I’m banging my head against the wall; I keep on saying “NO, that’s not it, it’s not just about keywords. Hang on, I’ll explain”. We’ve all been there, trying to explain SEO. Whether it is to a prospect client, a boss, a friend or your mother (mine still thinks I work for Google, and frankly I’ve given up!). But WHY OH WHY, do people have selective hearing. It makes me want to bang my head THROUGH the wall, not just at the wall. I’m in the middle of the presentation, been through the basics of how the search engines work, the potential traffic and ROI, then you move on to the basics of SEO. The second I say keyword, it’s all doomed. For some reason people think they know and understand everything about SEO from this point on.
Prospect Client: “Ahhhh!! It’s all about keywords, yeah I see, of course, that makes sense. Yes you can’t be found for a keyword unless you have it on your website, we’ll just bash it in”
Me: “Erm you need to do some research first, don’t just bash in any old keyword”
Prospect Client: “Nah we got it covered, we know what people search for. We just bang in, I mean spam in, erm I mean input all the keywords from our brochures and stuff”
Me: “have you got a rope?”
In my opinion, and I’m sure most of you will agree, Search Engine Optimisation isn’t something you can have a bash at doing. You can’t try SEO, either you do it (and properly) or you don’t.
But sometimes it’s so difficult to explain it all, you know how important it can be for a website, you got all these facts and figures and even case studies to prove what it has achieved. But when you only have a few hours to pitch, to explain, that you, the SEO Jedi can bring their site to another level. You realise they just aren’t speaking the same language.
If after an hour they are still asking whether they can put keywords in hidden text, target 30 keywords on one page (29 of them being general keywords such as high competitive brand names) and they insist in putting in 200 keywords in the meta keyword tag (just in case). RUN, RUN FOR THE HILLS!
Basically the “moral” of the story is simple; sometimes you have to chose your battles. It’s not likely that someone that think they can do SEO as well as you, after only 1 hour is going to be a client you want!
I like Yoda’s wrap. Is that mohair?
*laughs* I’m _still_ trying to explain that after all these years.
You should see one of the places I did an assessment of – spammy keywords in an HTML comment tag – HA! That is so last millennium!
I’m glad it’s not just my mom that thinks I work for Google!
You make some great points and some people just don’t get that SEO isn’t keyword stuffing and there is no convincing them otherwise. It is a tough pill to swallow when you know how much you can do for a site if only they would listen and then just having to walk away
Nice Pic of Yoda. SEO Ninjas and now SEO Jedi where will it ever end – SEO Dummies guides…
I guess we have all had those clients, and maybe been those people as well – its unfortunate that educating a client sometimes costs too much to make them worth while.
I kind of pring out some basic guides (excerpts from SEOBook or SEOmoz) and hand them to the client – ask them to read them and then call me back if they are interested in SEO that makes them money.
I think it has about a 40% success rate – most of the clients get confused after reading the first few pages – the rest pass them on to their inhouse webdevs… oh well…
Haha, this goes for non-client discussions, too. After so much time, there’s still so much drama and mystery…
Laura
Don’t get me started!!!!!!!!!!!
Aaaarrgghhhhh!!!
(I think you get the point.)
I’m still waiting for an answer to my Yoda question Ms. Viking.
@g1smd: what do you mean? OK just kidding.
The most nightmarish client we had wanted a PageRank 9 and not much else. Rankings? Who gives a crap. Traffic? Meh. Ticket sales? Shrug. They basically wanted a PR three places higher than every other site in their industry. It was PR9 or bust.
We chose bust. Later on, someone pointed out to me how they’re now buying links all over the place and their Page Rank is still 6.
Greetings all, I find in allot of cases it depends on the analogy you use. People in many cases grasp concepts better if you can relate it to something they already understand.
I had a wonderful chat with a new client the other day whom thought we were all sitting in dark rooms talking googly gook, after explaining the essence of SEO practises using simple to understand analogy’s Lisa understood much easier and far more.
