How do you deal with lack of understanding about SEO?
-
Since I subcontract out to web design people or work doing SEO for small businesses, I am wondering how others (and if others) deal with non-compliance with good SEO practices.
For instance, I had a web designer change a few of the terms for a website because the client wanted another term they thought was better instead of sticking to the SEO they contracted for and she diluted the site architecture in the process.
A former small business client called for some changes and I discovered she had made some changes she "thought were good terms."
Do you encounter such issues, and if so, how do you deal with them--or do you just oblige the request?
Also, I've been getting requests to do "partial" seo instead of entire sites. Is that ever a good idea and if so, how would you handle it? If not, how do you successfully dissuade a client from doing so? (Both small biz and web design peeps)
-
Hi There,
I decided a long time ago that the best way to handle the issue of the client deciding they want things changed is to allow them to decide for themselves that it may not be such a good idea. I have found a very effective way of achieving this.
As soon as we receive a request or instruction from the client that we believe to be detrimental to the SEO for the site, we immediately forward to them a Disclaimer and Acknowledgement Form. The form is accompanied by a request for them to sign and return it so that the requested changes can be completed. Similar to Ninjamarketer's disclaimer, the most important part is that the form carries the words "hereby acknowledge and accept" and requires a signature.
We make no attempt to dissuade the client - just forward the form and require it to be executed and returned before the work can proceed.
It generally takes 5- 10 minutes for the client to call me once the form has been sent and in every case to date, they have decided before I answered the call, that they may not want to make the changes after all
It is at this point that I am able to talk it through with them and do a little gentle SEO "Training" which they are very receptive to. It works for me
As to partial SEO - we offer on-page services on a per-page basis (minimum 3 pages), but for any project of more than 5 pages, our quotation includes site wide audit, structural review and recommendations for further work. We also provide on-page work via direct access OR as a detailed report which can be handed to the existing developer for action. For clients with limited budgets, this can be helpful as they can attack the work in manageable chunks. We conduct the site assessment and advise them which pages are highest priority for action.
It is nice when you have a client coming back to you for more work because they have seen marked improvement from the original project and want some more of that action
Hope that helps,
Sha
-
Introduce them to SEOmoz.
-
@Ryan "hearding cats" is a good way to describe it!
@NinjaMarketer Thanks for sharing your clauses and I like the idea about the partial module.
@MagicCrob Thanks, the problem is that when I subcontract to the web design specialists, not all seem to clear the changes with the seo but instead want to make the client happy but often tothe determent to their investment and online success.
@Todd I am not one to "oblige the request" but I have one particular client that I do a lot of work for who does and it goes back to the suggestion about communcation. I believe the designer does not really understand seo. As for the partial SEO,I was referring to on page optimization and site structure.
Thanks to all of you for responding, each of your answers actually hit on different issues that I've encountered and I appreciate the insights and suggestions!
-
Just to cover part: Never simply "oblige the request". That's bad for everyone. I always let a client tell me what they THIINK they need to rank for and how. Then we explain with data why that should or should not be part of the strategy.
We have clients that make recommendations for changes they want and they understand that if we say "it's because of SEO". They will back off and let us maintain the process.
Partial SEO would be, a home page optimization? That's fine as long as long as you verify and understand the scope of the rest of the site. Nothing wrong with "doing a little work" on your highest possible ranking piece of real estate. In the end, it's all in the reporting and measurement. You just have to be able to communicate whhat you are actually going to deliver.
Hope this helps a bit.
-
I've had experience of this. It's good to make clear to the client that you've been hired for a specific purpose and that you can't perform your contracted job properly if a third party won't comply with your instructions.
It's in the client's (and designer's) interest to listen to you. Your reputation depends on your advice or consultation proving successful and if they're aware of that it should help you.
If you have a particularly awkward client who is keen on some useless keywords then it's kind of your job to tell them so (but in the nicest possible way). Compromising and giving them half of what they want, coupled with your own input, can help them move away from their own ideas when they eventually realise that your advice is paying off more than their own thoughts.
Partial SEO can be worthwhile. If by this you mean just on-site SEO then it can go some way, but if there are few valuable links then it's not going to stick around at the top of the SERPs for too long. If it's just on part of the website then it might be worth doing so long as the client is aware that further work should be undertaken later on to make the most of the opportunity.
