12 Dirty Little Secrets by Deliverabilities

DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS

THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW

BUT WILL SAVE YOU THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS AND COUNTLESS HOURS

CHRISTIAN RIDDELL | PETER CELNICKER

DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS

OUR INDUSTRY IS FULL OF COMPANIES WHO DO NOT WANT YOU TO READ THIS BOOK... AND WE DON’T CARE.

DIRTYLITTLESECRETS

SECRET 1: DARK CORNERS

SECRET 7: INTERLYING

SECRET 2: RANKING MAGIC

SECRET 8: PRICE FIX

SECRET 3: LEVERAGE LIES

SECRET 9: GOOGLE GHOSTS

SECRET 4: PPC SCAMMERS

SECRET 10: YELLOW PAGE-IN

SECRET 5: SOCAIL SWITCH

SECRET 11: IN HOUSE SEO

SECRET 6: RONCO MYTH

SECRET 12: DIDN’T WORK

s r e n r o c k r da

DARK CORNER SCAM BAIT & SWITCH AT ITS FINEST.

The first dirty secret is one that many SEO companies use to land and keep customers even though they never plan on providing any real value. This strategy is simple... Make a guarantee that they will make you number one for a keyword, that if they do this that you are locked into a contract or that there is an automatic renewal if it is accomplished. On the surface this seems like a great strategy; the sleight of hand comes when they choose the keyword! You see, NOT ALL KEYWORDS ARE CREATED EQUALLY. Imagine that you sell widgets in Wichita. Any SEO company has all of the data to choose the keywords that you go after, based not on what you think, but based on what the consumers are really typing into search engines. They find that the top five keywords are Wichita widgets, widgets in Wichita, cheap Wichita widgets, best widgets in Wichita, and buy Wichita widgets. Together there are over 1500 searches a month for these five keywords. Then what they do is choose two or three of these, and also choose some that have NO REAL TRAFFIC, things like “greatest widgets sold in Wichita” or “the best and cheapest widgets that are sold in the greater Wichita area”. WHY? Simply because with very little work they can put you at the top of those long-tail keywords and fulfill their “guarantee”, thus locking you into the rest of their contract regardless of the bottomline impact of your business. The guarantee that they offered which made you choose them over another provider... they just used that same guarantee to lock you into payments for the next year that will do NOTHING for your business. You may as well have burned the money. At least then you would have been warm and able to roast a marshmallow...

d ark c orn er s

DARK CORNER SCAM

WHAT TO DO TO AVOID IT...

Be wary of guarantees in the SEO world. As a professional SEO company, we know that it is nearly impossible to guarantee results with REAL keywords that people use to find products and services. It is like a race that you run without being able to see your competition. How fast you need to run is as much art as it is science. Sometimes you find that your competition will speed up as soon as you pass them and that it takes time to get the results you want. Realize that you have to commit to some period of time to see those results. Plan on at least six months to see bottom-line impact. Also remember that there is ONLY ONE WAY TO MEASURE AN SEO COMPANY. It is not rankings; it is not traffic; it is only if the effort is driving real bottom-line results to your company. Any SEO provider that believes that their success starts and ends with a keyword being number one is NOT SOMEONE YOU SHOULD HIRE. You have to refine, tweak, change, and maneuver when it comes to a good SEO campaign.

QUESTIONS TO ASK Do you offer a guarantee? If yes, dig very deep into what it is and what happens if they meet it. Make sure that it is not some type of an auto renewal or a lock-in. Also make sure that you get to approve all of the keywords that they will use to execute the guarantee, and make sure they provide you with a detailed keyword analysis prior to choosing. If they say that they do not offer a guarantee, ask them why. If their answer sounds like this explanation, trust they know what they are talking about.

s r e n r o c k r a d

rankin g mag ic

Better than the rest

The retention tool for scammers.

This dirty tactic is used by SEO companies the world over. It is a tool that they use, not only to try to blow smoke over the real issues, but also to try to impact retention when contracts are being renewed. Some will do a trial period, like 30 to 60 days during which they will get you ranked in a keyword (ranked means in the top 100), and then they will say, “Look, we have gone from not ranked to number 35,” then convincing you that if they can do that in 30 to 60 days, a long-term contract is a logical solution. Many SEO companies want to use “growth” as a retention tool, showing reports that show you are up 64 spots from when they started, or that you are now ranked number 21 out of 4.75 million results. These are a smoke screen that the industry has used for years to hide the truth. The simple fact is that over 80 percent of all of the clicks for any keyword are distributed between the top three NATIVE search results. That is right, not the “Sponsored” ads, not the Google Places, not number four, five, six, seven, but one, two, and three. By the time you get to the second page, the numbers are so low that they are not even worth mentioning. In many cased you can see a 200- to 400-percent increase in traffic by just going from number four to number two! So is number 11 better than 100? Yes, but only if you are passing 11 on your way to number one! Further, consumers trust search results. They not only use them to find products and services but also to vet them. There is a belief that if you are number one, then you must be somehow better than number five (you know you do it too...), that somehow the quality of your company is reflected in the rankings. This means a few things to you as a business owner. First, when people call, they are more likely to buy; second, more people will call. These are not hopes; they are

ran ki ng m agic lie

DIRTYLITTLESECRETS

facts; they are realities of being in the top three, and they are the reason people are willing to fight to be in that place. At number 11, or even at number five, you are willing to allow the perception of your potential buyers that there are that many companies that are better than you at what you do... Think about that! This is why some companies charge tens of thousands of dollars a month to go after these positions. It is why major companies spend so much of their advertising budgets on reaching these goals, and it is why some who can’t get there are willing to pay hundreds of dollars for a single leftover click for some of these keywords with Pay Per Click (PPC). So how do you deal with this dirty little tactic? Simply, don’t settle until you are number one in every keyword that a consumer uses to find your product or service. Everything else is just not where your business needs to be. Judge your success not based on a ranking but on what that effort is delivering. Understand that it will take time to get where you want to be, but you should see a consistent growth over time and not a jump to position 35 and a stop. It is exponentially easier to go from number 30 to number 12 than it is to go from number four to number one.

