36 replies to this topic

[carica]

Hi EVERYONE!

I'm brand new to this forum and this is my first post.
I'm also an SEO consultand in New Zealand.
I've been doing SEO for last 4 years for my own business and I've just recently setup an SEO company

There are some very interesting and surprising issues I ran across in my customer surveys

We recently contacted some 20 of my web hosting clients (my other company is an ISP) trying to get inside people' heads in regards to SEO.

I could not believe what I'd discovered:

Large % of people we spoke to gave us these answers
=========================================

Q: When asked how is your site ranking on Search engines

A1: almost everyone has said "yeah good". When I went to check on that it was not the case. They were nowhere to be found!

A2: almost everyone has said "it's great, when you type my company name you'll see me there first one". They were convinced that this was an achievement AND that ranking for "my company name" is a very important thing.


Q: When asked what they think internet promotion is all about and if it's important they said
A1: Yes sure it's important. I do promote it, I put my web address on all my brochures and business cards and ads everywhere. Noone mentions search engines


Now, does this surprice those of you that have been in the business longer?
Do you run across these and how do you deal with them because majority of people I've contacted are completely unaware of what this whole internet marketing thing is about....

Have a great day and I'm really eager to hear all your comments

<edit>feel Free to make a signature</edit>

Edited by projectphp, 15 August 2006 - 07:00 PM.

[Jill]

Welcome carica!

Nope, not surprising in the least. Why? Did it surprise you?

[qwerty]

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. If they know anything about online marketing at all, it's almost always something wrong. They need to be in the top 10 for "lawyer". They've read all about how to hide text on the page. They noticed that their competitor is listed in a directory, and since their site is better, all they need is for you to get them listed and they'll beat them? Right? Right??? Blah blah

[carica]

It did surprice me since it all seems veeeeeery common sense.

I couldn't imagine hoiw someone would think they're doing good on Google when all they need to do is TYPE THE KEYWORD in Google and see that's not the case!

Why would someone think that being listed for their company name is "HUGE achievement" when they know they're the only company with that name????

Since you're not too surprices with this how do you deal with these issues in your business?
How do you go about getting through to people?

I though you guys would be surpised

I thought it was just a New Zealand thing...you know since we do (now officially) have the slowest internet in the developed world

I don't get it! And there is nothing worse than WEB DESIGNERS that keep feeding them this crap.. My mission now is to convert all these people

[qwerty]

I guess we're just jaded

Sure, it's weird that people use search engines to find businesses based on keywords, but when it comes to their own business, they don't even think in those terms. Either that, or like in the example I gave above, they think if they throw a couple of dollars your way, you can wave your wand and get them to rank for the most general term in the world.

[Jill]

It's just that SEO is still a very new field, and most have no clue as to what it's about or it's potential.

That's why it's not worth even trying to sell SEO to the uneducated who haven't learned its value. It will take way to much time, for very little money.

The big money is in finding potential clients who already understand the value of SEO and are just looking for someone who can provide that to them.

[Randy]

No surprise to me either.

In my experience, you'll find that the vast majority will start out on one extreme or the other. Either they wrongly think they're going gang busters because they have a site and it ranks for their domain name/company name (well duh!) or they're already frustrated and feel like they've been taken because they think their site should rank #1 worldwide for some terribly generic phrase like lawyer and have paid someone for SEO but never got in the top 500.

They've simply never had someone lay it all out for them most likely. If they had, it would make complete sense to them that what they really wanted to shoot for was a local term like Tauranga Lawyer.

It's one of the reasons I've always recommended real SEOs get involved in offering free seminars to local business groups. You don't even have to try to sell your service all that hard. If you can let them in on what the goal should be they'll come flocking to you all on their own.

[chrishirst]

Definitely no surprise to me either

Finally ditched all but one client we were doing any SEO for earlier in the year (just me left now ) You can only bang your head against so many brick walls for so long.

Quite lucky really, programming projects and "real world" activities keep us (more than sometimes) busy enough.

[Randy]

OFFTOPIC:

I thought for a moment there Chris was going to slip into a Pink Floyd haze...

[storyspinner]

A2: almost everyone has said "it's great, when you type my company name you'll see me there first one". They were convinced that this was an achievement AND that ranking for "my company name" is a very important thing.

I think what's even more amusing is when a client thinks they know every thing about SEO and proudly proclaim to the rest of the company because of "their seo efforts" they now rank #1 for "purple polka dotted electric blue widgets"

..................................... and the searches on that show up as ZERO!

[MtraX]

Tell me about it. I have a client that started his own PPC campaign, had $300 cost per conversion which after only 2 hours of work we've managed to bring down quite drastically, but since his site's still not converting properly he's telling us that he doesn't see the difference. Plus he weary to spend any more money until he's seen results. I've got to learn to say NO!

[lyn]

Is it story time?
Once upon a time, I had a client who wanted a new website and didn't want to use the common generic term for the product he sold. He felt (with some justification) that market preconceptions about the product category were such that he would be better off using different terms to describe what he offered. So I wrote a pile of content using his new terms to present the product and its uses with special pages for different purchase influences and interactive demos & such...

I got hell because the site didn't show up in searches for the common generic term.

[Scottie]

The Top 10 Biggest Misconceptions about SEO:

1) It's about meta tags
2) It's something in the code
3) Companies can just "make a website appear at #1" if they are really good
4) When you are done next week, my site should be #1
5) My site will stay #1 forevermore
6) If I have good rankings, I don't need to do any other marketing
7) Nothing has to be changed on my site to "do SEO" to it
8) Super secret special tricks will get my site to the top faster. These are the things no one will tell you about because they want to keep the information to themselves.
9) Ranking #1 for terms no one searches for, like"digital moonpie miami" is a great accomplishment.
(My sister's Disney fan site ranks #1 for "crackle barrel restarant" and "hampsterdance". Sadly, it hasn't improved traffic...)
10) Rankings are what make a site successful.

[noel_x99]

Scottie, your top 10 are great! I love the meta tag thing. I can't BELIEVE how many of our customers think that's all there is to it! Put a few meta tags in and we're good to go!

I have a client that complains about spending a few hundred a month on PPC (with a very profitable return). I remind him that he could spend $750-$1000 on a print ad in an industry magazine that might not get him ANY return.

I've run into quite a few website owners that don't want to invest in their site. I try to remind them of costs in the offline world. They think nothing of spending hundreds on a new sign, thousands on a new employee, rent, etc. Yet they seem to think the website should be inexpensive or free to promote (or even operate) - like it's just easy money.

Carica - not all web designers feed them that crap...we work hard to educate our clients on SEO. Though I have to admit, we've run into a lot of designers that do not even understand the basics.

[praveen]

Carica - not all web designers feed them that crap...we work hard to educate our clients on SEO. Though I have to admit, we've run into a lot of designers that do not even understand the basics.

rightly said.

From what i have seen, most of the CEO's of companies, understand the importance of SEO but they are clueless as to how to go about it.

so they hire an individual(s) who promises them good rankings.

unfortunately because of the lack of knowledge and because he is a "specialist", they leave it all to him and he resorts to BH stuff.

and because most of these bosses are in their late 40's and 50's they dont "care (replace with a similar word here)" about spending sometime to learn about things related to internet as its "new" and common misconception is - what am i going to do learning all these new stuff..

all they want is send emails, word/excel and stuff related to their business.
period.

hence they are are completely unaware of what this whole internet marketing thing is about....