-
I include the following clause in a legally binding contract for both web design and seo to make sure the client understands and agrees to it. (Please contact your legal advisor/ attorney for the exact clause. I am not a legal advisor and the suggestions presented here are for information purpose only)
--- SEO company is not responsible for changes made to the website by other parties that adversely affect the search engine rankings of the Client’s website.
--- SEO company is not responsible for the Client overwriting SEO work on the Client’s site or requesting webmaster / designer or developer to make changes to the Client's site.
As far as partial SEO goes, you may include another clause in your contract that clarifies that the client will not be able to get any significant results from a partial or selective SEO.
However, you could enhance your portfolio by adding a partial SEO module and offer this as value add with design at no cost. You can use this to sell the benefits of complete SEO and additional services such as link building.
Best
Sameer
-
Your question touches on a constant challenge in the SEO world that has been around as long as Marketing. In all business environments we must acknowledge the need for the following:
Communication
First, when working with an organization to assist with SEO, it is critical that all parties are aware of the the need to run any changes to site content through the SEO team. Otherwise, trying to implement a well thought out plan is like herding cats.
Prioritization
Typically, engineering resources and low when compared to engineering requests which leads to a backlog of tasks. This, in turn, leads to prioritization. Engineers have to look at requests and decide what is most impactful for the business. Those requests get done first.
In order for us to get our SEO requests to the top of the queue (or to have them supercede other competing requests) we have to make strong business cases. In the case of changes being made to a site that conflict with our recommendation, we have to first be aware the change is taking place (see Communication). Secondly, we have to make a stronger case for keeping the terms aligned with SEO best practices. However, if changing the terms will increase customer conversions by 10% and only result in a small loss of organic traffic then changing the terms wins.
Give and Take
In the 'real world' my experience has been that maintaining SEO best practices all the time is nearly impossible. Our job is to help companies add as much SEO love as possible through education, encouragement, and maybe a little donut buying. Seriously, Marketing is a give-and-take world. Don't feel like anything below 100% SEO best practices isn't good enough.
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
-
Will having two wordpress themes installed hurt seo?
We currently have 3 sites built on WordPress that have little to no blogging capabilities. Currently, all published posts show up on a /category page which does not resemble the traditional blog format and is not aesthetically pleasing. We would like to have a more traditional blog and are considering installing a second wordpress theme on the site which will strictly be used for /blog and all the posts. My question is will having the second WordPress installation on the sites hurt us in any way on the SEO front and if we go this way should we place the install in a subfolder or on a subdomain? Is there anything else we need to worry about with making this transition? Thank you in advance for the advice! Patrick
Web Design | | PlanetDISH0 -
Wow, does a website's hosting company have that much affect on SEO?
As a small SEO agency, we also handle hosting for some of our clients. Our clients' sites are Wordpress. We set them up with a Bluehost account with a dedicated IP address, and spend a lot of time focusing on load times (implementing a CDN, optimizing images, installing W3 Total cache and using recommended settings, etc.). Last month, we had a client inform us that they are bringing their web marketing efforts in-house, so they switched to a new hosting provider and took their (existing) site to the new hosting company. They kept their old Google Analytics code installed, so I can still see how much traffic they're getting. Since switching to a new host, despite the load times taking longer, no CDN, and other errors that came up prior to us spending time "optimizing" the website, their organic traffic has increased by 26%. Same exact website, same inbound link profile. According to Webmaster Tools, their impressions and clicks have also seen dramatic increases. So now, obviously, I'm considering looking into other options for the hosting of our other clients' websites. From your experience, and especially when it comes to Wordpress websites, do you think that a hosting company can make that big of a difference in terms of SEO? I've heard of positive results from people who have used WP-Engine, and other Wordpress-dedicated hosting companies, but I just find it hard to believe that we spent so much time on load-time-specific ranking factors and come to find out, a different hosting company would have made a huge difference. Any thoughts/feedback?
Web Design | | georgetsn1 -
Parallax, SEO, and Duplicate Content
We are working on a project that uses parallax to provide a great experience to the end user, and we are also trying to create a best case scenario for SEO. We have multiple keywords we are trying to optimize. We have multiple pages with the parallax function built into it. Basically each member of the primary navigation is it's own page, with all subpages built below it using the parallax function. Our navigation currently uses the hashbang method to provide custom URL's for each subpage. And the user is appropriately directed to the right section based on that hashbang. www.example.com/About < This is its own page www.example.com/about/#/history < This is a subpage that you scroll to on the About page We are trying to decide what the best method will be for trying to optimize each subpage, but my current concern is that because each subpage is really a part of the primary page, will all those URL's be seen as duplicate content? Currently the site can also serve each subpage as it's own page as well, so without the parallax function. Should I include those as part of the sitemap. There's no way to navigate to them unless I include them in the sitemap, but I don't want Google to think I'm disingenuous in providing them links that don't exist, solely for the purpose of SEO, but truthfully all of the content exists and is available to the user. I know that a lot of people are asking these questions, and there really are no right answers yet, but I'm curious about everyone else's experience so far.
