SEO Experts: 5 Questions To Ask To Spot Who’s Legit and Who’s Taking You For a Ride

Most people who call themselves an SEO Expert (or worse, guru) are lying. The rules of Search Engine Optimization change too quickly for anyone to be a true expert. That also makes it hard for small business owners to figure out who’s a real SEO expert, and who’s looking to take you for a ride.

Mike Kawula, founder of Self Employed King once hired an SEO company for $1500 a month, but after 6 months he didn’t see any boost in his site’s ranking in his Google Analytics, or in the reports that the company sent. He started to suspect that they hadn’t been doing any work at all. He changed the system password so they couldn’t log in, but the reports and bills kept coming. Mike says, “Their website looked great, and our scheduled calls sounded professional.” But as soon as he confronted them about the lack of work, they hung up on him and cut off all contact.

At least all Kawula lost was his money. Some shady SEO practices can get a website blacklisted by Google, damaging the company’s reputation and sales. Douglas Karr, the CEO of DK New Media has had to clean up after disreputable SEO companies. “Too many of our customers are stuck with bad backlinking schemes the SEO company used to drive ranking. Most of them were unaware of what was happening until we uncovered it. A single bad backlink can be responsible for your site not ranking well!”

So how do you find a reputable SEO expert who will help your small business instead of hurting it? Juan Vides, President of New York City SEO suggests researching potential SEO vendors just like you would a car or a house. “SEO can cost $5,000 to $10,000 a year. You could almost buy a car for that. You want to make sure this car’s not a lemon.”

Vides thinks that small business owners should, “contact three or four companies and see what you can learn from them. Some will be more informative than others.” SEO is complicated and ever-changing, but it’s not a secret and there are no proprietary tactics. Anyone who refuses to explain how they work either doesn’t really understand SEO, or they don’t want to be bothered educating their clients. Either way, they don’t deserve your business.

Questions to Ask A Potential SEO Expert

Lori Riviere, owner of the marketing and PR agency, It Marketing Concepts says that you should ask for examples of past success. “Any SEO who has seen some success should be able to put together a case study relatively quickly. Tell them that you want to see some proof, with at least Google Analytics snapshots.”

Riviere also suggests asking “how Penguin 2.0 changed the game for SEO.” Penguin 2.0 was a major change to Google’s search algorithms, and it completely changed the SEO game. You don’t need to understand the details of Penguin 2.0, but any SEO expert you hire should. Riviere says this question is, “meant to flush out sites that benefit from link spam tactics. They should be telling you that Penguin 2.0 is much more sophisticated and on the hunt for spammy tactics, black hat tricks, keyword and keyword stuffing. Now you have to focus on quality content and quality back-links.”

Quality content is something that anyone can recognize and appreciate. Shanna Kurpe, Partner at Grasp, a digital marketing and software development company, has seen, “so-called SEO experts promise to create and distribute content on your behalf, but later they publish ‘articles’ that are inaccurate, riddled with grammatical errors and difficult to read because every sentence includes ten keywords.” Although keyword-heavy gibberish may bring in some short-term traffic, Kurpe cautions, “what happens when a prospective client actually reads that garbage? Your professional image is much more important than a few extra inbound links.”  She recommends protecting your company’s brand image by insisting on approving any content before it’s distributed on behalf of your company. When an SEO Consultant names a few current clients, visit their sites to see if their content is high-quality.

Google announced an even more recent change, called Hummingbird, on September 29, 2013. It should take a few weeks for the SEO community to make sense of Hummingbird, so expect your SEO specialist to be aware of it, but be wary if they claim to fully understand it too soon.

Michael McDonald, an SEO Marketing Analyst at customized promotional products store, Promotions Now suggests asking how a a potential SEO vendor tracks the success of a campaign. “If the answers are just keyword rankings, then you have an SEO professional that does not see the complete picture. Keyword rankings are a means to an end…and that end is whatever goals a website owner has. Yes, rankings are important but that is just one piece of the puzzle.”

Shanna Kurpe, agrees that, “a real SEO expert will not just talk about the number of visitors to your website. You don’t want to just attract a bunch of visitors, you want to attract a specific type of visitor - one that actually wants to do business with you and has the money to spend.”

Ask about what reports the SEO consultant creates to track progress, and how often they will provide those reports.

