Comments on: What A Waste…Oh The SEO!!

By: Joff

Joff — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 17:49:03 +0000

Could AMEX’s reaction not be a blessing in disguise?

If the competition are having second thoughts about using SEO, it’s only going to help my clients improve their rankings!
I think most small businesses already treat SEO with kid gloves so knowing that even the big guys get stung it will prompt the small businesses into ensuring they’re only dealing with reputable SEO/SEM’s.

I now predict Mastercard and Visa will be investing heavily in SEO campaigns to wipe the floor with American Express lol.

By: Julie Joyce

Julie Joyce — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:20:39 +0000

@joff: that’s actually quite a good point…

By: Chris Hambly

Chris Hambly — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 18:01:16 +0000

Very well said Julie, the business needs people like you who say it as it is.

Great stuff!

By: Julie Joyce

Julie Joyce — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 12:15:40 +0000

Mr Hambly: what a nice thing to say! Thank you sir.

By: g1smd

g1smd — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 23:49:24 +0000

Since this has now been discussed on several prominent SEO-related websites in recent days, I wonder how long it will be before certain of those SEO-related websites start to rank well for the term “American Express”.

Would be kind of ironic no?

By: Julie Joyce

Julie Joyce — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:41:49 +0000

@g1smd: That would indeed be ironic. I should have used better anchor text!!

By: Poker-Chicks

Poker-Chicks — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:23:42 +0000

Hi All - this is Or and Elinor - and this is our first comment on this blog…
First of all - great post - we really enjoyed it.
Next, we’d like to say that Amex is pathetic and we do not use their credit cards
Also, for two women who work with allllllllllot of SEO consultants and companies, we want to say that if Amex had their pages at the top of the SERP’s - they’d probably not be so quick to bash SEO. Whoever said what they did,, definitely has very superficial knowledge of both SEO and in hiring the right company.

By: Julie Joyce

Julie Joyce — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:36:53 +0000

Thanks poker chicks…glad to see you aren’t using Amex to fund your poker adventures haha.

By: Mr Happy

Mr Happy — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:50:16 +0000

Ha ha. for a site who don’t believe in SEO the US Amex site certainly has keywords in the title tag - unlike its UK sister site which has no focussing in it at all.

Oh well off to build an affliate site about credit cards - if they dont want to have an effectively protected brand in the natural search listings I suppose the least I can do is start filling this space for them - as I do see they have an affiliate program with a 90 day cookie and up to $200 commission…

By: Julie Joyce

Julie Joyce — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:51:31 +0000

Well said, Mr Happy. I really need to meet you in person because I want to call someone “Mr Happy” quite badly…and weren’t you supposed to answer my question about Nick Cave??

By: Jenny

Jenny — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:00:28 +0000

I personally think it’s a waste of time (I don’t put money into it). I have done all the SEO I can to my site and I have seen NO difference at all.

By: Mr Happy

Mr Happy — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:03:54 +0000

what was your question about nick cave? My brains like a sieve today and site:www.seo-chicks.com intext:”nick cave” aint working in google today

By: Julie Joyce

Julie Joyce — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:18:00 +0000

Mr Happy: I think I just asked if you would comment on his level of coolness. I could be wrong. I just think Nick Cave mentions require a comment hahaha.

@Jenny: when you say you’ve done all the SEO that you can to your site, what exactly have you done?

By: Mr Happy

Mr Happy — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:22:46 +0000

Hi Jenny stick your URL up - I’m sure we’ll see what we can do to help (don’t want to assume that your blog is the site you are talking about).

By: Mr Happy

Mr Happy — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:26:12 +0000

Sorry - I’m replying out of sync here but Nick cave is kinda cool but he generally passed me by. I think I was listening to the Sugar Cubes. the closest I got to liking any music taht came out of Australia was more likely to have been when Frente did Bizarre Love Triangle by New Order and when Smudge released Don’t wanna be Grant McLennan.

Not too sure of his new look - but I guess with his infatuation with the New Testament if we got him an cassock he could feature in an episode of the X-Files as a scary preacher…

By: Julie Joyce

Julie Joyce — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:42:36 +0000

Mr Happy: acceptable answer, thank you.

By: Ciaran

Ciaran — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:46:24 +0000

Jenny’s website appears, from her link, to be this one: http://thesocalledme.net/ - give her some help sisters!

And as for Amex; who still uses them?

You pay a fortune, to have a card that isn’t accepted in bucket loads of places, but which is the wallet equivalent of a Ferrari in terms of its ability to make up for manhood issues.

Seriously, which people in the industry wave one around?! Am I right? Or am I right?

By: Julie Joyce

Julie Joyce — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 10:22:52 +0000

Hey Liza. You are so damned funny…and you’re right, you’re right!

By: Mitesh Patel

Mitesh Patel — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 11:30:42 +0000

mr happy, you are right.

By: Lynne Foster

Lynne Foster — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 21:29:57 +0000

Great post. I’ve lost count of the times we have heard that ‘another company promises 6 million hits a day’ (a slight exaggeration but you know what I mean!) We’ve also had to deal with clients who having been paying SEO prices month after month and have had no work done (which we have been able to prove). It’s such a shame there is no way of highlighting these so-called companies, like a 3 strikes (customer complaints…) and you’re on the blacklist kind of thing.