Web Design | | PaulRonin2 -
Seo for design webinar ?
I've got no problem using google webfonts on their own, but what about using them over an image; specifically a clickable image? Its easiest to place text over an image if the image is a background image, but then the image isn't easy to make clickable. Am I missing something - this shouldn't be hard, right. Thanks!
Web Design | | saultie0 -
Wordpress/ Insert Tables/ SEO
I'm using Wordpress to create websites and blogs. I have limited (non-existent) HTML Coding knowledge. I'm looking to insert tables within my pages with information. Inside of these tables I want certain names to link to another page with more specific information about that name. I'm using a plugin called "WP Tables Reloaded" it simple helps you to create aesthetically pleasing tables without needing to know HTML Code or CSS. The issue is... when you create this table and insert it to the post, the only thing that shows on the sites back-end page is the table I.D. and the only thing that shows in the HTML is the tables I.D. It looks like this... [table id=2 /] I don't think search engines will be able to crawl this table, thus I won't be receiving any credit for the links being used within the table. Am I right about this?
Web Design | | AndySolo0 -
How is an SEO's time best used?
We have over 50 highly varied and niche sites in our company. Each website is for an annual event spread across the calendar. I am the solo SEO person here and was wondering what your opinions are about what would bring in the greatest SEO power in my limited daily allotment; link building? Keywords? Content? Oh, and to make my life even easier - its all based on SharePoint 2007!
Web Design | | DaveGerecht0 -
Finally have a budget for a great seo ecommerce site but need help choosing wordpress, joomla, modx, magneto or? Thank you in advance for your generosity of time
We finally have a budget and want to dump our intuit/homestead site www.originalartbroker.com Our budget is 5k-10k but could do more if needed. I am slowly catching my competition with this homestead site that I built. But I do realize it is time to step back, figure out what is best, and hire a pro to get the job done. I am green in the seo and web development arena so please go easy on me and please help to point me in the right direction. Just went out on a limb a couple years ago playing with homestead.com site software and built what we have today. Didn't know anything about website development...it sort of just happened. I feel and know that homestead.com solution is hindering what we could be doing due to the bloated nature of the site and inability to perform such task as 301 redirects etc.... I have been able to slowly attain first page seo rankings on keywords based of the artists we carry using this po-dunk homestead platform to build my site after a ton of work education thanks to seomoz and a lot of you. But, have never asked for help and could really use some generosity of time in explaining a solution that would work best for our business. Do we just go with a wordpress site that is similar to our current setup and use their plugins? Do we use a cms software solution like magneto or joomla? We will only have 200-300 pieces at any given time. We are constantly selling and buying new pieces providing us content. We are need of a site that can perform well in terms of seo. I have heard of a lot of people talking about joomla, wordpress, and magneto. Would like to be able to have a product catalogue that ultimately sends whatever inventory we are uploading to our social sites and blogs so I don’t have to pump the product out to all of these sites. We offer free custom framing with our pieces and it would be nice to have a program that could wrap the photos of the pieces with the different frames for our customers. When I add a new piece I would like this software to have a predesigned product page that it plugs the information into. I would like it to create the url extension based of the artists name, medium used, and piece name to create unique and individual urls. I would like it to also create its own H tags throughout that product page according to the artist name description, and medium used. I would like to be able to sink this up to google merchant and other sites to carry our product. Bottom line is we sell art. We sell pieces by specific artists. We are constantly buying and selling. I need something powerful that keeps up with our content
Web Design | | forecastedinvestments1 -
What's the best SEO option for jQuery image carousels?
My client wants a fancy jquery carousel at the top of their home page, as is all the rage these days. I would like to add some nice SEO friendly text to that carousel, but I'm not sure how best to do that..I assume that by keeping the text which will appear in the carousel in divs on the page, which will be swapped out as the images cycle, it should still be easily picked up by search engines?
Web Design | | TroyCarlson1