Red Flags to Look Out For

If an SEO consultant promises that they can get your website on the first page of Google’s search results for a specific keyword, don’t believe them. “They don’t own Google,” Juan Vides says, so they can’t possibly deliver on those promises.

Douglas Karr warns, “If they are not asking questions about your business, how you measure success, and providing feedback on how you capture and measure that business or leads - RUN.”

Once you’ve met with a few prospective SEO consultants, you should have a better understanding of what SEO is, how it can help your business, and who you can trust with your company’s online reputation.

Your Google Analytics Guide to Data Collecting

Did you know that are currently more than 10 million websites linked up to Google Analytics? Google shared that figure in a recent report. While millions of sites have the software installed, there is currently no information available on whether site owners are using it effectively or at all. Sometimes, people are simply too pressed for time to bother or too intimidated by the interface to explore all the helpful data behind the curtain. But not to worry. There are a number of simple shortcuts and tips that can help you get to know Google Analytics in no time.

One important thing to remember: While there is a learning period - as with anything else - understanding how you can use Google Analytics for your business should be considered mission critical. You’re missing out on some valuable insights if you don’t use it, or a similar analytics program. The data you collect will help you measure your ROI, quantify the value of your marketing efforts, and help you set and achieve sales goals.

When it comes to SEO and social media marketing, tracking your ROI (return on investment) is critical. This is especially true if you are bringing in income from your site. If you’re just getting started with Google Analytics, it’s easy to feel intimidated by the data.

Optimize for Mobile

Having a website that is optimized for mobile is critically important. A recent report by Pew Internet reveals that 56% of adults in the US have smartphones and over one-third own tablets. You can use Google Analytics to help uncover data about how your site is performing for your mobile customers.

When you are viewing your dashboard:

• Click “Audience”
• Select “Mobile”
• Select “Devices”

This pulls up a chart which reveals some critical information about how mobile customers are using your site. You can track everything from:

• Total visits
• Bounce rate
• Engagement
• Which mobile device your audience used to access your site

If you are interested in seeing how mobile users are responding to your site, review two specific metrics:

Compare Your bounce Rate With the Bounce Rate for Mobile Users

Are the rates about the same, or are bounces from mobile users higher? If you notice that abandon rates are elevated among users on mobile devices, it may be time to look at your mobile strategy. Take the time to evaluate how your site looks on different smartphones and tablets. Share your findings with a professional web designer when you’re discussing how you can improve the site experience for mobile users.

Evaluate the Abandonment Rates by Specific Device Users

This will help provide some valuable insight into how your site is performing on certain smartphones and tablets. If bounce rates are higher for a specific device, it’s critical that you find a way to access one of those devices to take a look at your site. Chances are there’s probably an issue with how it’s rendering for those particular device users.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that Google has recently emphasized the importance of mobile optimization when it comes to their search engine rankings. So you’ll want to make sure your site renders well across different devices.

Examine User Behavior of Specific Segments

Everyone who visits your site matters to your business. But it’s essential that site owners pay attention to the value of certain customers. For example, maybe you’re running a PPC (pay per click) campaign for your business, and every click costs you money. It’s especially important to understand the effectiveness of your campaign and track those conversions.

In order to get down into the nitty-gritty of your site’s user behavior, you can use the Google Analytics advanced segmenting tool to track how your customers are accessing your site and whether they are taking the desired action.

It’s easy to start tracking this:

• Click “Audience”
• Select “Advanced Segments” (It should give you the option to select a number of different options.)
• Click “Paid Search Traffic”
• Click “Non-Paid Search Traffic”
• Click “Direct Traffic”
• Click “Referral Traffic”
• Click “Apply”

You can now view data for specific traffic metrics of site visitors. This allows you to check on things like your PPC abandonment rates and modify your campaigns to help meet your sales goals. Or if you notice that you are getting high volumes of referral traffic, consider writing a few targeted guest posts to help attract more potential customers. Take the time to do a deeper dive into Advanced Segmentation.

You can also check out important areas across your site such as:

Ecommerce Statistics

Are you selling things on your website? If so, this is worth a look. It can provide you with better knowledge of who your customers are.

Set Goals

You also have the option of creating goals funnels within GA. Goals funnels let you track how your site visitors are converting. For example, whether they are signing up for your newsletter or downloading your white papers.

