Mannix Marketing SEO Newsletter

The Top Mistakes You Can Make as an Optimization Client
by Lisa Bishop

The following list of behaviors should be avoided if you want to be a positive part of the effort to boost your internet presence with an optimization campaign.

1. Be impatient. There are no “quick fixes”, no “get rich quick” schemes with white hat optimization. When you sign on with an optimization company, you must be prepared to persevere. You must be prepared to wait patiently while the search engines respond to the work that is being done on your site. This does not happen over night, but rather in due time. When you begin an optimization campaign, be prepared to sign a yearly contract and try not to jump to conclusions before that contract is up. Be open to explore supplemental techniques while you wait. Directory submissions, pay per click, article submissions and link exchange programs can help expose your site quickly and can boost your traffic while you wait for the search engines to index your site.

2. Do not disclose the complete history of your website. When an optimization company analyzes a site and gives a quote for the fees associated with an individualized campaign, all historical data related to the url must be disclosed.

• If you’ve worked with another optimization company, it is beneficial for the new company to know with who and when this took place. Most optimization companies are aware of their competition and the techniques their competitors use. Usually we can identify issues with placements and rank, and apply remedies based upon our knowledge of the prior optimization company. It is in your best interest to spill the beans about the history of your domain.

• If you have additional domain names, please disclose. We need to know.

• If you’ve tried to do optimization in-house, please let us know the techniques you applied. This would include disclosing those secret folders with hundreds of doorway pages in them … and it would include exposing the names of the link farms you joined. We need to know … we’re here to help.

3. Have unrealistic expectations. Optimization is a MUST for any business that is affiliated with a website. Keep your expectations within a realistic realm and accept that optimization is an investment and a process. The labor intensive procedures will yield results, but typically we see slow and steady increases with position, rank, phone calls, sales, traffic, etc. Will your business triple overnight? It’s unlikely … and that would be an example of an unrealistic expectation. Also remember that an optimization company is hired to attain placements to your site within the search engines. The responsibility then lies on you to capture your searchers with your website and content. Check out your competition and make sure that your prices, products, and information are current and competitive.

4. Resist changes to your site. Let me guess, you just spent thousands of dollars to redesign your site. The flash is beautiful and I understand that you used frames at the suggestion of the developer. When it comes to optimization, design is last priority. Making changes to your site will be a necessity, but keep in mind that we are very good at striking a balance between pleasing the searcher and pleasing the search engines. These two things go hand in hand and the suggestions we make are to help you! We’ve been doing this for so many years that we know what works, even if it hurts a little in the beginning. Do your best to trust our recommendations and implement the changes necessary to change your site into a “search engine friendly” one.

Having a good working relationship is always part of the success of an optimization campaign. If you’ve done your homework on the optimization company by calling references, speaking with the sales person from the company and making sure that they can do the job they promised, then you should be able to put some trust in them. This is a team effort that has the potential to fulfill your expectations – providing they are realistic!