I’ve been thinking a lot about how SEO specialists market themselves and try to attract new business. Truth is that most decent SEOs don’t!. They never need to advertise their services, never mind solicit new clients, so it surprises me as much as it irks me whenever I hear of people I know being sold a bit of an SEO dummy.

I’m not interested in outing anybody so for the purposes of this article, let’s change the name to something suitably Glaswegian…BAWBAGSEO. This list just serves as an example of stuff I’ve discovered going on that I believe no decent web or SEO professional would ever involve themselves in. Furthermore, if you are a business and considering outlaying for some SEO on your site, steer clear of any of these scenarios…

1. BAWBAGSEO carries out SEO work for Client A and gets Client A good results. BAWBAGSEO then approaches client B, who is a competitor of client A and offers to optimise client B’s site for a long tail search term that Client A hasn’t optimised his for. You read that right…SEO’s offering out sloppy long tail seconds to client competitors. Very poor.How to avoid: Ask your SEO if they have any other clients in a similar sector to yours and what their policy is relating to this.
2. Aside from providing SEO services, BAWBAGSEO also runs 3 day “all you can eat” SEO courses at a £1000 a pop so participants can then carry out SEO successfully themselves (alongside running their day to day business)
3. Scaring client B into SEO expenditure (preferably supplied by BAWBAGSEO) by showing them their site’s W3C validation error report when BAWBAGSEO‘s validation report has twice as many errors as client B
4. Guaranteeing page one results for long-tail, traffic-light, highly specific search terms. A recent post on the consistently excellent Hoboweb blog titled How many clicks does a no 1 ranking in Google get compared to No 2, 3, 4 & 5 threw up some pretty interesing data that shows how much potential traffic can diminish past the first few results. Of course, using the Google Keyword tool, you can find out roughly how many searches across the Google network there have been for a specific search term. I reckon it’s even tougher now because the first page of search results is getting so clagged up with Google Places, Adwords and other Google bolt-ons.  Remember folks..technically, a page one result could be position 10 and you’ve got to ask yourself how much of a return on your SEO investment will this get you?
5. Beware the one month contract.  Any SEO relationship needs to be set up for the long haul.  If an SEO tells you they can achieve everything they need to achieve in one month they are lying.

I guess we all know companies similar to BAWBAGSEO. Has anyone uncovered any other unsavoury SEO practices they’d like to share?

Interesting video post from the dependable Matt Cutts at Google regarding how often the Google Algorithm gets altered….much more than you’d think – maybe as many as 350 times in a year!

Whilst some of the changes to this algorithm can be minor, some can have a pretty major impact on your search positions – good and/or bad.

How are you placed?  With changes taking place almost daily do you have the time to keep up with these developments?  Contact us to find out how we can help with your website optimisation and safeguard your Google Equity now!

Just been reading an excellent blog post over at SEOMoz about the 4 biggest threats that Google faces. Fascinating stuff.  To summarise, the article reckons it could be one of the following:

1. An existing search competitor wins back it’s share
2. A startup becomes the new golden child of search
3. Web search fractures into verticals
4. Traditional Web Search is Replaced by a More Compelling Information Retrieval Model

But what about Facebook?

If I were Google I’d be more concerned about the sustained and continuing growth of Facebook and the tightening grip it is having on people’s lives.

Regular Facebook users can completely immerse themselves in the Facebook world for hours on end (even if this time can consist of cyberstalking, running farms or playing at being a Mafia boss) and it strikes me that if Facebook can develop a useful, reliable method of search from within that extends outwith it’s own network then they’ll be well on their way to becoming a dominant force in search and a real challenger to Google.

Facebook already comes ready-rolled with a search box.  Imagine the “convenience” for it’s users if this search box was their gateway to information on anything they want, rather than just a tool that gets used to track down friends?

There’s also several concerns over privacy relating to Facebook but imagine how focused  search results could be served if they were not only based on what was out there but on every single piece of data that you’ve added over the years to your Facebook account.

Scary, or simply progress?

Been spending the morning tweaking some of my client’s Google Local Business Centre (GLBC) listings to take into account some pretty useful new features that the boffins have introduced.

One of the points I never tire of making when I’m out and about talking to other business owners is that you may not actually need a website…but what you do need is a web presence.  GLBC provides this and sometimes a well constructed GLBC listing is all you need to keep the new clients rolling in.  Why?

Take a look at these search results for the term ‘glasgow builder’.

By the time Google serves the adverts at the top and then lists the results from Google Local Business Centre, there is no space for any organic results on the screen.

A recent study from Jakob Nielsen indicating that web users spend 80% of their time looking at information above the page fold.  That means the large majority of searchers won’t bother scrolling down for the results if they can see a listing in front of them that holds their attention.

Another great feature of GLBC is the reviews option.  Users may be tempted to click on a result from GLBC if it has lots of reviews attached to it.

Google Local Business Centre new features

Given the amount of prime page real estate Google is allocating to it’s GLBC listings these days, it’s obviously something they are choosing to focus on.  In fact, they’ve introduced some new features in the past week that increases the efficacy of the GLBC system greatly – and makes it more usable for businesses that aren’t tied to a specific location.

1. You can now specify whether your business location is a destination for customers (ie a shop where they come to you) or whether your location is merely an office and you take your service to your customers (termed “”this business serves customer at their locations”).  This works on a number of levels but the main benefit is that if you deliver your service at your customer’s locations then you now have an opportunity to say how wide your service area is.
2. “Do not show my business address on my Maps listing” allows you to hide your business address whilst still maintaining a presence in GLBC listings.  This is tremendously helpful for home-based businesses and anyone who has no interest in receiving business visits to their home address.  It remains to be seen whether this privacy option has an overall impact in your GLBC listing.  I’m currently testing it out.

It will be interesting to see how users adapt and abuse these new features.  In theory, you would be able to hide your address but say you cover an area almost 2000 miles in diameter but I’m pretty sure this will have an adverse effect on listings.

Really looking forward to my trip to London next month to hook up with some clients – even moreso as I’m having lunch at Google’s HQ.  Ever heard of the Google 15?  Apparently Google employees put on 15 pounds of weight within a couple of months of working there as the canteens are so good.  Bring it on.

On the whole it’s been a tough 12 months on the PR front for this $200billion dollar advertising company.  Check out this clip:

I guess it’s all in the presentation but when you watch what Google’s achieved from this perspective, it’s hard to avoid cynicism.  That said, maybe it’s got a lot to do with being both innovative and a bit of a show-off.  Whether it’s some good old fashioned Murdoch-baiting, to developing mobile phones or even just the occasional invasion of privacy, Google get the headlines…good or evil.

When I’m there next month I’ll do my best to find that special elevator that takes you straight down to Gomorrah…pretty sure Rupert Murdoch will have one too…who would you rather give your details to?  Rupert or Sergey?

Regular visitors to this blog will be aware of how interested I am in the various online mapping systems that are out there.  This time last year, we took a first look at how Glasgow looked on Google Street View and hypothesised about where Google would go next.

Fasten your seatbelts folks…Bing have launched a demo version of their new Bing Streetside mapping system and it looks awesome.  It’s probably going to be in beta for some time – at present they’ve just got Vancouver and Seattle added but the features look amazing.  Stuff like being able to look up at the sky and see star formations from any location and the use of Photosynth technology to integrate Flickr photos in Bing Maps could only just be the start…  In turn, this makes it a much richer experience than the ’vanilla’ Google Streetview.

Downside (and with Microsoft, I guess there always has to be one) is that the current demo only works if you’ve got a Windows machine….

Don’t let that deter you from checking out the clip…