Lisa by the way is the companies marketing person and by no means an idiot, if someone finds your concepts hard to grasp try finding terms they understand.
People understand quite easily the concept of inbound links being votes, furthermore they understand that it makes sense for those links to contain their key word phrases. Most clients I find are interested in what you actually do apart from the code side of things and more the copy optimisation.
Great post! and try not to hurt your head to much.
Have a B L O G G I N G good day!
haha, I am just starting out in my career in SEO and whenever I proudly tell people of my new job the question is always asked “so how do you…do…make google…errr..do it?” A question I have now been asked countless times, and it is difficult with my current limited knowlage of the various ways (but I am learning quick!) and trying to keep it simple so friends and family can understand. Is probably the hardest part of the job so far!
Love the title Lisa D. The scary thing is if they talk to an LSEO company (Loser SEO) prior to talking to one that gets it, yikes! I like to tell them SEO is like chess. Easy to learn, difficult to master. “So prospective client, you know how to move the horsey thing but if you don’t use us, you’ll get pwned”.
Julie: what the heck is mohair? Speak Norwegian woman…
Jane: lol PageWank 9….
Rishil: Sometimes the actual problem is when you tell them too much, and they THINK they “get it”. Agh. I did the mistake of showing one of my clients some of SEOmoz’s tools (which I love) but the client got obsessed checking the site through the tools and phoned me up all the time in a panic about freakin nothing. Damn you Rand
Mohair is “a silk-like fabric or yarn made from the hair of the docile Angora goat.” according to Wikipedia. Hell, I didn’t even know that!
My mum still thinks that I am a computer programmer. I’ve tried a couple of times to disuade her from this opinion but because I use a computer – and she can’t find Microsoft Word on my PC I must be a programmer. go figure!
Patrick: Thanks for commenting, yep thats very true. And believe me I’m full of analogies, explaining the importance of linking with the voting analogy etc. Maybe the problem is actually I’m making it sound too easy, hence they think they can do it all themselves =)
Talking about analogies, one of my favourite analogies was made by Mikkel deMib Svendsen at SMX in London. He was explaining just why reciprocal linking is useless: I have a pint of beer, I give you the beer and you give the beer back to me. THAT doesn’t give us MORE beer! HA HA! Love it! I actually used that in a client meeting the other day and couldn’t stop laughing lol..the clients smiled but I found it hilarious. Note to self, when saying something funny wait for people to laugh =)
Oh and another one of my all time favourite analogy stories is this one http://www.searchengineguide.com/diane-aull/why-do-the-good-seos-cost-so-much.php
Genius!
Hi Lisa, I understand where you are coming from. One of our clients we have been performing SEO services for, now believes he can do it all!! Now he emails me saying I have just seo’ed more of the site and to my horror he has stuffed a bunch of keywords into the copy and at the base of the web pages.
I called him saying what the ^$%& are you doing and he quite proudly said SEO it is all about keywords you know. I almost let fly but decorum made me bite my lip.
It quite frankly gets on your nerves when you have been in the industry years and you find yourself still learning new things everyday only to have a client with no idea in this world suddenly thinking they know what their doing.
If you find clients frowning at your pricing we wrote and incredibly simple comparison the other day comparing the cost of SEO to PPC it has already brought us new clients.
SEO compared to PPC
I like that analogy on reciprocal links, can see me using that at some stage
It does amaze me how a client is perfectly happy to spend literally thousands on advertising, then have the cheek to call you expensive when our services are so valuable.
I will be watching your blog Lisa I have read over a few posts and it’s all good stuff. Take care and most of all
Have a B L O G G I N G good day!
Hi Lisa,
I’m a recent reader of Seo-chicks. well i have gone through post, i would like to know more about your service and experience.
please email me your details, service and company info.
Thanks
Shrenik
Stating that seo is a waste of time is completely false. There are certain ways of implementing seo into your website that are proven to make a difference and help you rank well in search engines. You must remember to use links wisely and make sure your content is keyword rich but not so much, that it looks like you’re trying too hard.