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
-
Best way to manage multiple Google My Business accounts as a marketing agency?
As marketing agency we have for each client a Google My Business account. This means that we have more than 100 Google My Business accounts. We know that GA has a limit of 100 analytics accounts (free version), but is there a limit in Google My Business too? For now, we have created multiple accounts that own different Google My Business accounts of our clients. Can I just change all the different e-mail accounts of our marketing agency and change it to one? So we can manage all the Google My Business accounts of our clients in one e-mail account?
Image & Video Optimization | | conversal0 -
Local SEO Best Practice
Hi We currently have 6 showrooms in a geographical area (Scotland,UK) and each showroom covers a specific region within the country encompassing towns and cities. So for example showroom A based in Edinburgh covers a customer area of Edinburgh, Fife, St Andrews while showroom B located in Glasgow covers Glasgow, Livingston etc In google places I have drawn the geographical area on the map that each showroom covers making sure that they do not overlap At present some of which are ranking well in local but one is stating that 'google does not support this location' and after following previous advice on the forum this is still the case. Would I be better setting up another google account for this showroom and submit it again into Google Places or would it be better going into Google+ business pages? or are they the same thing? Finally is it worth using the following in Google Places? KML File and Geo Sitemap generation (these files are needed for Google) Address output in Schema.org format
Image & Video Optimization | | ocelot0 -
Local SEO, how much additional information to fill out beyond NAP
Hello, When filling out citations, do you flush out each site with extra profile information like picture, categories, service area, etc or do you just fill out NAP and website link and move on? I'm concerned about the time factor but I want to do good SEO that lasts into the future. What do you skip and what do you add?
Image & Video Optimization | | BobGW0 -
How To Do SEO For Google Local Listing?
Hi, I have been reading around but i still don't understand how we can rank better for local search listing from Google place. I have tried: Adding keywords to descriptions
Image & Video Optimization | | chanel27
Adding the max of 10 photos And also get my customers to comment on my Google place listing leaving testimonials. Is there any tips? 🙂0 -
What's the best way to host video for SEO purposes?
Hello SEOmoz folks, I'm curious as to whether it will be more beneficial for a website to host a video on the site itself or to host it on YouTube and then embed the code on your site. The options so far, as it seems, are: 1.) Host the video on YouTube or Vimeo or wherever else, then embed the YouTube code into your own website's HTML. 2.) Host the video on your own website by itself. 3.) Host the video on your own website AND YouTube AND Vimeo. I'm wondering which option is best. And if hosting your video on your own website is a good way to go, whether to go that route solely or in addition to hosting on YouTube, what is the best way to go about that? Do I have to embed a player AND the video info into the HTML of my website? What player is best for this? Flash, or something else? And once I get the video on my site one way or the other, how do I write the code to make sure the video thumbnail shows up next to my search results in Google to maximize the SEO potential for the video clip? Sorry for the long question, but I've been searching everywhere for this and I'd love just a direct answer on it. Thanks for your help! Cheers, Dani
Image & Video Optimization | | MountainMedia0 -
Isn't video content killer-link bait?
I have not tested this yet and but I cant find anything useful on it searching online. My theory is that if you host a video on one of your own webpages and have the embed code of that video right under it then isnt everyone that grabs that embed code and sticks it on their site/blog giving you a backlink? When you click on an embed YouTube video it takes you straight to YT so surely someone embeds one of your videos that is hosted on your site it must give you a backlink? If this is the case then what would the ancor text be if any? and how would you change it? What's the value of this think over a pure text link from the same page? If this the above is correct then surely video is an incredible link building tool? The challenge still lies with making cost effective, quality video content but if you can get the hang of that then your on to a winner right? YouTube may get millions of hits and 'be the second biggest search engine' but having own branded, self hosted, killer-link-bait videos on your site must be the way forward? Adding a video site map will help tell Google the video is there and it should get indexed in video searches. Also if it gets visibility in universal search you get visitors coming straight to you site....
Image & Video Optimization | | grahammilton10 -
Does Local SEO affect international ranking ability?
I'm 90% sure that local SEO doesn't have an affect on international rankings (it doesn't logically make sense that it would) but I wondered if someone could verify that assertion for me, either from experience or by pointing me in the direction of a resource/article that states it. Have searched high and low but can't find anything thanks j
Image & Video Optimization | | jamesjackson0 -
Local SEO: What is the largest Google Places bulk upload you have ever done?
Hi All, One of my clients recently requested my team at our agency to do a bulk up load of business locations. We did the bulk upload and it came to around 652 or so locations in the form. I have done some serious bulk uploads in the past around 500 locations but never this high. My question is to SEO moz what is the largest bulk upload or single upload you have done on Google Places?
Image & Video Optimization | | JamesNorquay0