Sources of Traffic

How are mobile users behaving on your site? Compare this to desktop users. Use this information to help plan your mobile strategy moving forward.

Don’t just stop with the basic statistics if you want to truly understand visitor behavior. A more in-depth look will help you tailor your site to meet the needs of different users.

Create Stronger CTAs through In-Page Analytics

Compelling calls to action help improve your sales conversions. And it isn’t just your copy you need to be paying attention to; it’s your site design as well. If you are hoping to improve your calls to action, why not try some A/B testing?

Simply put, you create two styles of a page with a small difference. Maybe it’s a button with a specific call to action, and you design one in blue and one in red. Test them out to determine which version improves your sales conversions. Split testing is highly effective, but can also be time consuming.

GA’s In-Page Analytics feature lets you see which landing pages are converting best. It tracks click percentages on different pages. You can also use it to see how close you are to meeting specific site goals. The report is both rich in data and highly visual. Site owners can use this feature to answer key questions such as:

• Are visitors responding to your CTAs?
• Does your site design drive traffic to key content?
• What do visitors click on when they check out your site?
• Does your site have a distraction - maybe a pop-up or live chat feature - that’s getting in the way of important content?
• Which menu items are most frequently clicked by visitors?

The In-Page Analytics feature also lets you understand what’s “above the fold.” Popular in the newspaper industry, this references what your visitors are seeing when they land on your site. Are you using this area to showcase your most important content? To find out, click on “Browser Size” in the middle menu bar while using the In-Page feature.

Google Analytics is an important tool for any site owner. It sheds light on critical data that you can use to optimize your site for different devices, improve your sales conversions, and meet your business goals. So don’t be intimidated by the interface. Dive in and learn how to use this important tool - you’ll be glad you did.

Do you have any helpful tips?

Guide Book Photo via Shutterstock

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SEO Experts: 5 Questions To Ask To Spot Who’s Legit and Who’s Taking You For a Ride

Most people who call themselves an SEO Expert (or worse, guru) are lying. The rules of Search Engine Optimization change too quickly for anyone to be a true expert. That also makes it hard for small business owners to figure out who’s a real SEO expert, and who’s looking to take you for a ride.

Mike Kawula, founder of Self Employed King once hired an SEO company for $1500 a month, but after 6 months he didn’t see any boost in his site’s ranking in his Google Analytics, or in the reports that the company sent. He started to suspect that they hadn’t been doing any work at all. He changed the system password so they couldn’t log in, but the reports and bills kept coming. Mike says, “Their website looked great, and our scheduled calls sounded professional.” But as soon as he confronted them about the lack of work, they hung up on him and cut off all contact.

At least all Kawula lost was his money. Some shady SEO practices can get a website blacklisted by Google, damaging the company’s reputation and sales. Douglas Karr, the CEO of DK New Media has had to clean up after disreputable SEO companies. “Too many of our customers are stuck with bad backlinking schemes the SEO company used to drive ranking. Most of them were unaware of what was happening until we uncovered it. A single bad backlink can be responsible for your site not ranking well!”

So how do you find a reputable SEO expert who will help your small business instead of hurting it? Juan Vides, President of New York City SEO suggests researching potential SEO vendors just like you would a car or a house. “SEO can cost $5,000 to $10,000 a year. You could almost buy a car for that. You want to make sure this car’s not a lemon.”

Vides thinks that small business owners should, “contact three or four companies and see what you can learn from them. Some will be more informative than others.” SEO is complicated and ever-changing, but it’s not a secret and there are no proprietary tactics. Anyone who refuses to explain how they work either doesn’t really understand SEO, or they don’t want to be bothered educating their clients. Either way, they don’t deserve your business.

Questions to Ask A Potential SEO Expert

Lori Riviere, owner of the marketing and PR agency, It Marketing Concepts says that you should ask for examples of past success. “Any SEO who has seen some success should be able to put together a case study relatively quickly. Tell them that you want to see some proof, with at least Google Analytics snapshots.”

Riviere also suggests asking “how Penguin 2.0 changed the game for SEO.” Penguin 2.0 was a major change to Google’s search algorithms, and it completely changed the SEO game. You don’t need to understand the details of Penguin 2.0, but any SEO expert you hire should. Riviere says this question is, “meant to flush out sites that benefit from link spam tactics. They should be telling you that Penguin 2.0 is much more sophisticated and on the hunt for spammy tactics, black hat tricks, keyword and keyword stuffing. Now you have to focus on quality content and quality back-links.”