QUESTIONS TO ASK Before you engage a company! Ask for realistic projections as to what they believe it will take to get you to the top three in your keywords. Ask for each one individually and ask them if they are willing to stand behind that projection. Ask them if they will let you out of your contract if they can’t deliver. Hold them accountable. It will pay in spades.

leverag e lies

You’re our favorite Market building on your dime...

SEO companies are businesses just like any other. They are looking to find a niche and carve out a living. The dirty little secret here is that, in this industry many of the companies are little more than a guy with a computer in his spare bedroom... This often means that “professional business practices” are less than the flavor of the day. One of the most distasteful dirty secrets in this business is that many of our so-called peers in this industry have a business model that looks like this. 1. Find a customer; work for that customer; prove that you can do it. 2. Go to competitors and say, “Look what we did for this guy. We can do it for you as well.” On the surface this may not seem so bad, but when you dig a bit deeper you realize just how rotten this really is. If 80 percent of the clicks are spread between the top three results and your provider is now also your biggest competitor, how can you ever really know that you are getting the service you need to be successful? Are you paying them the most? Are you the easiest to work with? What is it that will make sure that you are their most important customer? The worst is that most times you will never know if this is even happening. At Deliverabilities, we receive at least three calls a week from competitors of our customers asking if they can hire us and pay us two or three times more money. This real estate is very, very valuable and that is not lost on businesses. When we first launched our exclusivity program, the industry laughed at us, saying we were cutting our own wrists. But over time we have shown that not only is it the better decision from an integrity standpoint, but that more and more consumers are seeing these others for what they are, wolves in sheep’s clothing.

DIRTYLITTLESECRETS

You’re our favorite

WHAT TO DO TO AVOID IT...

SO HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH THIS? Demand exclusivity! Look for a company who will contractually guarantee that you will be the only one that does what you do where you do it. This may cost you more money, but in the long run IT WILL MAKE YOU SUCCESSFUL. You can’t be competing with your own provider. You need to know that your best interest is also their best interest. Deal with real companies, not somebody’s brotherin-law or that one guy’s girlfriend. Deal with national companies, NOT LOCAL companies. The “we are an expert in our local area” is not relevant in the SEO world and will only get you in trouble. You don’t want your backyard to be the only place your provider can get business. Find a company who does not need to leverage your success into a new revenue stream that will jeopardize the success of your business moving forward.

QUESTIONS TO ASK Do Do you offer any kind of exclusivity program? I want to make sure you never do business with any of my competition, for as long as we have a working relationship. IF they stumble on this answer, RUN. Do not allow your provider to become your competition. You can also ask if they are only a local business or if they focus on companies around the globe. Ask them for white papers from businesses in other locations to prove it.

s e i l e g a r e v le

Hiring an SEO company does not need to be a leap of faith... Click here. Learn why.

DIRTYLITTLESECRETS

The PPC SCAM

FIGHTING FOR THE FIVE PERCENT... There is a scam that has been going on for the last 10 years and has cost businesses billions in wasted money. There are 100 dollar pieces of software that allow ANYONE with a computer, Internet connection, and a cell phone to represent themselves as Internet marketing experts who are going to sell you PPC (Pay Per Click), THE solution to your marketing woes. They simply become dealers of these services from places like Google and Bing and make money on you spending money that WILL NOT deliver long-term results to your company. I will say it again. More than 80 percent of all of the clicks on the web are distributed to the top three native search results. NATIVE. This same research indicates that only about five percent of the total volume gets to the PPC world. THIS IS NOT TO SAY THAT PPC IS A BAD THING. Used correctly, it can be a powerful tool. On the following page you will find five ways that it can help your business accomplish your long-term objectives and goals. It is, however, VERY IMPORTANT that you do not confuse using these strategies with REPLACING NATIVE SEO EFFORTS. If you can only afford to do one, invest in native SEO. It is a long-term success strategy and one that does not base its value on an “auction” pricing model and one whose value is not manipulated by data from the same people selling you the service. This is another product that you must look at with a raised eyebrow as ALL OF THE DATA USED TO CALCULATE THE COST OF THIS IS CONTROLLED BY THE SAME PEOPLE SELLING IT. YOU ALSO HAVE TO REALIZE THAT THERE WILL BE BOT TRAFFIC, PAID TRAFFIC, AND OTHER NEFARIOUS TACTICS THAT YOU WILL PAY FOR. THIS MEANS CLICKS AND TRAFFIC THAT IS NOT REAL, PEOPLE LOOKING FOR YOUR SERVICE who come to your site and who you PAID to get there...

DIRTY LITTLESECRETS

THE PPC SCAM

FIGHTING FOR THE FIVE PERCENT...

So how do you deal with this scam? Simple...Evaluate your budget. SEO is not, in and of itself, a scam. It can be a powerful tool when it is used correctly, but it is critical that you understand the difference. The people selling this will have VERY POWERFUL STATISTICS, STORIES, AND CASE STUDIES to “PROVE” that this works. They will show you companies who did it and it worked. They may even show you what people spent. What they will not tell you is what percentage of their total spending that was. I can assure you that is a key piece of purposely omitted data. Make sure that you are investing in long-term results with SEO, and then look at the rest. If you can use PPC in one of the five ways where it is a positive and a good financial decision for your company, run with it. If you have to choose.... THERE SHOULD BE NO CHOICE TO MAKE; INVEST IN YOUR FUTURE.

QUESTIONS TO ASK Do you believe that PPC is a replacement for native SEO? If they answer yes, stop talking to them. What percentage of my total budget do you believe we should spend on PPC? If the number is above 10 percent, make sure that they believe that should only be the case for a short period of time. IF they believe in that as a long-term strategy, stop talking to them.

