SEO a Scam? The Truth About the Industry

I frequent many SEO and Web Marketing forums on a daily basis and every so often there is a debate about the SEO industry and ethics. After being invo…

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I frequent many SEO and Web Marketing forums on a daily basis and every so often there is a debate about the SEO industry and ethics. After being involved in a number of these debates,SEO a Scam? The Truth About the Industry Articles it has become really obvious that the main problems are the facts that no two SEO companies are alike and there is no unified methodology. It’s very hard to make statements about the industry as a whole because it’s debatable what exactly ‘SEO’ is. Mix in the fact that most SEO companies keep their methodology and campaign strategies secret and we have a situation where every company is totally different with very different results.

Fact 1: There is no unified SEO methodology. SEO is actually defined by wikipedia as a process of improving traffic from SERPs to a web site. Of course, HOW they do that is the real question and causes the debates.

Fact 2: The effectiveness of an SEO campaign depends on the site structure, site content, keywords, methodology used, and how popular the site is. A site cannot just rank for any random keyword. SEO is also not voodoo. It is logic, problem solving, and Web marketing mixed together. If your site provides no value to users, it probably won’t rank.

Fact 3: Some ‘SEOs’ do search engine optimization and some do search engine manipulation. Of course, it is all marketed as SEO. Unethical optimization provides results at any cost and is always short term (usually ends in a banned domain name). Ethical optimization opens up the site to the search engines and provides long term benefits.

Fact 4: Most SEO companies get paid whether or not your site gets any rankings. Unfortunately, this is the case with the industry. Most SEO companies implement A, B, and C and move on to the next client. Hopefully, the site ranks. If it doesn’t, they always have more clients.

Fact 5: Most SEO companies use both ethical and unethical inbound linking strategies. To maximize profits, it is very common for SEO companies to buy bulk links from India, links on spam/scraper web sites, or sell large directory submission packages. It is also common for SEO companies to place huge amounts of the contract into inbound linking to make up for the poor quality of the site optimization.

I don’t think it is fair to characterize the industry as a whole without figuring out what is wrong with it and how SEO companies can overcome it. So how exactly do we determine what is good and bad about the industry? I have now been involved with the Web for over 10 years and, specifically, with the SEO industry for almost 4 years and I’ve seen the inner workings of major SEO companies and worked with clients who had been burned by their previous SEO campaigns. Combined with numerous Web postings and forum debates talking about the same basic problems, I’ve compiled a list of the most common issues.

Problem 1: Responsibility for Results

It’s no secret that the vast majority of SEO companies take no responsibility for results. It is a fact that no SEO company can guarantee results (and if they do, they are lying to you). It is also a fact that the client is taking a risk by spending money with an SEO company that basically says ‘We’ll do what we can’. SEO companies simply guarantee they’ll do the work to ‘optimize’ the site, but without full disclosure of their methodology, what exactly is the client paying for? No other industry sells a product with no guarantees and no specific list of work that will be completed. Of course, SEO work is basically the sales of information and keeping the specifics of a methodology is important, but the combination of secrecy and no responsibility for results really makes SEO campaigns risky. So, how can an SEO company reduce the risk for the client and provide the best grade of service?

Answer 1: Incentive Based Pricing

The only real way to reduce the financial risk of the client is to share the risk. Through incentive-based pricing, the SEO company can charge a certain percentage of the total contract (say 70%) to cover their intellectual property and time while placing the rest of the contract price (remaining 30%) in incentives for success. Of course, incentives and their percentage of the contract would be totally relative depending on the campaign. This first step into sharing in the risk provides both reassurance to the client that the company believes in its methodology and places some of the financial burden of the campaign on the SEO company. At the moment, however, very few SEO companies are willing to share in the risk and charge the same price whether the client gets top rankings or no rankings at all (or possibly even lower rankings).

Problem 2: Unethical Optimization

Unfortunately, unethical (or blackhat) optimization is still very prominent on the Web. It’s also unfortunate that ‘SEO’ has been mistakenly confused with ‘Blackhat SEO’. This is still the biggest problem for SEO companies. Saying that all SEO companies deal in blackhat optimization is like saying everyone who emails is a spammer. Blackhat optimization is not optimization at all…it is search engine manipulation. Because there is so much money tied to top rankings, there will always be a market for unethical SEO and search engine spam. Until companies realize what is ethical and unethical and stop supporting those blackhat SEO companies, they will continue to thrive. This makes the industry as a whole look bad and does not reflect the ethics of good SEO companies. Blackhat provides fast, short term results, but is never a good option in the long run.

Answer 2: Ethical Optimization

There is no quick and easy solution to blackhat optimization’s stain on the SEO industry. I would suggest that all marketing departments research optimization techniques and educate themselves on what techniques are unethical. No SEO company is going to say they do unethical optimization. It’s also not a good idea to immediately trust a company or product based simply on their rankings. Unethical optimization DOES provide rankings…just not for the long run.

It would also be helpful if the major search engines would be more open and accessible to SEO companies. Currently, the major search engines and SEO companies do not deal with each other and have formed a sort of love-hate relationship. Because of this, many ethical SEOs have slowly moved into dark territory. Ethical optimization seeks to make sites more easily accessible to the engines and help to improve the engine’s search results. The problem is that the search engines mainly clump all SEO companies together the same way as uninformed users do: search engine manipulation. This is just not the case. Search engines do not want to reveal what they consider unethical because it would basically be providing a list of holes in their algorithms that blackhat SEOs would be able to manipulate further, but a defined list of ‘what not to do’ would provide a definitive list for businesses looking for an SEO company.

Basic Rules of Ethical Optimization

Any campaign that does not abide by the following rules is dealing in unethical optimization techniques and should be avoided.

