Doing SEO for multiple clients, who should make the content?
-
I realize that since content marketing is (or can be) a part of SEO, then it would logically follow that it's up to whoever is doing the SEO to create the content*. And when it's 1 person or a small group of people that work for 1 company, doing its SEO, that makes perfect sense. But I'm having a little trouble wrapping my mind around how that's supposed to scale up for an outside agency responsible for the SEO of 5 or 10 or 50 other companies.
One of the biggest factors in my misunderstanding of the system is the reasoning for creating content in the first place. I absolutely understand how a professional in some field (let's say dentistry for example) could write up some insightful, accurate blog post about why flossing is great. After all, a dentist does (or should, hopefully) have a level of expertise on the subject that most people don't have. That blog post is a tangible addition of value to the website for anyone curious about the subject.
But why would anyone want to read a blog post about wisdom teeth written by just some random person at a marketing company? If that person has the time to do a lot of research and BECOME something of an authority on the subject of dental care, then that's fine. But what if they also need to create content for clients that do plumbing, car repairs, and cooking? I don't really see how someone can become enough of an expert on enough subjects and still have any time to do the other parts of their job. Maybe I'm just expecting too much, but I sort of feel that the internet is already full enough of advice and information from people that have no idea what they're talking about, so content from someone that's not an expert (but is a marketing person that the expert hired) seems... frivolous to me.
So to get back to the actual question, should/can an SEO ask their clients to create at least some of their own content, or is it the SEO's responsibility to generate all the content, even if it's not always stellar? Or is it just one of those "Could God make a rock so big that he couldn't lift it? Yes, he could, and then he would lift it" (or however that saying went) sorts of deals?
Thanks for the feedback, this can all be kind of overwhelming for me at times.
*"Creating content" in this specific case meaning writing blog posts, making videos, etc.
-
Yes, the best content is usually generated by someone who knows what they are writing about. However, most clients do not have time to generate content. So I try to get the client to do an interview, write out bullet points, write notes or anything that a good copywriter could take and spin into an informative article. If the content is generated by the client and they are a good writer, that would be ideal but rarely happens.
-
Hey Brian,
If you tear everything away what are you left with? A company that would like to rank better and a search engine that wants people to do the right thing and naturally build their online business. Therefore, who is the best person to write content for Blogs and other backlinks? The Client.
The simply reality is they almost never have the time to. This is where your skills as an SEO really get tested. Work out which backlinks require an experts response. Directories you can do yourself. Feed a constant stream of blogs (already posted on the Web) for the client to comment, if their time poor, get them to voice record an answer (most OS have a voice recorder). Writting blogs... If you have to write a blog for your client, I can tell already, your looking to post it on the wrong site. FACT. Any site willing to publish an article by someone completely outside their skill set, is the wrong site.
I think about it this way, you should always aim to get more value out of the interest of an article or blog post via natural traffic than the value of the backlink itself. If it's the other way round, generally it's not worth it.
Dan
-
I agree with you, I agree with you, I AGREE WITH YOU!
But why would anyone want to read a blog post about wisdom teeth written by just some random person at a marketing company?
Yep! It is probably BS, bad advice and the language this person uses will sound like a noob to anybody who knows much about dentistry.
Dentists (and other professionals) hire SEOs because they want the rankings and either don't know how to do the work and they don't have time. Maybe it's cheaper to hire an SEO than it is to do it themselves so they can be down at the pub while the SEO's contractor is writing this crap.
I sort of feel that the internet is already full enough of advice and information from people that have no idea what they're talking about.
Man has seen the Stone Age and the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Now we are in the Age of Bullshit Content.
I don't have the answer for you but I have a couple of stories that you might enjoy.
One guy writes and wants to send me an article for my website about a technical subject. I write back and say... "tell me your qualifications". He writes back and gives me the name of the guy who will write the article (his story changed) and I Google him. He is a professional in the field so I say, "I'll consider the article." I get the article and could tell it was written by a noob in the first sentence. Joe Pro did not write it. Some noob wrote it.
A different day I was using google image search and find one of my images on an law firm blog. They hired an SEO company to blog on a different domain and point links at their site. Those rats were using stolen images in their articles.
I don't do SEO for other people any more but if I did I would try to sell them on the idea of building a fantastic website with expert content. That is such a great thing in many ways. It demonstrates their expertise, it shows that they are generous and it is a great way to promote their website.
So few people are willing to do this that it is often easy to really stand out in your business niche.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Are reusing videos considered duplicate content?
