Selecting A Small Business SEO Company

All SEO companies targeting small businesses are selling snake oil!

OK not really but there are many out there you need to watch for which I believe has given the industry a bad name. Search Engine Optimization is something every company with a website or developing a website should take into consideration as they develop their plan for implementation.

If you are not familiar with SEO the simplest explanation without getting technical is the following:

SEO is the process of building your website in a manner that allows it to show up in the search engines for specific items that people maybe searching for, and more importantly it is optimizing it in a way that draws in searches that are specifically targeted at the products you sell.

There are many more technical explanations but that one really is the gist of it.

Now, why did I say many companies are selling snake oil, well let me first say, my company is not an SEO company, I say that very specifically because we do more than just optimize sites. That said we do work with customers that do want some level of SEO work done on their websites and we do build every customer website with SEO in mind from day one. Our success getting customers the search traffic they want has been great but we never guarantee anything, period.

There are a few things that you need to pay attention to when selecting a search engine optimization partner.

If they promise you page one listings run away, here is why. In many businesses you can guarantee something, when it comes to the search engines you are always at Googles (or Bing, or Yahoo) mercy. The provider can do everything right but at the end of the day there is always a chance that Google may not rank the site on the first page number one listing.

If they guaranteed it there are a few things they may be doing that you need to ask about or be aware of, there are companies that will take advantage of the lack of awareness of how the search engines work and will sometimes do one of the following to show you a first page listing:

1. Paid submission directories or search engines - Many will pay a fee to have your site listed number one in a lesser search engine or website directory or possibly take advantage of pay per click advertising on a lesser search engine or directory. These listings are only there if you are paying, quit paying and the listings go away.
2. Black Hat SEO - When it comes to search engine optimization there are two main types without getting to technical, there is white hat which is the proper way to optimize the site, and there is something called black hat. Black hat is the process of trying to trick the search engines into ranking your site but doing things that Google and others frown on. It may work for a short period of time but sooner or later Google will catch on and your site will be banned from search and your competitors will be smiling.
3. Using very odd searches to rank - What this means is showing you a page one ranking for a term that really no one searches for, for instance if you are interested in showing up for Chicago Hair Salons they may work to optimize for Chicago Illinois Hair Salons On Rush Street. You can see how it changes the value of a first page ranking.

Those are just a few things, there are many more but after speaking with customers lately I have a concern that there are people still working down these paths with customers.

All that said, there are many very upstanding SEO companies out there, there are MANY MORE good than bad. Make sure you select one you are comfortable with and ask the right questions.

Small Business Who Gets Domain Name Brand Protection And Call To Action

Today I was working with a customer who had purchased a pretty extensive custom web development package and part of the kick off process was domain name selection and discussing branding, call to action and related topics.

It became a very interesting conversation based on the experience of the customer I was working with, his currently primary business is focused on selling a very niche product online and he has some very nice call to action and keyword domains to support his business and I must say we spent quite a bit of time discussing his thoughts on domain selection, domain investment in general and brand protection.

He was really concerned about brand protection due to the fact that after his initial site became successful people picked up what equates to typos or singular instead of plural versions (his original site was a generic one word with USA on the end). From the beginning he was open to a plan to buy up keyword domains to use as supporting sites to his primary site, this will work great from an SEO perspective if done right as well as keep his competitors from purchasing those, but since the site we are building is going to be done on a very nice call to action domain he also understood that there were certain phrasings he should pick up just to be safe.

There are not many small businesses that understand the value of having multiple domains, owning the .NET, .ORG and more when possible and overall planning of a strategy for a network of supporting sites. It was an absolute blast working with a customer who understood from the beginning and not only supported this effort but pushed us even deeper into the plan than we would of expected.

With the right education and experience businesses get it. I wish I could take credit for the education here, but I was just a small piece, unfortunately this customer learned through a bad experience but knows not to let it happen again.

The Best Thing An Online Marketing Company Can Hear

Today while in our sales meeting I heard on of the frequent comments I hear from people that have spoke to small businesses about online marketing, websites, etc. That comment is "I do not get any business from my website" or  "I do not remember ever getting a call from my website" or something similar.

To me this basically means I am walking out with an order or going to be getting one sometime soon. If you are someone that focuses on online advertising or web development or anything related to that field those words should be music to your ears. If you get worried when you hear that because now the customer has a negative perception about doing business on the web this is your time to turn it around and show them that you are the help they needed to make the web work for them.

Keep in mind when many small business buy or bought their websites it was done on a purely technical basis, no one actually explained to them that it was for gaining business or promoting their business online.

Their "web development partner" could of cared less in many cases if the customer ever received a visitor, they took their check and ran. Website was built, their work here was done.

Well, if these same small businesses who have the concern about business on the web based on their lack of success with it can be shown a plan to success suddenly it opens up a whole new world for them. Suddenly they can compete better with their competitors who may not have a presence online, or maybe grow their business through contacts online they did not even know had been looking for them (I have a great story about this if you want to contact me).

Either way, "I have never had any business from my website" should be music to any online advertising or marketing companies ears, listen for it and do not run away scared when you hear it, walk away with an order.

Top 5 Small Business Website Mistakes

As we work with small business owners daily to develop their plan for their online presence we hear a lot of the same questions and at the end of the day the customer is always right but there are things we try to help people keep away from or things that we find that maybe they did not do the first time they built their site that they should do this time. Here are 5 things small businesses either need to avoid or need to think about when they have their websites built:

Music playing on site- This is a major thing to avoid, when websites were being bought and deployed because they were "neat" and new this was something a lot of people did. Also I have witnessed this a lot on customer sites that were built by non-professionals. Without fail the majority of people visiting your website will be turned off by the auto-playing music as soon as they hit your site. This is an absolute avoid. Please please do not do this.

Using templates based on framesets - This is something else I see weekly by customers who have bought websites from people that focus on vertical markets, many of these niche market template websites are based on frames and you lose the ability to link to individual pages of the site. This is very late 1990's. If you bought your website from a niche market provider or you had your website built in the late 90s or early 2000's and your site is built with frames it is time for an update.

Working with developers that do not understand SEO - This is also very common, in my mind if you are having a website built and basic SEO is not part of what they do by default what is the point, if you spend 5K for a website and no one ever goes there does it matter? No. This is a very common issue with older technology companies in an area that have never upgraded past the "tech" part of websites. This is also very common when people focus on the flashy/pretty part of the site and not on attracting customers. If you ever hear someone say "Oh yeah my sister was gonna build my website" this is probably going to be a problem as well. For the small business customer that may read this and needs to understand what I mean please feel free to use my contact me form.

Using Flash and only Flash to build a site - Last week I sat down with a potentially large Missouri.me advertising customer who also wants a custom website developed. Although we do not focus on custom websites in this case it makes sense for us to do it. But what was interesting is they brought up the site of their would be competitor and it was done almost 100 percent in Flash. Sure it looked great and did some cool stuff but it ranked no where in the search engines, all their traffic was from PPC. They focused on pretty and not getting customers. Flash is another item that decreases the ability of the small business owner to optimize their site for the search engines. Avoid making it the focus of your site.

Clip Art Animated GIF's - Just like the music reference above, this is very late 90s early 2000's. Having clip art based graphics on your site will turn users off. The little guy walking across the screen that is on a graphic is not something that is neat anymore. Please avoid this, clean nice looking graphics will be more interesting to your visitors.

Thanks to @DanSanchez for inspiring this post.

If you have questions about the right steps for your small business website please use the contact me link above to contact me. If you have more suggestions for small businesses to avoid feel free to put them in the comments section below.

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