I talk to a lot of business owners and other decision makers and one of the most common complaint about other SEO Companies in Dallas is that they are unprofessional in very important ways.
For example, an email and phone call are sent out to ask some simple questions and they don’t hear back from their consultant for weeks…months at a time! Ouch. I don’t disappear.
I elaborate on the above SEO scenario and others in the video below:
Here’s a screenshot of some important points where professionalism in Search Engine Optimization matters most.
Approximate Transcript of Video:
Hi, David Hood here, the Dallas SEO Geek, and this video is about professionalism in SEO. This is something I get a lot of complaints about, so I want those of you out there who have SEO consultants or companies that just don’t seem to have it together, know that there are some that do. I’m not saying I’m the only one, but there are some companies that definitely do. I’ve heard people disappearing just completely, or taking a week or two weeks to return a communication on a question that the client thought was important. That just generally shouldn’t happen. That doesn’t mean that my clients can call me at 2:00 in the morning on my cell phone. No, that’s not the same thing, but to be able to get ahold of me and to be able to hear back from me reasonably consistent, within one or two business days, is a reasonable expectation, unless otherwise communicated in extreme circumstances. We’ll talk a little bit more about that.
I want to mention the conditions creating this. First of all, there’s really no educational university that gives you a degree. Full sale kind of does it, that’s why I put it here, but I don’t even really think that counts. I’m willing to bet that this advanced SEO does not really go very deep at all, and that it’s very expensive. There’s no official degree. I did have someone call me and say, “No, I’ve got a degree in it.” Why are you calling me? Also, okay, you got a degree in it. If you just sat on that degree for two years, a lot of the stuff in there might be invalid, depending on exactly how the degree was made, and that’s assuming the degree was actually good, which I’m questioning the ability of a traditional university to be able to teach really SEO that enables people to dominate it and crush it, and really get really great results, because the value of a number one worth ten to a hundred, to a thousand times more than being even at bottom of [first page 00:02:11] sometimes.
I like to think I’m professional in the ways that matter. I might not have the shiniest shoes or the freshest pressed shirt. Technically, people might think that’s professional, I really don’t think that matters. I don’t think that affects your results at all. Here are the ways in which I think it matters. Communication, consistent communication, if you email me, usually within one to two business, almost without fail, you’ll get a response, even if the response is, “Let me do some more research and get back to you,” you’ll get an acknowledgement of the communication received, and that I’m working on it, or I’ll just answer the question, or take care of whatever it is that needs to be taken care of.
This goes both ways a little bit, and I mentioned this down here, getting responded to back is helpful as well for me to be able to do my job for you. If you’re really bad about responding to email and a lot of times it doesn’t go through, then we might not be the best fit because it’s going to really hurt your project. You need to figure that out before you hire someone for SEO because you’re going to be one of the weak links in the project. I don’t want to be that weak link, in terms of, you have questions or something. It’s important that I be able to be available, not 24/7, not on a moment’s notice, but generally within a reasonable business timeline.
Discipline, this is really important, and this is something that I think a lot of people struggle with. It would call it actually more like disciplined service, doing what needs to be done for the client regularly. Okay, this is tough to do because it’s not necessarily the same things every time, because you do some stuff, you see … responds. One thing that I do to make sure this stays on track is automatic monthly reports. You get that at a minimum. Early on on a project, there’s a little bit more communication, but beyond that, even if you do nothing or say nothing, the whole time you’re paying you’ll get at least a monthly report. You at least have an update on the main metrics that we’re using to track.
That’s one thing that is real important, but not just the reporting because you can’t just report and get the SEO done. You actually have to do the SEO, and that’s something that, I think, a lot of people struggle with. This last part is absolutely critical, technical master growth. I’m a SEO consultant. I study SEO all the time, every day. I’m always taking training, I’m always making testing, and I’m always trying to get better. There’s basically an infinite amount of room for growth. Even some of that people consider the best in the world, they still have room for improvement. If someone doesn’t think they have room for improvement, then they probably don’t know a whole lot or probably don’t see any further paths to make themselves better.
I have seen some people who have been doing SEO for years and years, and they’re still doing the same, really low-quality, really canned stuff that you see everywhere else, that doesn’t really help. It maybe helps in very specific circumstances, or for very low-competition, or if the company has a big budget to spend on this other stuff that isn’t really search engine optimization, maybe on content management, then it might not be needed. This is a huge part of my job, is getting better, studying more, adjusting to … Sometimes there is a change in the environment of the search engine, and I need to be on top of that, and I need to be updating that for all my clients, and if the projects need to go in a different direction, or at least have a different path or branch of the project, then I need to be looking for that at all times for my clients.
Okay, this is super important. I don’t think the core fundamentals of SEO are changing as fast as people are thinking. It’s not going to be completely different two years from now. The core of Google’s algorithm, most of the major pieces are the same. There are a few things that they didn’t do twenty years ago that they do now, but generally speaking, this is the core of what they came up with twenty years ago, is still similar. The way in which they evaluate those core pieces are different, and so constantly growing is important. This is consistent efficiency both ways. This has to do with, again, you, professionalism for the client, as well. Be professional in your communications. Don’t waste either one of our times.
This makes for a much, much more efficient project. If I’m having to follow-up with questions that I asked before but weren’t answered repeatedly, it just puts a halt to the project, and it can’t move forward. It slows things down significantly. It’s not a lot of work being professional in these ways, maybe these are work, but for the client, it shouldn’t be a lot of work. Be consistent, and be communicative. Let me know if you have any questions. If you’re looking for an SEO consultant or company that actually is professional in the way that matters, go to my website and submit a discovery form, and we’ll go from there. You’ll get a free analysis. Thanks for watching, and have a great day. Bye.
More about the Dallas SEO Geek:
