January 9th, 2007 by James Omdahl
Our affiliate manager April has been asking me to write this post for a while, so I figured today was as good a day as any.
One of the most common questions we get from affiliates is “who can I hire to do search engine optimization (SEO) for me?” This is a great question, since there are relatively few people out there who can take the time to learn about the art/science that is SEO. Like any field, SEO is something a person has to have a passion for in order to be successful. So if you don’t have the passion, outsourcing seems like the right thing to do.
Unfortunately, the SEO landscape is a dangerous one. While there are many people out there who know what they are doing, there are many, many more that don’t. For that reason, we don’t recommend anyone to do SEO for our affiliates. Sorry, I admit we are partially just covering our backsides on this one, but the truth is, you just never know who will be able to optimize your site.
Still, that doesn’t mean that you can’t hire an awesome SEO, it just means that we aren’t going to tell you who that awesome SEO is (although I will give you a list of some of the more respected SEOs at the end of this post). So in an attempt to avoid being totally unhelpful, I figured I would give you some things to consider when trying to hire an SEO. Here they are…
The SEO Industry is Notoriously Shady
Believe me on this one…I know from experience. I figure the best way to illustrate this is with a story, so here we go.
A few years back, before I knew anything about SEO, we hired a company to optimize our website. I did a good amount of research (not enough it seems), talked to numerous companies, and in the end decided to go with what was, at the time, the world’s largest SEO company. We ended up in a year-long contract that cost us somewhere in the mid five-figure range.
Once the contract was signed, I decided that, as an experiment, I would build a website of my own, read up on SEO, and try to optimize my site over the same time period. Within the first few months of our contract with the big SEO company we were not seeing much as far as results and we were getting every excuse in the book about why things weren’t working. On the other hand, my site was doing fairly well and ranking on the first page for many of our targeted terms.
By the end of the year contract, the site that I optimized was doing fairly well and our main site had barely budged in the rankings. Needless to say, we didn’t renew the contract.
Now I am not telling you this to try to show you how awesome I am, because believe me, I am not that awesome. I am telling you this to illustrate that, even when working with the biggest company in the SEO industry, you can still get completely hosed. And getting hosed for five figures is never fun.
So like I said, the SEO business is shady…don’t forget that.
There are Many Experts…but Not That Many Experts
Yes, I know that doesn’t make much sense, but stick with me here.
Expert is a relative term. I would guess that there are thousands of SEO “experts” that became “experts” by ranking well for their company’s name. I have interviewed a handful of people lately who are these types of SEO experts - and there is no doubt in their mind that they know SEO inside in out. But usually these kinds of experts have been able to rank for fairly uncompetitive terms - and would struggle to rank for a highly competitive term.
On the other hand there are the other (real) SEO experts. These people who have proven their ability to rank for highly competitive terms and are able to maintain those rankings. These are also “SEO experts” - but these are the experts you want to hire. The problem is these experts are fewer in number, harder to track down, and usually already have plenty of work.
And this brings us to the big dilemma when it comes to experts - both groups of “experts” call themselves (and consider themselves) experts…so it is your job to find out which type of expert they really are.
Ask for examples, ask for references, hunt for proof. It might take time, but doing so will save you from a lot of heartburn in the future. And when you do find a legitimate “expert,” try to get on as a client. Which brings me to my next point…
[Disclaimer: Please note that I am not calling the first group of experts liars, or saying they are unethical - from talking to these people I can tell you that they really think that ranking #1 for their company's name is the same as ranking for a term like "auto insurance." They usually have no idea that the two are wildly different.]
The Real (Ethical) SEOs Usually Only Will Take One Client Per Vertical
From my experience, this point is key…here’s why.
If you are hiring an SEO company, you are doing so to hopefully rank #1 for the most profitable search terms in your vertical, right? And as we all know, just like in Highlander, there can be only one #1 for each keyword.
So would it make any sense if an SEO company were to take on two clients that were trying to rank #1 for the exact same keyword on the same search engines? Sounds like a bit of a conflict of interest, no?
From my own experience, it seems that some of the most respected SEOs will only take on one client per vertical, and I think it is the right thing to do. Sadly, this also means that many of the best SEO companies will not work with you because they already have a client in your vertical. This is especially visible in the insurance space, where almost every respected company already has an insurance client.
But even if you find a good, ethical, proven SEO expert that will take you on as a client (it can still happen), there is still one more thing you need to do…
Make Sure You Have Reasonable Expectations
There is nothing more frustrating for SEO companies than a client who has unreasonable expectations. The process of SEO takes months, and in many cases more than a year. You are not going to be #1 in Google overnight, and if someone is telling you they can make you #1 overnight, RUN.