Quality content is something that anyone can recognize and appreciate. Shanna Kurpe, Partner at Grasp, a digital marketing and software development company, has seen, “so-called SEO experts promise to create and distribute content on your behalf, but later they publish ‘articles’ that are inaccurate, riddled with grammatical errors and difficult to read because every sentence includes ten keywords.” Although keyword-heavy gibberish may bring in some short-term traffic, Kurpe cautions, “what happens when a prospective client actually reads that garbage? Your professional image is much more important than a few extra inbound links.”  She recommends protecting your company’s brand image by insisting on approving any content before it’s distributed on behalf of your company. When an SEO Consultant names a few current clients, visit their sites to see if their content is high-quality.

Google announced an even more recent change, called Hummingbird, on September 29, 2013. It should take a few weeks for the SEO community to make sense of Hummingbird, so expect your SEO specialist to be aware of it, but be wary if they claim to fully understand it too soon.

Michael McDonald, an SEO Marketing Analyst at customized promotional products store, Promotions Now suggests asking how a a potential SEO vendor tracks the success of a campaign. “If the answers are just keyword rankings, then you have an SEO professional that does not see the complete picture. Keyword rankings are a means to an end…and that end is whatever goals a website owner has. Yes, rankings are important but that is just one piece of the puzzle.”

Shanna Kurpe, agrees that, “a real SEO expert will not just talk about the number of visitors to your website. You don’t want to just attract a bunch of visitors, you want to attract a specific type of visitor - one that actually wants to do business with you and has the money to spend.”

Ask about what reports the SEO consultant creates to track progress, and how often they will provide those reports.

Red Flags to Look Out For

If an SEO consultant promises that they can get your website on the first page of Google’s search results for a specific keyword, don’t believe them. “They don’t own Google,” Juan Vides says, so they can’t possibly deliver on those promises.

Douglas Karr warns, “If they are not asking questions about your business, how you measure success, and providing feedback on how you capture and measure that business or leads - RUN.”

Once you’ve met with a few prospective SEO consultants, you should have a better understanding of what SEO is, how it can help your business, and who you can trust with your company’s online reputation.

New Etsy Policy on Mass Produced Goods: “Be Honest”

From now on, Etsy merchants using more than one crafts person to create a product or using manufacturing in their process will have just one Etsy policy to follow: be honest.

The policy change is an attempt to address gray areas some users say have allowed “resellers” to market essentially mass produced materials on the handmade goods site.

Up until now, three kinds of items have been allowed on Etsy: Vintage items 20 years or older, craft supplies and handmade items.

But changes to Etsy’s policy in the handmade category in 2011 allowed use of third party vendors to complete some tasks. The changes also allowed multiple craftspeople to collaborate on products in collective shops.

Critics say the policies were vague enough to allow outsourcing of production and the emergence of merchants that were essentially resellers of mass produced items on Etsy. And some users began strongly protesting in forums and with a mass shut down of Etsy shops in spring 2012.

New Etsy Policy Change Addresses Outside Manufacturing

But a new policy recently introduced addresses both issues and is more specific about what constitutes an item appropriate for Etsy listing.

The “New Guidelines for Etsy Shops” specify that such collaboration must be transparent:

Hire help if you need it or collaborate, even from different locations. Everyone who helps you make handmade items should be listed on your shop’s About page.

The guidelines further explain:

Sellers create their handmade items in many different ways. Partnering with an outside business is okay, but we’ll require you to be honest about how your items are made.

Etsy will also require an “Outside Manufacturing Form” to be filled out before such items can be listed on Etsy.

New Outside Manufacturing Review Process

Etsy’s “integrity team” will review all submissions and ask each applicant questions about their business and about the outside manufacturers with whom they are working.

The company wants to be sure the merchant is the creator, designer and maker of each item listed even if some outside manufacturing has been done.

But it’s clear under the new guidelines that merchants who simply sell items mass produced by others do not fit the criteria.

Do you think Etsy’s new guidelines will solve the controversy over reselling in the handmade goods community?

Meanwhile check out some other places for selling handmade goods including 20 more places to sell handmade crafts.

Handmade Pottery Photo via Shutterstock

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