Content, Optimization, Links – Oh My! - It’s not smoke and mirrors, I swear
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So content, optimization, links –- is it really that simple? If so, why are SEOs charging so much? Why can’t they guarantee that your site will rank well in the search results? What, after all, are you paying for? Let’s break down these questions.
Is it really that simple?
Yes, it is. The simple formula for a great ranking is to provide lots of content which is expertly optimized and get great backlinks to boot. What’s not so simple is actually developing the content and updating your site. This is where many website and business owners balk. It takes time to develop content, review it, edit it and upload it. It takes even more time to redesign a website that is scalable enough to accommodate regular updates (there are some great content management tools to help with this, but that’s for another article).
If your core business model involves selling cars, for example, then it is very difficult to think in terms of providing online resources (in the form of articles, white papers and FAQs) to potential clients. You want to sell cars, period. However, if you provide articles about the importance of oil changes, how to change a tire or the benefits of premium gas over regular unleaded, then you begin to differentiate yourself from all the other car dealers out there.
Chances are you have at least once employee who is a halfway decent writer, too. Pull on your resources and get the guy or gal to write one or two articles a month for your website. It may take a few months to start seeing where this pays off. But, eventually, it will pay off as your site begins to show up in the search results for thematically relevant terms that probably never even occurred to you to target in the first place.
Why are SEOs charging so much?
The short answer is that on-page optimization is extremely important, and knowing how to do it is a unique skill. Although I personally don’t recommend optimizing pages without also devising a comprehensive content update strategy, it can’t be argued that your entire site is better off if it is optimized. SEOs spend a lot of time following industry trends and doing actual hands-on optimization. We know how to optimize a page so that it is search engine friendly, without being spammy. Many of us can also generate search-engine friendly content that follows the tone of your site naturally. This is a skill acquired from long hours of writing highly-optimized sentences for a wide variety of clients.
Proper optimization of existing pages is very time consuming. You’re paying for the expertise of the SEO and the actual service itself. A good SEO will review your competitors’ websites, thoroughly evaluate your site and provide you with a concrete plan on what, how and where to implement changes to your site. You’re paying for this service, not for the results, and it is a service you have chosen to implement.
So why won’t SEO’s guarantee results?
SEOs are very hesitant to guarantee concrete results (e.g., you will be in the #5 position in Google for yourkeyword.com by May 21st). The main reason for this is that we don’t work for Google or Yahoo or MSN. We work for our clients and base our strategies on past campaigns and successes. While I cannot guarantee what position your site will be in for a specific keyword or keywords, I can almost certainly guarantee that traffic will increase to your website once it is optimized.
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