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#1 RESEARCH AND REFINEMENT

There are times when you have to choose one out of five keywords to go after from a native SEO standpoint. Using PPC to identify which of these convert best is a great way to get real value.

#2 Pop-Up Markets

#3 In the meantime

Being on the first page of Google is a good thing, NO MATTER WHAT. So if you are going to do an SEO campaign and you can afford to do PPC at the same time, until you get to the top of the native results, DO IT.

#4 Flood Principle

There is a new way that major corporations are using PPC. We call it the Flood Principle. That is that they are working very hard to dominate the first page of Google by not only having one or more positions in the native section of the results, but they are also paying for two to three positions in the PPC. This power strategy makes you appear as if you are “everywhere” and the likely best choice. Again, if you can afford it, do it. This is a powerful PPC TACTIC.

#5 Competitor Attack

If you are a company who competes head to head with another company who has not become a household name, using PPC can be a way to pick of some of the traffic that is looking for another business. For instance, if you sell trash bags and you find that a major portion of the people looking for trash bags searches for Glad bags, you may want to invest in that as a PPC keyword. Although competing in the native search results with your competitor’s actual business name in it is possible, it is often a long battle.

5 WAYS TO USE PPC AND WIN

There are times where something happens in the world that is a fleeting opportunity. Sometimes you want to use keywords, phrases, or terms that are not in the best, long-term interest of the company to go after but that you want to be seen in regardless. In this case, PPC is a great tool. (Think an event, news story, or something else with a short lifespan.)

s oci al swi t ch

Social SCAM

CONFUSE THEM AND CLOSE THEM... The dirty little secret here is that there is an entire industry that has sprung up around the social media world. Seminars, products, gurus, software, and a myriad of other things. All of these providers continue to wave a banner that says “social media, the salvation of your company” showing case studies and examples of companies that used it to create overnight success. But it is all a smoke screen. At the inception of social media, like any other industry, there were those early adopters who made a fortune before the world settled and became what it is today. Today the world looks very different. The social networks figured out how to become advertising agencies and how to create revenue from the trends, thus changing the game forever. DON’T GET ME WRONG; social media is a great tool. It is one that we not only use ourselves but that we help many customers implement into their long-term business strategy. IT IS, HOWEVER, NOT A REPLACEMENT FOR SEO. There are many companies out there that claim to be SEO or marketing companies who would like you to believe that you can avoid the need for SEO by building a robust social media campaign. It is simply not true, no matter how convincing their data is. SEO is about putting your company in a place that people go when looking for that service. Like a modern-day “phone book”, it is about where they look when they are looking for you. Social media is about a social conversation with people. It is akin to a 24/7 cocktail party where people get together and talk about what is going on with them, their business, their world. DO PEOPLE FIND AND BUY PRODUCTS HERE? YES. Is it a replacement for SEO NO. WHY? Simple, ask yourself how many times you have searched for something in the last week, products, services even basic information; where did you do it? If you are like most people, and you are honest with yourself, you searched in Google or another search engine. You may have also, at some point, asked your social network, looked at a post by someone that was on that same subject, but you did not go directly to Facebook and look for someone who was providing that information, service, or product.

m a c s s r e n r dark co

Social SCAM

DIRTYLITTLESECRETS

CONFUSE THEM AND CLOSE THEM

HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH THIS? Should a company use social media? YES. Should they invest in the development of a good fan base, great branding, and the ability to engage with their audience? HELL, YES, but not if they believe that it is somehow replacing the need for SEO. People search; SEO is about putting you there when they do. People do not, en masse, search for products or services in social media environments. If your business is about donating to the kids in Kenya, social media may be the best solution. IF YOU SELL SOMETHING, IT IS NOT A REPLACEMENT FOR SEO. SOMETIMES THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION IS NOT, WILL IT WORK, BUT WILL IT WORK THE BEST? OFTEN WE FIND A GOOD/BETTER/BEST DECISION IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SUCCESS AND FAILURE. SOCIAL MEDIA IS A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF A GOOD TOOL THAT NEEDS TO BE PUT IN ITS PROPER PLACE. DONâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;T LET EVERY NEW IDEA PUT YOU OFF THE RAILS THAT WILL LEAD TO YOUR ULTIMATE SUCCESS.

QUESTIONS TO ASK HOW DO YOU SEE SOCIAL MEDIA FITTING IN OUR PROGRAM? If they want this to be your major thrust and you sell a product or service, RUN AWAY. It is an important part, but if that part represents more than five to ten percent of your total budget of resources, including time, you are headed in a direction we have seen FAR too often. Do not accept this as a solution to your long-term success. If you do and put all of your eggs in that basket, you will fail.

social switch

M...

White Paper

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h t y m o c n o r

THE Ronco SCAM SET IT AND FORGET IT...

What is the Ronco principle? I watched an infomercial one time for the Ronco rotisserie. They were cooking everything from turkeys to Pop Tarts, and every time they put something in and closed the door, everyone on the entire set would yell in unison, “Set it and forget it.” The dirty Little secret here is that many companies will lure you in with a “We will get you to number one and then you can be done.” There is NO SUCH THING IN THE SEO WORLD. There are two ways that companies use this dirty little secret in our business. First are companies who choose a keyword and run at that keyword doing the same thing for every keyword, every week, with the lather-rinserepeat principle. This will work if they are operating under the dark corner principle (see Secret #1) but it will not work for a real competitive keyword. A good system means that you are looking at the results and refining the effort to truly impact the bottom line. We are consistently surprised to find companies who have been pushing and pushing in a direction without really looking at the results, tweaking the strategy, and making the necessary changes to create real results. HOW OFTEN DO YOU NEED TO LOOK? Looking at your rankings is important on an ongoing basis, weekly at least as those changes can result in tangible results in the company. Often you want your sales team to understand what has happened so they are ready to deal with the results and focus on the net effect of the results. For strategy adjustment, quarterly or twice annually is good enough. You need to pay attention, but you also need to have some good data to work with, and in the SEO game, it is difficult to see those results without some track record of what the effort has actually done.