By: Julie Joyce

Julie Joyce — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:42:24 +0000

@Lynne: the three strikes idea is quite good!

By: Kyle Healey

Kyle Healey — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 03:45:50 +0000

What a load of you know what. I’m guessing whoever wrote that little seo’s are evil bit in the manual had some bad experiences. Talk about an over-generalization fallacy.

By: dhunt

dhunt — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 05:20:41 +0000

I am new to SEO but I thought SEO is just about making a site search engine friendly . Giving it the best opportunity to do well .

By: David - Los Angeles Internet Marketing

David - Los Angeles Internet Marketing — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 07:12:10 +0000

Unfortunately, there are a number of scams around. The best ones are the ones that have an Indian calling you “We’ve partnered with Google, and we can guarantee you a top 3 position for $100 / month”. I know at least two people who have fallen for it. Very sad…

There are also no standards or baselines readily available - which is why it’s so easy to have scammers take advantage. Fortunately, numbers are always easy to use, and I’ve been finding that by merely showing people where to get the information from (wordtracker anyone? hehehe), I get the credibility to get the job.

Screw Amex, seriously. Every big company has at least an outside SEO firm, if not an in-house one. Are they trying to make sure that no small business owner makes money? Sad

By: Patrick Ryall

Patrick Ryall — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 07:40:40 +0000

Hey all, I went as far to voice my disgust at a moronic comment but that is as far as I bothered. Mainly as a day later I went on holiday YAY - No computer no clients for days only beaches and sunshine so needed it.

It is no wonder they are the worlds least accepted card, charge outrageous merchant fees and most places as pointed out don’t want to know.

It is interesting though how far this little article reached out to the community.

By: Mr Happy

Mr Happy — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:38:13 +0000

Hi Jenny,
Just had a quick squizz at your site. From what I can see you already have the SEO Title tag plugin for wordpress installed - one way you could be getting better positions is by using this functionality more fully than you are at present - title tags look the same as your article headings.
As a guess I think you should maybe have a look at refining your keyword research and locking onto a couple of core niche areas where you could be getting traffic. do some quick brain storming on all the words you think could be appropriate to you (and your audience) - rattle these into a keyword estimator tool you can use http://www.keyworddiscovery.com for free (just sign up for a trial).
You’re already doing some pretty cool things - pinging out to pingomatic - if you increased your ping list you should get some more places knowing about you. That said having a technorati authority of 465 is well cool - if you could show my bloggers how to do that would be cool :p Using the do-follow blog roll was a great idea!
Hope that helps

By: Julie Joyce

Julie Joyce — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 13:07:00 +0000

@everyone: thanks for the comments. Amex is getting raked over the coals for being kind of a shite card anyway, and no one seems surprised that they’d make such a stupid declaration as to say that SEO is a waste. Generally speaking, they aren’t enjoying a lot of favor in any sector that I can see right now.

@Mr Happy and Jenny: thanks for your comments. Getting this type of discussion going helps everyone, and it’s nice to see people reaching out to each other. I’m going to go hug a tree now.

By: lots of keyword stuffing please

lots of keyword stuffing please — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:51:18 +0000

AMEX needs to have a realistic expectation of SEO, and possibly revamp their online style. Amex is perceived as an old school corporate monolith, Mastercard is priceless.

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 22:35:25 +0000

I think AMEX should do more research into the industry before condemning it. I defend myself a lot against accusations like these even though I’ve never used black hat SEO or put any of my customers at risk with sneaky, underhanded techniques. It’s getting old, honestly, and I’m sure this won’t help.

By: Julie Joyce

Julie Joyce — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 11:05:31 +0000

@Elizabeth: thanks for your comment. I will say that there are some instances in which black hat techniques are REQUESTED by a client, since I’ve had those services, ahem, requested of me before. The sites did insanely well with those tactics and the client made enough money that, when things finally simmered down, it no longer mattered to them. I think the bigger problem in SEO isn’t necessarily black hat at all; it’s simple incompetence. Whether you do black or white hat, if you don’t do it well, you make us all look like idiots.

By: Fionn

Fionn — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 22:55:57 +0000

A month ago I did two half hour workshops on search engine marketing at an American Express Open for samll business convention co-branded with SCORE. The enitre conference had about 400 people the two sessions pulled in 250 people. I could not go to the bathroom wihtout a line of people coming up to me. I sat in the lobby and ran site clinics all day between sessions. Small business are hungry for good advice not this rubbish from American Express. If they want to help the small business community they should provide them with good quality information not made up crap.

Even more astounding this industry is still debating if we need standards.

Looks like American Express may need some reputation management over this I hope they call me!!!!

By: Julie Joyce

Julie Joyce — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 16:59:03 +0000

@Fionn: I completely agree that small businesses are hungry for SEO advice. That’s a brilliant point…more than almost anyone, the small business owner is the type of client that I like the best, simply because they tend to want to work with you and learn from you. At my previous job, my favorite clients were the small local ones, mainly because of the interaction. They’d ask a billion questions and I’d have to constantly stay on top of everything, and I loved it. The fact that a quasi-respectable company like Amex would intentionally vote against using SEO services for small businesses is true proof of the fact that they are the ones who don’t have a clue.