A suggestion to SEOs that cold call potential clients
-
Learn some basic salesmanship. Do you realize that business owners are getting 3-4 phone calls and emails a day from other SEOs claiming to be the best? Be polite, ask questions, and don't insult me or yourself through ignorance. Ask questions. You might just discover that we could work together.
When you tell me that I'm not ranking for "competitive keywords" it tells me that you don't know what I'm trying to rank for. When you tell me you can get me to the top of Google in 3 months or less, you're still telling me that you don't know my business and what I want from my website. Who said I wanted national ranking anyway? Oh right, not me because you never asked.
And if I answer the question "Do you want more business/leads?" with "No." Then politely end the conversation and move on.
The rare time that I do get asked about my current efforts, don't insult me by calling me an amateur. I may be one, but talking down to me, or trying to make SEO sound like you're turning lead into gold will get a quick hang up from me.
If you want a contract with me, learn to negotiate based on my needs, not your process that you feel married to. There are a lot of business owners out there that would be willing to work with you if you treated you leads with respect rather than iteration 23 of your cold call script.
And in response to the person this morning that sent a "free report" of basic SEO fixes for my website, make sure you put that report together using **my website. ** I know you're working from a template, so it should be really easy to remove the info from the wedding company and the lawyer's webpages before you email it to me.
-
Thanks for the courtesy.
Not to belabour the point (so this will be my last response):
But I never said cold calling was ineffective.
I just said that it was wrong.
In the grand scheme of the universe, it annoys people, gives business a black eye, and invites government regulation that over reaches.
-
Thanks for the response, but we'll have to agree to disagree.
I maintain my position: cold calling is wrong. I would never try it.
Most sensible people already hang up. More people should.
And then fewer people would cold call.
And the world would be a better place.
-
I can't imagine any sensible person ever buying anything from someone who cold calls.
It is not a practice associated with reputable businesses, IMHO.
-
Always have your competitors telephone number handy to give to these people.
-
lol
-
A really good seo gets more referals than they can handle! So sick of low quality, unethical, high volume crappy seo scammers out there....AAARRRGGHHHHHH!!!!!
Ok, I feel much better now....
-
This is just my opinion, but the fact that someone would have to cold call to find SEO clients throws up all kinds of red flags. A talented SEO NEVER needs to cold call. In fact the problem is not finding new clients, the problem is having to pick and choose who you take on. Isnt the point of seo to bring in leads and clients? If your own seo skills are so poor that you have to cold call, then...well I am go out on a limb here, but get the he k out of our industry and giving real seo's a bad reputation.
-
Wow! lol...made my day. I hate cold calls from these type of dimwits, half of the time they have no idea what they're talking about.
-
I'll go one better. DON'T COLD CALL ME. I know how to use the internet to find things.
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
-
Has anybody used Yext or Universal Business Listings as an automated approach to getting clients into all of the many directories? If so does it work? Or does Google penalize in using these automated services?
I'm trying to figure out if using either Yext or Universal Business Listings is worth it. They have reseller programs for SEO agencies. I just am curious what other SEO folks think of these services as I'm considering using one of them to automate and save time for clients. If you go to Yext.com or universalbusinesslistings.org you can see these. Curious what others say about these. Thanks
Industry News | | SOM240 -
Looking For A reliable Chinese Based SEO Agency
Hey everyone, my company is looking for a reliable SEO agency to help with our chinese website: http://www.lunwenban.com/ I was wondering if anyone had any possible positive experiences with one? Carl
Industry News | | geekdesign0 -
Redirecting International ccTLD affect SEO?
I've watched Rand's Whiteboard Friday video on How to Host and Where to Host for International Websites and read Gianluca's article on International SEO; however, I am still unable to find an answer or solution to this. ABC Company is a US based company with the website www.abcexample.com and plans to target people in Hong Kong. Therefore, they purchase .hk ccTLD. However, with the time restraint and budget limit, ABC Company is unable to create a completely new website under .hk ccTLD. Scenario 1: ABC Company plans to create different pages for each service offered in HK and 302 redirect .hk ccTLD blank service page to www.abcexample.com's same service page. Quesiton 1: Will this have the same benefit of creating a .hk website? Although ABC Company is redirecting, does the .hk ccTLD still tell Serach Engines that we are targeting people in Hong Kong? Will this solution harm or help with SEO with other search engines in Hong Kong? Scenario 2: ABC creates a /hk subdirectory under www.abcexample.com and have exactly same content in the same language as www.abcexample.com but use rel="alternate" hreflang="x" and use Webmaster to Geotarget Hong Kong. Question 2: By using rel="alternate" hreflang="x" and geotarget, will this avoid duplicate content if ABC Company has exact content in the /hk folder? Please let me know if my questions and scenarios are unclear. I understand that these are not best practices. Please advise the best way to work around this. THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
Industry News | | TommyTan0 -
What's yor SEO predictions for 2013?
I think radical new search result snippets, move away from anchor text, possible Google pull away from non G+ social signals (in favour of rel author) could be highlights in 2013. What are your predictions?