DIRTYLITTLESECRETS

RONCO Myth SET IT AND FORGET IT.

Second, is an even bigger myth, and that is that SEO is somehow a one-way street. We have to explain to nearly every customer that you do not get to number one in Google and then stop thinking about it. It is not like a television that you buy and then you are done with it. It is a constant game of cat and mouse. For keywords that people are really using to search for real products and services, there is a real value to being in the top three, and this is not lost on your competition. We use the analogy often of a road race. If three cars were leaving to drive from point A to point B, and one left two hours before the other two and drove at 60 miles per hour, the other two will have to drive faster than 60 to catch them. If car two passed car one doing 100 miles per hour, car two has two choices. It can be okay with being passed, or it can speed up to over 100 and pass car two again. This will continue until one runs out of gas or power. The SEO world is exactly the same. You donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get to number one by accident, so when you get knocked off that pedestal, you realize it and want to step on the gas. If you find yourself working on a keyword that you are able to get and keep number one without much effort, we can guarantee that you will find it will not deliver the results you need to be successful!!!!

r onc o m yt h

DIRTYLITTLESECRETS

HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH THIS? Make sure that you have a company who is committed to your success, that they have some reason to make sure that not only are they reaching the goals, but that they are looking at those goals and making sure they are panning out. We see companies that if they would have spent 15 minutes in their Analytics account, they could have saved thousands and thousands of dollars and had eight months of success vs. headaches. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t plan for six months of SEO; plan on making it part of your long-term business strategy, and make sure you pick a partner who can deliver the results you need to have at a price that will make good financial sense for your situation.

i nter-lyin g

They donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t use it THE BIGGEST LIE OF THEM ALL...

NOT TRUE, although we hear it a lot. This dirty little secret is propagated by those who are competing for your advertising dollars. We have seen it used in a number of industries by a myriad of companies. The COLD, HARD TRUTH IS, people use the Internet to find EVERYTHING these days. At one point in our company we offered a 1000 dollar reward for anyone who could show us a business that NO ONE SEARCHES FOR ONLINE. Needless to say, we never had to pay out. Over 95 percent of consumers are using the Internet to make buying decisions for most to all of their buying decisions. If you have a business, there are people looking for your product or service online. Whether or not you believe that is irrelevant to the fact. If a company chooses not to use the Internet that is one thing, but to make a claim that no one uses it to find what you sell, just does not carry any water. There are, however, a lot of companies who would prey on that principle. Many print advertisers (magazines, newspapers, phone books, and others) as well as trade show promoters, physical advertisers (billboards, bus benches, and others) even digital advertisers (radio, TV) would want you to believe that they have a magic bullet that will eclipse the need for a solid online plan. DO NOT BELIEVE THEM. These avenues are failing the world over, not because people are more concerned about the Amazon rainforest or that the industries are somehow mismanaged. They are failing for one very simple reason: Advertisers are dropping out BECAUSE IT DOES NOT WORK, and that is how they pay the bills. In fact, every one of the businesses on that list are suffering at the hands of the Internet. Never before have people had so much access to the things they need with the click of a few buttons. No longer do we need big, heavy phonebooks in the drawer, or need to read the Sunday news to know what is happening, or need to wait by the mailbox for this weekâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s coupons and discounts. The world has changed. The way custumers consume has changed.

n g y i l r e n t i

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They donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t use it THE BIGGEST LIE OF THEM ALL...

HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH THIS? Remember that every company that wants you to advertise or otherwise pay them money is competing for your budgeted dollars. They all have great data that has been engineered to hook you into buying from them. So decide not to be dazzled by the shiny details. Commit to asking the hard questions and making a decision that will really benefit you in the long run. Keep the most important things the most important. Look at not only the short-term return but the long-term impact on your business. Buying a full-page ad in the Sunday newspaper may make a big splash, but the ripples will soon flatten out and the pond will once again be calm. Building an engine that will throw stones in that same lake 24/7/365... Now that is a business idea to get behind.

QUESTIONS TO ASK Ask the person making this claim if they have any proof that they are willing to share that fact. Most salespeople will make these statements in passing. If you hear it, JUMP ON IT and make them prove it. If they canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t, just know they are willing to say anything to get you to sign. IF THEY TRY TO PROVIDE SOME PROOF, Ask an SEO company to give you real data: Any SEO company worth their salt can give you the real numbers and prove your case for you. AND THEY SHOULD NOT CHARGE YOU TO GET IT.

inter-lying

x i f e pric

THE PRICE FIX

GETTING WHAT YOU PAY FOR The dirty little secret in our industry is the idea that “you get what you pay for”. We have seen some of the biggest companies in the world who do SEO use this as their closing line, and we have seen other small providers use it as a way to defend their actions to an unhappy customer. 19, 49, 99, 199, 799, 24,000 dollars--this is one of the biggest problems with the SEO industry. Comparing apples to apples in this business is difficult for a trained professional and DAMN near impossible for a consumer. It seems that everyone is an “SEO expert”. Every 21-year-old college student is making claims that they have cracked the secret. Every software and service provider is making it appear that they can do it for you for a fraction of the cost of the rest of the world. Here is the truth. You can just as easily pay 2000 dollars a month to someone who can’t deliver as you can pay 499 dollars to someone who can. It is not about what you pay. Before we started our company, the founding partners were business owners elsewhere. We all paid for SEO on some level. Some of us paid thousands a month; some of us paid 19 dollars to our receptionist’s boyfriend. What we learned was that you have to believe in the company that you are working with and that the universal law of “if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is” is alive and well in this business. The key is to find real reputable companies and avoid the fly-by-night “pop-ups” that are out there. We are always shocked to find people who hired someone to manage one of the most important components of their business, their SEO, who does not have a website or even a real company and whose checks were made out to their personal name.

