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Black hat SEO and directories.
One of the things we are constantly asked about by our customers is "Such-and-such company has been in touch with me saying they can do a better job of optimising my website. Are they telling me the truth." The main problem is that for the layman; the reports which are often produced to demonstrate how much better a website you can have are fairly convincing. The trouble is, that with a little knowledge, you will see that they aren't thinking properly.
| “White hat” search engine optimizers often improve the usability of a site, help create great content, or make sites faster, which is good for both users and search engines. Good search engine optimization can also mean good marketing: thinking about creative ways to make a site more compelling, which can help with search engines as well as social media. The net result of making a great site is often greater awareness of that site on the web, which can translate into more people linking to or visiting a site." - Google Official Advice |
Common points:
"They say our website doesn't have meta tags!" - And yes, we don't use keyword meta tags because they are a waste of time. Google officially announced that they ignore keyword meta tags back in 2008, although most people recognised that Google weren't paying any attention to keyword meta tags for years before. As soon as anyone brings this issue up you can be fairly sure that you are being conned.
"You could score everywhere with some micro/doorway/gateway websites."- Essentially you are being offered a number of small website which are individually tuned to different towns. The problem with these is that, not only do they not work, but they are specifically listed by Google as being something they are highly suspicious of.
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2721311&topic=2371375&ctx=topic
"Your website isn't optimised for printing." - This one floors us. Whether you want your website suitable for printing or not, it is not something that would affect your search positioning.
There are other issues that our customers have found should they choose to go with large scale companies offering the world, especially directories.
- Poor design. Many of the websites that you will end up with are mass produced. They may even score on the search engines, but any potential customer who finds them is given little or no incentive to actually call you.
- Poor copy. This is another consequence of mass production. The text is "Industry specific", whereas we work very hard to tailor the text on your website to you, your company, your specific services and the location where you work.
- Poor service. No company can expect to please all of their customers. But many of the companies that cold call our customers seem to have an awful lot of complaints about their service, not to mention being charged a small fortune for such terrible service.
As an example, Yell.com contacted one of our customers with a report produced by Silktide. While the report is a useful indicator for web designers to make sure they have paid attention to the details, it didn't actually measure the performance of the website. Based on the customer's business and location we took three random Yell websites and compared them, both on search engine positioning and 'usability', none of the Yell built websites scored any better than our customers' site. The website that Yell themselves used as an example of what they can offer was startling, while it did score for a few local terms, the website itself was making no attempt to actually sell the services of the advertised company to any visitors.
Essentially, the difference between us and a large directory like Yell, is that we build you a website that is for you, and it isn't a close facsimile of someone else's website. The principle point of contact for all of our customers have is someone who really does care about them and who understands what it takes to be successful online, rather than someone being paid commission. |
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