Industry News | | AndyMacLean0 -
SEO Consulting for Sex.com
Hello everybody, We are looking for someone to help us improve our SEO, more specifically on google.com. We seem to be getting positive results in general, but we are far from our objectives. We are looking for someone that could: Do a complete analysis of the site Write a report of the needed changes Proposed ideas to get better positioning Experience with adult oriented websites would be a great asset. We would repeat this process every 3-4 months to make sure we stay on top of our SEO strategy. Thanks!
Industry News | | ejodoin0 -
Best way to recruit quality SEO staff?
We are in a nice position in that we are growing everyday. As the result, we need more staff, but do not have the time to bring along someone without any real SEO background. I have used just about every source over the years to hire people with good and bad result.
Industry News | | RobertFisher
For an SEO, with experience in some or all of the process: Link building, Keyword Analysis Site evaluation, eCommerce, Analytics... where do you go to find someone good? What about to find them yesterday? 😉 Obviously, they do not have to be expert at all, but they need to be familiar with all and have experience in at least two or three.1 -
What is the best method for getting pure Javascript/Ajax pages Indeded by Google for SEO?
I am in the process of researching this further, and wanted to share some of what I have found below. Anyone who can confirm or deny these assumptions or add some insight would be appreciated. Option: 1 If you're starting from scratch, a good approach is to build your site's structure and navigation using only HTML. Then, once you have the site's pages, links, and content in place, you can spice up the appearance and interface with AJAX. Googlebot will be happy looking at the HTML, while users with modern browsers can enjoy your AJAX bonuses. You can use Hijax to help ajax and html links coexist. You can use Meta NoFollow tags etc to prevent the crawlers from accessing the javascript versions of the page. Currently, webmasters create a "parallel universe" of content. Users of JavaScript-enabled browsers will see content that is created dynamically, whereas users of non-JavaScript-enabled browsers as well as crawlers will see content that is static and created offline. In current practice, "progressive enhancement" in the form of Hijax-links are often used. Option: 2
Industry News | | webbroi
In order to make your AJAX application crawlable, your site needs to abide by a new agreement. This agreement rests on the following: The site adopts the AJAX crawling scheme. For each URL that has dynamically produced content, your server provides an HTML snapshot, which is the content a user (with a browser) sees. Often, such URLs will be AJAX URLs, that is, URLs containing a hash fragment, for example www.example.com/index.html#key=value, where #key=value is the hash fragment. An HTML snapshot is all the content that appears on the page after the JavaScript has been executed. The search engine indexes the HTML snapshot and serves your original AJAX URLs in search results. In order to make this work, the application must use a specific syntax in the AJAX URLs (let's call them "pretty URLs;" you'll see why in the following sections). The search engine crawler will temporarily modify these "pretty URLs" into "ugly URLs" and request those from your server. This request of an "ugly URL" indicates to the server that it should not return the regular web page it would give to a browser, but instead an HTML snapshot. When the crawler has obtained the content for the modified ugly URL, it indexes its content, then displays the original pretty URL in the search results. In other words, end users will always see the pretty URL containing a hash fragment. The following diagram summarizes the agreement:
See more in the....... Getting Started Guide. Make sure you avoid this:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66355
Here is a few example Pages that have mostly Javascrip/AJAX : http://catchfree.com/listen-to-music#&tab=top-free-apps-tab https://www.pivotaltracker.com/public_projects This is what the spiders see: view-source:http://catchfree.com/listen-to-music#&tab=top-free-apps-tab This is the best resources I have found regarding Google and Javascript http://code.google.com/web/ajaxcrawling/ - This is step by step instructions.
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=81766
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-allow-google-to-crawl-ajax-content
Some additional Resources: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/10/proposal-for-making-ajax-crawlable.html
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-allow-google-to-crawl-ajax-content
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=357690 -
How to Educate my Company About SEO
Hey Mozzers, I'm currently faced with a situation that I believe is probably quite common in the SEO industry. I'd like to get the input of the SEOMoz community to see how others have handled this situation and how I can use that to help my company and of course myself in this process 🙂 Here's the dealio. I recently obtained a position at a fairly large company ($500 million annually) with the task of being our Lead SEO, which I am loving, but am finding one thing to be a big hurdle to our success. Essentially no one here has any pre-existing knowledge about what SEO and inbound marketing are. There are a few younger folks who understand some of it, and a few of those who I work with on a daily basis are starting to get it, but I fear that many of the folks on our webteam and even higher up do not understand the value of SEO, the implications of certain things the webteam does to our website, and moreso the value of me being here as the sole SEO expert. I'm wondering if anyone else out there has been in a similar situation and how I might be able to effectively instill a culture of SEO within my company to get people to think about SEO before they do things. My first goal is to ensure people think about SEO before making changes to our site. My second goal is for them to see the power of proper SEO, thus proving how valuable I am to the company. Thoughts anyone?
Industry News | | CodyWheeler0