If we have a "why hire us" video, and we place it on multiple landing pages will that be considered duplicate content? All the texts and images are different, it would just be the video. Thanks, Ruben
Image & Video Optimization | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Schema for a local business with multiple locations
Hello I am trying to add schema to a website that has several locations. Is the best way to do this is by tagging the home page of the website as the business main location and then create a page for each location and then mark them up accordingly? Thank you for your help.
Image & Video Optimization | | edwardfrebow0 -
How do you manage phone verification when claiming listings on behalf of clients (local and remote)?
As the top competitive difference maker, Quality/Authority of Structured Citations is pretty important. That being said, I spend a good deal of time manually running around to different citation websites and jumping through their hoops to get my clients' websites listed properly. I've been using getlisted.org to check my sites, and a lot of the citation sources out there require phone verification. Now I was wondering how you professionally manage the phone verification step for your own clients. I've found it a bit difficult getting my clients to reliably get the PIN numbers for me. I've even had problems with clients checking the mail for the post cards that get sent! At this point in time, I try to schedule a time (not during business hours preferably) to go into the location and answer the phone to get everything verified in one shot. For remote clients however, I just have to hope that they are on board with answering their phones and getting the PIN numbers back to me. Lastly, how do you manage to reduce the amount of sales calls that your client receives from these listing sites? I currently register accounts under a separate email address, for example, webmaster@domain.com. This cuts down on the email marketing spam, and it obviously helps me stay in control of the listings. How do you handle the phone calls though? Especially from some of the more aggressive companies like Yelp? Personally I've just been 'briefing' my clients on how to respond to these sales calls, and I've educated them on the importance of these listings so they aren't too annoyed with the assault of sales reps calling their business constantly. Are there any magic words that my clients can use with these sales reps to make them stop calling? Sorry for the long post, if you've made it this far thank you for reading!
Image & Video Optimization | | IronSummitMedia0 -
Local SEO: Links with the citations so should I slow down?
Hello, There seems to be some nofollow and dofollow links building as I add structured citations. Is this a reason to slow down the building citation process if you want the links to count? Do they help organic SEO?
Image & Video Optimization | | BobGW0 -
For Local SEO on a business with many locations, should the city be included in the business name?
For a franchised business with ~50 locations spread across the US, should the city be included in the business name when building citations? Fictional example: We have a staffing franchise called 'Hamilton Staffing'. They have 50 locations in the US. They are all called 'Hamilton Staffing'. We need to finalize the correct NAP information so we are consistent in building citations. For the name, should we just use 'Hamilton Staffing' for all of them? Or should we use 'Hamilton Staffing - Chicago' and the like for other locations? It looks like InfoUSA and Axciom are just using 'Hamilton Staffing', whereas Google is using 'Hamilton Staffing Chicago' and the like. Thoughts on this?
Image & Video Optimization | | brianspatterson0 -
How should I list my client in Google+?
My client is a personal injury lawyer with one office in a highly competitive major metropolitan area and another office in a very small town. They are changing offices in the major metropolitan area in June and will have a new address. They are already doing well in serps related to the small town but are nowhere to be found in the metropolitan area serps. Currently I can find unclaimed listings in Google+ Local for both offices. I cannot find any Google+ business page and they don't know of one. Given this information and the current state of Google+ how would you proceed to list this client? Specific questions include: *Would there be any straight SEO benefit of making a Google+ Business Page for them? *Would you claim the Google+ Local listing for the Metro office that is going to be moved in 5 months? or would you wait until the office is moved then create a new Google+ Local listing?
Image & Video Optimization | | JesseCWalker0 -
Can this make one's local listing vanish from Google local search?
Hi All, Does anyone know if selecting "Yes, this business serves customers at their locations" under "service areas and location settings" in Google Places can cause a business's listing to disappear from Google local search? My interior designer client has a bricks-and-mortar location, was ranking at about #20 for "interior designer" in Portland, and now has dropped from local search. I had "No, all customers come to the business location" selected previously. In the past week, before the vanishing, I made these changes: 1. changed the service area to "Yes, this business serves customers at their locations", 2. removed "Portland" from the description in Google Places, and 3. submitted maybe two dozen directory listings to high DA sites (using Whitespark as the tool for determining where to post). Thanks everyone! Zack
Image & Video Optimization | | HammerandHand0 -
Will putting images in a light box or photo gallery affect my image SEO?
A website that is very image heavy and would like to enhance the user experience with a photo gallery. How will this affect the indexing of these photos? Can I still add alt. tags and title tags to these images?
Image & Video Optimization | | Unidev0