THE PRICE FIX

GETTING WHAT YOU PAY FOR SEO is a real business even though it is plagued with every idiot with a computer and 99 dollars’ worth of “SEO software”. THESE TWO TRUTHS CAN CAUSE YOUR COMPANY TO FAIL IF YOU DO NOT REALIZE THEIR IMPORTANCE.

SEO PITFALL NUMBER 1: YOU CAN GET HURT A PROVIDER CAN HURT YOUR COMPANY IF THEY DO THINGS WRONG: We are constantly working to clean up “experts’” mistakes, some easy, some very difficult and costly to the company. There are white hat (things you will be happy to tell Google you are doing), grey hat (things you do, but would not necessarily bring up at a meet-andgreet at Google headquarters) and black hat (things you don’t want to tell Google, or even let them find out) ways to be in this business. Many of the quick and easy solutions available to the guy in his bedroom are black hat... Done wrong he can get your entire site blacklisted and guillotined from the top 100 results in Google. What happens then? He says sorry, gives you the 200 dollars back (maybe), and stops returning your emails, and you’re stuck with NO TRAFFIC FINDING YOUR COMPANY AND STARTING YOUR INTERNET DEVELOPMENT FROM SCRATCH.

SEO PITFALL NUMBER 2: IN THE SEO GAME IF YOU ARE AN SEO COMPANY WITHOUT THE INTERNAL PEOPLE, PROCESSES, AND TOOLS TO TRULY DO THE WORK NECCESSARY FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS, you must rely on the services of others to get you where you need to go. When we see this we always cringe. We have seen time and time again, someone finding a provider on Fiverr or some forum that claims that they can deliver real results, and then turning that vendor into a business. They go out representing themselves as an SEO company simply marking up the prices and passing the work on. THE PROBLEM IS THAT YOU REALLY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE DOING TO HELP YOU, AND NEITHER DOES THE PERSON YOU PAY. If this is the case, refer back to number one!

DIRTYLITTLESECRETS

HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH THIS? If they don’t have a website, MOVE ON no matter how good they say they are or how many customer testimonials they claim to have or how good the deal sounds. If they do have a website, MAKE THEM SHOW YOU THEIR RANKINGS. If you are good enough to charge people to be their SEO company, you should be good enough to do it for yourself. Ask about their business; no one will tell you their secret recipe, but they will tell you if they have employees, how long they have been in business, and they should be willing to let you talk to a customer. YOU CAN’T BELIEVE THE “PLUMBERS ALWAYS HAVE A LEAKY FAUCET” IN THIS INDUSTRY. DON’T TRUST THEM IF THEY DON’T DRINK THEIR OWN MEDICINE. DON’T TRUST THEM IF THEY SAY THAT THEY ARE TOO BUSY AND DON’T WANT TO DO IT BECAUSE THEY COULD NOT HANDLE THE BUSINESS (THAT IS AN OLD STANDBY IN THE INTERNET BUSINESS.) IF THEY CAN’T DO IT FOR THEMSELVES, THEY WON’T FOR YOU.

QUESTIONS TO ASK DO YOU HAVE A WEBSITE? If they answer NO, stop talking to them. HOW LONG HAVE THEY BEEN IN BUSINESS? Look for proof here. It may seem strange to ask these questions, but it will pay in spades. Real companies can show you how long they have been in business. They can show you that they have a record of not just disappearing after three months. DON’T GET FOOLED BY THE FLY-BY-NIGHT IDIOTS OUT THERE. THEY WILL NOT HELP YOU... NO MATTER HOW GOOD THE DEAL SOUNDS.

! ! i x f e i c r ! p !

googl e gho sts

GOOGLE GHOSTS

FALSE REPRESENTATION... OR WORSE The dirty little secret here is that in this business, there are many companies who are using this technique to confuse businesses into contracts. They are mincing words, making claims, and boldfaced lying about what this is and what it means to you. We have even seen companies calling and claiming to be Google themselves and then selling SEO services... Here is the real story. Two years ago JCPenny.com was very publicly spanked by Google. Why? Because they had been doing things to manipulate the Google algorithm to rank their products in the search engine. They had become so good at it that they were ranked in the top three for terms like little black dress and were even ranked above Samsonite for their own luggage. The spanking came only days after they reported to shareholders of their record holiday sales and that they were able, for the first time, to surpass the levels of their “wish catalog” days. After they were called out by the big “G”, they publicly claimed that they had no idea what was being done and quickly fired the company they had “contracted” to manage their SEO. That company evaporated from the face of the earth within seven days. SEO is, by its very nature, understanding what it is that Google wants and giving it to them so you are ranked above your competition. It is the manipulation of the algorithm that they have set up to rank sites. On the cover of that explanation, you may think that holding hands with Google would be a benefit, BUT THAT IS NOT TRUE. In order for Bobs Burger Barn to compete head to head with Burger King, you have to work very hard to push the envelope as far as you can without ripping it. There is NO WAY to have a Certified Google Provider provide you all of what you need to get to the top of the heap. PERIOD. You need to work with a company who is committed to your success, not worried about their certification requirements. You need people who are willing to live in that grey area and push your business where your perfect customers are looking to find what you sell. DON’T BE FOOLED!

DIRTYLITTLESECRETS

GOOGLE GHOSTS

DIRTYLITTLESECRETS

FALSE REPRESENTATION... OR WORSE

HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH THIS? If someone calls you and claims to be Google and wants to sell you SEO, they are not real. GOOGLE DOES NOT SELL SEO; THEY SELL PPC. If they claim to be a Google Certified Partner, thank them for their time and hang up. They are contractually limited to what they can do to get you where you need to be. A good SEO company does not do anything illegal or against the policies and procedures of any search engine, but they push their face right up to the glass and make that funny squishy face. That is the nature of the beast.

QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE YOU ENGAGE ANY PROVIDER FOR SEO, ASK THEM IF THEY ARE A CERTIFIED GOOGLE PROVIDER. IF THEY ARE, do not work with them. The honest truth is that you don’t want to. They hold this out like it is a good thing, like it will bring them some benefit, but in reality, it only ties their hands, and you need someone whose hands are definitely NOT tied. ASK THEM HOW THEY FEEL ABOUT BLACK HAT SEO TECHNIQUES: This question will probably catch them off guard, but it is worth it. You need to see how they handle it. This is like asking a professional athlete if they use performance-enhancing drugs, but you want to see how they react. IF they tell you that there are some things that are technically “black hat” that are good for your business, then it is a good thing. IF they stammer and trip all over the question... chances are that is all they do and you are going to be at risk.

google ghosts

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yellow page-in A DYING AND DESPERATE LIE

Let’s be clear; the Yellow Page printed books have stopped working. You know it; I know it; and sadly, so do the Yellow Pages. In the last five years, they have made a major shift away from printed books and are trying to now promote themselves as an “online marketing tool”. Let me be crystal clear about one of the dirtiest little secrets in our business. Yellow Page companies sell businesses “advertising contracts” based on a section code, like transportation, or plumbing, and subcodes like a limo company or plumbing supply. So not only do they sell your business an “advertising package”, but they sell one, or try to sell one, to every one of your competitors. And at every meeting, they say, ‘Well, Larry’s Plumbing bought a full page, but if you want to buy a full page and a featured banner on our site, we will put you in front of Larry.’ Then if you say yes, the next meeting they try to outsell your package. IT IS A DIRTY BUSINESS. I REPEAT, IT IS A DIRTY BUSINESS. And it even gets worse.... All of the big phone book companies now offer an online component with each of their “advertising contracts”. Here is what their salespeople will say when they are trying to sell you. “We spend millions each year on PPC so we will put you in there for your category, and we will do SEO, and we will provide you with all the tracking you need to see the return on your investment”.... NOW let me translate that into what happens after you sign on the dotted line.

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THIERDOMAIN

THIER NUMBER

THIER PPC

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THIER SEO

DIRTYLITTLESECRETS

Yellow Page-in A DYING AND DESPERATE LIE

They will quickly purchase, if they do not already own a domain name with your service, city, OR POTENTIALLY EVEN YOUR BUSINESS NAME IN IT. So if you sell apples in Portland, they will find a domain called portlandapples.net or they may even THEIRDOMAIN find one that matches your business exactly, like bobsportlandapples.com. If you ask about this they will tell you that it gives them the ability to track how many hits you get and that every one of them will be in your reporting each month. THE TRUTH IS: they now own the domain that they are advertising, and if you ever try to leave, you don’t leave with it, so they can simply turn that traffic to someone else... Like your biggest competitor... Think about that!

They will assign you a toll-free number that they put in all of their digital advertising, EVEN IF YOU PAY THE UPGRADE TO A MINI SITE!!!! This phone number will ring directly to you... TRUE. You can login and see in nearly real time who is calling, the duration of THEIR NUMBER the call, and other info.... TRUE. It is your phone number... FALSE. If you cancel or fail to renew your contract, that is not your phone number to keep... PERIOD. Again, it is simple to divert that same number to someone who is willing to upgrade their account. Like the domain, people are a subject of habit. They will call the numbers that they put in their phone. They will go to the websites that are in their favorites... IF YOU DON’T OWN THEM, IT IS NOT A LONG-TERM INVESTMENT IN YOUR BUSINESS.

They will do PPC for the categories that you advertise in, so if you were the plumbing supply store in Denver, if someone searches plumbing supply and lives in Denver, THE PPC ad will come up, with THEIR DOMAIN AND PHONE ON IT... IF SOMEONE CLICKS ON THEIR PPC THAT AD, THEY WILL NOT GO TO YOUR SITE; THEY WILL GO TO THE PHONEBOOK SITE WITH YOUR LISTING ON IT. THIS MEANS THAT NOT ONLY DO THEY FIND YOU, BUT WITH TWO MOUSE CLICKS THEY ARE ON A PAGE WITH ALL OF YOUR COMPETITION, EVEN IF YOU PAY 8000 DOLLARS A MONTH AND THEY PAY 200 DOLLARS. THIS IS NOT GOOD FOR YOUR BUSINESS.

DIRTYLITTLESECRETS

They will do SEO: TRUE. They do SEO for your page on their site, NOT FOR YOUR WEBSITE!!! This means that you are paying for a company to build a website, paying for them to do SEO, paying them to have a domain, paying for an 800 number, and paying them THIER SEO to compete with you... This has been their biggest tactic to get and keep advertisers as it is not based on what is working for your business, but based on the fear that if you stop, that all of it will go to someone else. I have personally sat in a meeting with a regional sales manager who said these very words to my customer who I was there with... Why can they get away with it? Because people do not understand what they are doing. They have built MEGA empires with names that people have come to trust. What you really get is a bad business decision tied to a bulletproof contract that you could not get out of short of a full-fledged bankruptcy proceeding. What you get is someone who, when it comes time to renew, is more concerned about you knowing that if you leave you walk away from everything that you built and that they will sell it to your competition... so â&#x20AC;&#x153;sign hereâ&#x20AC;?.