1.) What the user sees and what the search engine sees should be exactly the same. Do not hide anything.

2.) Your keywords (and the resulting optimization) should exactly reflect the content of the page.Keywords should always reflect what your site is about.

3.) Do not build out pages exclusively for search engines. The site should always cater to both audiences (users and search engines). Catering to only users is why optimization is necessary. Catering only to search engines is optimization gone too far into blackhat.

4.) Do not participate in manipulative inbound linking schemes like link farms, bulk links, triangle linking, or any other unethical manipulation of your Google PageRank or link authority. Inbound links should be relevant to the content of your site and you should always know who is linking to you and where your links come from.

Problem 3: Assembly Line / Software SEO

With the growth of the SEO industry has also come the automation of SEO. The absolute first thing any prospective SEO client should know is that all effective SEO campaigns are custom. There is no checklist of items that will work exactly the same on every site. If the SEO company claims there is, then they are not doing full optimization and the campaign is minimal. A good optimization campaign optimizes the site architecture, text content, and code of the site. Assembly line SEO does not take into consideration the unique needs/design of the site and may even deal in blackhat optimization. SEO software especially should be looked at closely. There are really only two things SEO software could do that would work for any site: doorway pages (showing engines one thing and users a different thing; which is unethical) or a system of pages build exclusively for search engines (often called info or information pages and linked in an out of the way part of the page). Doorway pages are 100% unethical and info pages are deep in the gray area. Neither of those two methods address the architecture of the site, proper keyword analysis, or effective text content. The following links are examples of automated SEO software freely available on the Web. All links contain ‘nofollow’ to prevent the sites from getting inbound link credit from our site.

Get to the Top of the Search Results with SEM

The main difference between SEM vs. SEO is that SEM is a paid strategy and SEO is an organic strategy. Like most things in the search industry, the definitions related to search marketing have evolved . Some marketers may consider SEM to be an umbrella term that includes both paid and organic strategies. But to make your marketing plan clear, we recommend breaking the terms into these distinct categories.

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How to Create a Powerful SEM eCommerce Strategy

It seems like SEO gets most of the attention when it comes to marketing,Get to the Top of the Search Results with SEM Articles but we can’t forget about SEM! Now… what is SEM?

First, let’s go over the basics: SEO stands for search engine optimization. It’s a non-paid effort that centres around optimizing your website and content with words and phrases that people would type into a search engine.

For example, if your eCommerce site sells supplements in Canada, you might utilize a mix of words and phrases including:

• online supplement store canada
• protein shakes for athletes
• women’s probiotics canada
• beetroot extract

As you build trust with Google by providing users with high quality, original content, you will hopefully start to naturally rank higher for the keywords you’ve chosen.

Google uses an algorithm to determine which website or page can best answer a user’s query (there are other factors too, including how fast your site is and how long people stay on a page vs. bouncing away after a few seconds).

If you do SEO right, you’ll be rewarded with non-paid or organic traffic, which means people are typing your keywords into the search engine and seeing your website or webpage in the results.

Great! However, SEO takes time.

And, if you’re targeting high-traffic, high-competition keywords, you may never get to the coveted #1 spot in Google.

That’s where eCommerce SEM comes in.

What is SEM?

SEM stands for search engine marketing, also known paid search. The most commonly used paid search tool is Google Ads, so I’m going to focus on that.

By using SEM for your online store, you’re fast-tracking your way to the top of the search results.

The process of using paid search ads (also called PPC, which stands for pay-per-click) as part of your SEM eCommerce strategy includes:

• Targeting geographic areas
• Creating ad campaigns that target that group
• Writing relevant ad copy that will entice and compel your target audience to click on the ad
• Monitoring continually for clicks, impressions and conversions

You’ll be able to see what the keywords you want to target will cost per click (CPC) in Google Ads.

The cost of your eCommerce SEM depends on how popular a keyword is, and which position you’d like your ad to appear in in the paid results.

For example, targeting a keyword such as “women’s red high heels” for your eCommerce shoe store is going to cost you less than “women’s shoes.”

When using SEM for your online store, you can set a budget per day, per campaign and per keyword so you don’t end up with any surprises!

Google Ads lets you target whatever audience you’d like, from time zone to language preference.

You can have your ad appear at certain times, choose keywords you don’t want your ad showing for, adjust bids for each keyword and more.

The success of your SEM online store strategy depends on a number of factors, not just how much you’re willing to pay for each click.

Like I mentioned above, crafting compelling ad copy that entices visitors to click on your ad and monitoring results is a big part of the process.

If you don’t have valuable content or a clear call to action on your website when a visitor lands, you’re not going to get very far.

Moreover, if you’re not constantly tweaking campaigns and analyzing data, you’re wasting your eCommerce SEM budget on unqualified clicks.

Your online store SEM package will be specifically tailored for your product or service to give you the best results possible. Learn more about what we offer.

Are you a service-based business? Read my blog on SEO Vs SEM: Which Should Service-Based Businesses Focus on?

It’s Not a Battle Between SEO & SEM

Search engine marketing isn’t an either/or game. SEO is still important when you’re focusing on an SEM eCommerce strategy, and vice versa.

An effective SEO/SEM campaign will mean lower costs and higher visibility in Google. If you don’t spend time on SEO and your site takes forever to load, you’re going to waste money on e-commerce SEM.

People are going to click on your ad but not stick around waiting for a website to slowly load. If people are clicking on your ad and quickly leaving your site, Google will lower your Quality Score and raise your CPC.

SEO is a long-term strategy that can help you increase leads and sales. Using SEM can help you get results fast, but remember you’re paying for that traffic. If you can appear in more searches organically, you can reduce your SEM effor