tangible answers.
Clients don’t always know what SEO is and how it works, which is why there is a disconnect when trying to explain exactly what we do. There isn’t a set of tasks or a list of steps that if implicated automatically pop websites to the top of search engines. A lot of your campaign is contingent on you being able to work with us to get things done to not only build Google’s love for you, but to build your brand overall.
For us at Get The Clicks, we focus on building trust with our clients so they have no doubt that we have their best interest in mind. Maintaining a strong translucent relationship with our clients helps to take the doubts away, without having to go into the nitty gritty nerdy specifics of what SEO is and what is involved.
For those who still ask, we explain the basics of SEO, and that their participation in their campaign is crucial.
“We explain that nothing happens in a vacuum — you’re fighting against the other hundreds of dealers trying to show up for the same terms. You can’t optimize a few pages and get a few links and suddenly be the number one result. If you’re trying to make a site more visible, you’ve got to continue to push out the right relevancy signals over time so that Google will rank the site higher.” – Greg Gifford
Here are some things to consider for those who are new to the SEO world and seeking service:
- SEO is a never ending process because Google is changing all the time.
- When your website makes it to the top of Google, your competitors are doing everything they can to knock you back down.
- There are hundreds of signals on site and off that influence the relevancy and importance of that site in Google’s algorithm. Our job is to figure out those hundreds of signals and sometimes there are a few things we have to do on a trial and error basis because that is the only way to know if it’s working.
- Though the framework is similar, each campaign is different. There is no one formula for SEO that will work in every market.
One important thing that we stress to everyone that calls who is interested in our service, even if they decide not to do business with us, is you get what you pay for. If someone is telling you they can get you to the top of Google for $150 a month, they are either lying or using shady illegal tactics to get you there. Recovering from bad SEO is much more difficult than investing the time and money to get it right the first time. Find a company that you connect with and trust so they become more of a partner in your business than just a service.
Stephan Boehringer is the CEO of Get The Clicks, a web marketing company. Stephan has over 20 years of experience in the field of web marketing, and has been a speaker and consultant for many years. Stephan is passionate about web marketing and helping their clients be the best they can be.
Stephan Boehringer graduated from the University of Florida with a Bachelor of Science in Business, Management, Marketing, and Related Support Services.
