Like many website owners, my inbox is constantly flooded with contact form submissions from marketing companies promising to take my site to the top of the search engines. One of these companies called the office the other day so I decided to see what they had to offer.
The representative I spoke with began by saying his firm had conducted research on my company and found some key markets I was not tapping into. Any time I deal with these people I inform them I am a numbers guy and have no real SEO experience. This gives me a better idea of what they are selling most people. The sales guy went on to throw around some dollar figures stating how I was really losing out on some excellent business. Luckily, they would be able to help me with this. After 5 minutes of him throwing around SEO buzz words, I finally asked him to cite some specific examples of what my company could improve on. His response, “what is the name of your company again?”. Wow. The least these guys could do is keep the company name handy when they are cold calling businesses.
Over the last 10 years of dealing with these companies and clients who have hired them, I have come up with a standard rule of thumb: avoid them at all costs. These companies are more concerned with client acquisition than retention. Trying to cancel a contract with them is about as difficult as canceling a contract with Gold’s Gym. You are in for at least several months of recurring billing. Sign up a client, sit on the account, charge them for several months, and move on. That is their business model.
The bottom line is there is no easy way to achieve top results in the search engines. Like anything else, there is no substitute for hard work. Search engines have become much more intelligent creatures than they were in the past. In the old days, you could put keywords into the right places on a site, get some good inbound links and voilá , top results.
Today’s market is much more content-centric. Good content will drive people to your site, keep them longer, and keep them coming back. If you want a top ranking, a content development strategy is one of the most important elements needed to achieve those results. Equally important is how to leverage the content. Taking advantage of the ever-expanding list of web 2.0 and social media sites will help deliver your content to a new audience that would have otherwise missed your site completely.
Our content development team combines social media experts with professional writers to ensure top quality content is delivered to the right channels. If you are interested in starting a content development strategy as part of an SEO campaign, send us an email and we will get started on a custom-tailored solution for your business.
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