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DIRTYLITTLESECRETS

Yellow Page-in A DYING AND DESPERATE LIE

HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH THIS? DO NOT ADVERTISE WITH THE PHONEBOOK IN A DIGITAL WORLD. There are still businesses (very few) that ads make sense in the actual printed book, but do not be swindled into believing that somehow they are going to do your SEO, PPC, or online promotion for you or that you are building your business. Make sure that if you are spending money with them that it does not represent more than 10to 15 percent of your total marketing budget on a monthly basis and that you know what you are signing. Most of their contracts have an “If you don’t tell us you want to stop some months before renewal, it is an automatic renewal.” Remember that they are a dying business and look at everything that they say, do, and promise like a starving man trying to talk you out of a cheeseburger. They will say and do most anything to get you to give it to you.... Just remember who you are dealing with and measure what they tell you accordingly.

QUESTIONS TO ASK HOW DO I CANCEL THIS CONTRACT? If they say that you have to opt out or they auto renew, make them change it. It is a bad thing for you to sign. If you currently pay them for some digital advertising... ASK THEM FOR A QUARTERLY REVIEW: We have seen far too often that small advertisers (less than 5000 dollars a month)are forgotten until it is time to renew, and if the contract auto renews, even then, make them come to you and look at the data. Look at call duration and frequency. Overlay their digital stats with Google Analytics. Look and see if the traffic they are driving is sticking (staying on the page, visiting multiple pages, especially those that sell products or services or capture info). Ask to review all of the ads and check that they are driving people to the correct pages on your site. If for some reason you choose to go this route, BE CAREFUL!

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The click equation ONE simple EQUATION THAT WILL SHOW YOU EXACTLY WHAT A SEO CAMPAIGN IS WORTH TO YOU.

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SELF-SERVE SEO MONEY-GRUBBING LIARS

One of the dirty little secrets in our business is the entire market that has been created around “Self-Serve SEO”. People are making MILLIONS every month on people who are doing it themselves. The rub: IT DOES NOT WORK. Imagine a water glass and you are tasked with filling it up. The do-it-yourself methods will indeed put two teaspoons in the glass... But that is where it stops. If it were that easy, companies like Nike, Coke, Apple, and others would not PAY MILLIONS EVERY YEAR FOR THIS SERVICE. SEO is a complex, time-consuming, and very detailed endeavor. If you are a small business owner who runs a company that is not delivering SEO on a daily basis, do not kid yourself that you are somehow going to compete at a high level in SEO. It is just not realistic. We have a team of over 40 people in our company representing six departments that do everything from linking to content development, design, research, forum posting, and much, much more. The idea that you could do it for yourself means it would take you 10 years to learn how, and take more than full time each day to do what you need to do to actually compete. The Internet is filled with guides, ebooks, software, seminars, and offers that would make you think that you could take it on. There are two ways you can go. One, believe an expert who runs an SEO company that it is not possible, and hire someone who can help you get where you want to go... OR don’t... and buy the books, watch the seminars, sign up for the software tools, and then trust the expert who owns an SEO company and hire a company to help you. If you are thinking right now that I am wrong, that you are that 1 in 10,000,000, then go ahead and prove me wrong, but I will tell you that if there is one truth that I have learned in all my years in business, it is, to be truly successful we must focus on those things that we are the very best at and, if we are not the best at it, we must find people who are and engage them to help us be the very best at everything we do.

DIRTYLITTLESECRETS

SELF-SERVE SEO MONEY-GRUBBING LIARS

We hear very often in our business that we have a guy in our company who does this for us. Most often it is an employee with a completely different job description as well, someone like a salesperson, receptionist, or assistant. In our six departments, we have skill sets that would be nearly impossible to replicate in one person. From the very creative to the very analytical, it requires more than a powerful understanding of what to do, but also a very, very complex method of how and when to deliver it to present to the search engines a natural growth pattern. We have never seen, in our organization or any other, one person who can do it all. This is aside from the fact that in the last six months Google has made four major updates to its algorithm, each time requiring a huge amount of work to reverse-engineer what has happened. What that means is in regards to what happens on a daily basis and what new things need to be added or old things removed. The president of our company, a national SEO expert and presenter, spends the vast majority of his time on a weekly basis working to understand exactly what needs to be done. Doing this in between everything else would be simply impossible.

in hous e seo

HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH THIS? Look at the real numbers. What is it worth to your company to be number one? What are you paying that person on a monthly basis to focus on SEO? If they are generating lessthan-stellar results, see if it is actually saving you any money. Many companies we work with find that they can actually save money by outsourcing SEO. Not only will you get better results, but you will get that person back to focus on things that are really their main skill set.

QUESTIONS TO ASK WHAT KEYWORDS DO I WANT TO GO AFTER? Look up words that you think people would use, then talk to an SEO company. Ask them what they would do and get the info. Even if you never use them, the info will be worth the effort. WHAT LEVEL DO I WANT TO COMPETE ON? The easiest way to find this out is to look at who you are competing with. Google the term you are interested in and see if you know any of the names in the TOP 15, if any of them are household names. YOU CAN’T DO IT ON YOUR OWN. HOW MUCH TIME WILL IT TAKE? Talk to the “providers” of the selfserve solutions. Ask them, then ask if they have some customers you can talk to. Now look at how often you need to do it. WHAT IS YOUR TIME WORTH? Really, what is your time worth to you? WHAT WOULD IT COST TO OUTSOURCE IT? This needs to be part of this process. Just going with a half-cocked idea based on the belief that you probably can’t afford it is just stupid. Ask the questions; interview companies; and look for someone you can trust, then talk price. Remember, opening with “how much does it cost” is like walking into a new car showroom and asking how much is a car... You need to give them more info to get real numbers.

DIRTYLITTLESECRETS

didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t wo rk

Didn’t work

DON’T BELIEVE A WORD OF IT Another dirty secret propagated by those industries competing for your advertising dollars is that if you have already tried that, move on to other “more productive” avenues of advertising, that somehow a few months of an unsuccessful campaign means that the money is better spent in another advertising avenue... more times than not, the one they are selling! SEO WORKS; some companies and providers do not. If you feel like you have tried SEO and it did not work, either you did not work with the right provider, you were simply taken advantage of, or something went wrong. There is no question that people use the Internet to search. There is no question that they choose one of the top native search results (you know you do), and there is no question that more leads become more sales. There are any number of reasons why an SEO campaign may have not worked for you in the past. The vast majority can fit in one or more of the following boxes.

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COMPANY

KEYWORDS

CONVERSION

DIRTYLITTLESECRETS

THINKING

DURATION

Didn’t work

DON’T BELIEVE A WORD OF IT

OUR INDUSTRY IS POLLUTED with providers who are here today and gone tomorrow, website builders-turnedSEO experts, guys in sweatpants in their spare bedroom pushing themselves on you as some sort of an expert. NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU PAY THEM, THEY WILL COMPANY NOT DELIVER REAL RESULTS. Keeping this in mind is critical to your future success. Just because you did not find the right person, does not mean that the industry is not a useful business tool.

This is the top of the list for most people. Simply stated, keywords were chosen that did not deliver the result that you expected. This is not uncommon with many SEO companies, as they forget to look at the numbers after you have signed up. You MUST have KEYWORDS someone checking to see if the plan is working. Not only with how many clicks you are getting, but how long do people who clicked on that keyword spend on the site? How many pages are they visiting, and how many are just “bouncing” as soon as they get there? AND THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS MAKING SURE THAT YOU KNOW HOW THE PEOPLE CALLING AND BUYING FOUND YOU. Even the best plans require refinement and consistent evaluation. SIMPLE THINGS WILL MAKE YOUR CAMPAIGN RUN BETTER.

Even if an SEO company drives a million visitors each day to your site, if the site does not convert them into a lead somehow and they click off the page, you are wasting your money. It is critical that you don’t put the cart before the horse and that you make sure CONVERSION that you have a site that will support the expense and effort of SEO. Not all websites are created equally, and the most critical thing to remember is that IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT YOU LIKE OR THINK ABOUT A WEBSITE, IT MATTERS WHAT YOUR CUSTOMERS LIKE OR THINK. TRUST EXPERTS, PEOPLE WHO CAN SEE THE SITE AS A TOOL, NOT AS A PERSONAL REFLECTION OF YOU OR YOUR COMPANY. A site that converts is a goldmine. A site that does not is no better than that stack of business cards in the desk you have been ignoring.

DIRTYLITTLESECRETS

We did not think it helped: Many times people base the “we tried it and it did not work” on a hunch or a feeling. “We did not really see any increase in calls or deals” is what they say, but with further digging, we find that they did not ask customers how they found THINKING them. They did not track the phone calls that the effort generated. They did not get down and dirty with the analytics, and they decided to spend the money somewhere else. This can be the most damaging one of the five as many times it is difficult to convince people that the issue may not have been the SEO provider, SEO itself, or the effort, but that it may actually be their lack of follow-through that caused the issue.

We did two months and did not see any return. When we sign contracts with our customers, it is not in an effort to lock them into an iron-clad relationship so we don’t have to deliver (as many of our competitors do), but rather to make them realize that they have DURATION to commit the time and money to make this work. It is not like a newspaper ad that you know within four days of delivery if it worked. This is a long-term strategy that a company must invest in to determine if it should be part of their plan. If it is, they need to make sure that the budget supports the endeavor and that it is not funded by the short-term success or failure of the effort. SEO starts as a drip and builds to a flood when it is done correctly.

d idn’t wor k

DIRTYLITTLESECRETS

Didn’t work

DON’T BELIEVE A WORD OF IT

HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH THIS? SEO does work; that is why the biggest companies in the world are competing at the highest levels in this arena. It is why you are seeing such a shift in traditional media outlets, and if you are reading this, you know it on some level. Never confuse the need for change or refinement with the fatalistic “it did not work” mentality. No great thing was accomplished on the first try; it takes work, refinement, honing, and polishing to reveal the diamond that you are looking for. Remember that this business is filled with more companies and people who can’t deliver than those who can. Do your homework; look for reputable companies to work with; and be willing to pay for the privilege to work with real experts. Do not confuse price with quality, and make sure that you have the tools necessary to hold them accountable. You can be successful at this; it will just require your commitment!

QUESTIONS TO ASK DID THE EFFORT GENERATE TRAFFIC BUT NOT SALES? If yes, then perhaps it was refinement and conversion. If no, then perhaps it was keywords or a bad provider. Did the leads generated not want the product or service you offer? If yes, then you chose the wrong keywords. If there were just not enough of them, then look at conversion or at quantity of keywords and the position you reached. DID YOU LOOK AT THE REAL DATA TO IDENTIFY WHAT THE ISSUE WAS OR DID YOU JUST MOVE ON TO THE NEXT HOT THING THAT CAME THROUGH THE DOOR? This may be the hardest question to answer... Try to really look at it. There are few things that will drive more results than a well-executed and managed SEO campaign. Companies are willing to spend millions, and it is no accident. If it did not work for you, if you feel like it was because SEO does not work... think again.

k r o w did n’t

DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS

12 DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR ONLINE STRATEGY FOREVER

“WE DON’T CARE WHO WE MAKE MAD BY LETTING OUR INDUSTRIES’ DIRTY LAUNDRY HANG IN THE WIND... IT’S TIME THE PUBLIC KNOWS WHAT IS REAL AND WHAT IS NOT.” Chris Riddell and Peter Celnicker are the founders of Deliverabilities, an online marketing business that has served companies large and small all over the world for the past five years. They have built a reputation for delivering real results consistently. Both Chris and Peter have committed themselves to the principle of creating true market domination for their customer base and have built every business practice around what they wanted when they owned businesses before deliverabilities.com. “We built this business to make sure that there was a company out there that could deliver real results that were financially sound decisions for any business to use. We could not find one when we needed one, and it cost us dearly. Now there is one, and we are it!”

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