SEO is also in a state of constant flux - and change is the only guarantee. Be prepared for the good times and the bad. If do start rank well for a term, awesome, but don’t let that be your only source of income. Sites fall out of the rankings much faster than they move up - and we are all at the mercy of the search engines.
If you are working with an SEO, tell them what you expect and ask them to honestly tell you if your expectations are realistic or not. Honesty and openness in this area are a must.
The SEO A-List
After doing SEO for about three years now, I have been to a lot of conferences and heard a lot of SEO speakers. From my experience, the following people are respected SEO experts with whom you might want to discuss your SEO options with:
Aaron Wall
Bruce Clay
Greg Boser
Jill Whalen
Rand Fishkin
Chances are that none of these people will work with you (they have or won’t take on insurance affiliates) - so this isn’t really a recommendation - but they would be good people to talk to for referrals to someone else. All of the people listed above have reputations to protect, and steering you in the wrong direction might come back to bite them.
By the way, I am sure there are many more to list, but those are the ones I can think of off of the top of my head.
Conclusion
Hiring an SEO isn’t fun, isn’t easy, and isn’t guaranteed to make you succeed. Truth be told, many of the fundamentals of SEO can be learned by reading blogs, ebooks, and attending conferences. Still, if you are looking to hire someone to do SEO for you, do your research, make sure you set realistic expectations, and at least know enough about SEO to recognize a bad one when you see him (or her).
Also, if you are an InsureMe affiliate and you want a second opinion on an SEO company before you hire them, drop me a line. I would be happy to talk to the SEO and give you my opinion.
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January 9th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
much obliged for answering my question, Mr. Omdahl. This provides me with some clarity on the subject. you made it sound like SEOs in the top eschelon dont want to work in the insurance realm…is there any reason?
January 9th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Hey April -
Top SEOs have told me that the insurance market is often too competitive to get involved in. This is not because it is impossible, it is just because it is A LOT of work in comparison to other verticals.
Also, sometimes the top SEOs are actually affiliates in the insurance space (there is a lot of money to be made) and taking on insurance clients would be a conflict of interest.
January 10th, 2007 at 10:59 am
Good stuff, James! Just goes to show you how you can often read up on things–and get better results–doing them on your own (even by learning as you go along)than by depending on the “experts” to do it for you. Who needs those other guys; just become the expert!
January 10th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Glad you liked the post Penny.
I have a fun update for the post. It seems that the SEO company we worked with, you know, the one that stunk, has gone out of business.
Now that I dont have to worry about letters from attorneys, the name of the company was KeywordRanking. Here is an article on the closing.
January 10th, 2007 at 11:38 am
I think an SEO firm may be too expensive for affiliates. ITs often too expensive for the site owner itself. 5-10k per month, or 15k for a consultant is rough for anyone. especially when nothing is guaranteed. If I was an affiliate, I would concentrate on building links, buying links, writing good content for your site and submitting articles to places like ezinearticles, and doing blogs. Im sure it wont last but there is a new blog on msn #1 for “life insurance” each week.
January 10th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Good point Marty - although I know some larger affiliates who do hire consultants, but they are usually not the long-term five-figure contracts that get presented to companies like ours.
As far as MSN goes, I would beg people to not put too much time into optimizing for Microsoft’s red-headed stepchild of a search engine. Our site ended up #1 for “auto insurance” on MSN for a couple of months and the traffic was remarkably unimpressive. MSN’s results are so schizophrenic that trying to chase their algorithm (or as I call it “the randomizer”) is virtually impossible.
Yahoo and Google are where the surfers are at - think of it as icing on the cake if you get some traffic occasional traffic from MSN.
January 11th, 2007 at 6:48 am
Interesting comment about MSN. Lately Ive been having trouble with YAHOO, with Google and MSN appearing more stable. Of course, 80% of my actual traffic on organic searches is from Google, with MSN picking up the majority of the other 20% - and then a dribble from other sources - aol, etc.
But YAHOO had my pages, and was sending more traffic than MSN. While those pages are still indexed, they are not hitting the front page for the search terms anymore.
It looks like MSN is sending me traffic for my best search words on google. Something similar is going on. Yahoo is different.
I read somewhere that Google and MSN care more about links in, while Yahoo is giving more weight to your page text, headers, etc.? Would anybody care to comment?
January 11th, 2007 at 6:56 am
Sorry to P.S., but I had to mention another observation that had me shaking my head. I have a blog with a title of a keyword term. If I search for it on GOOGLE with the word BLOG (ie + “BLOG”> it comes up first in GOOGLE. This is only fair, right?
However if I do the same in YAHOO, it doesnt come up on the first gazillion pages, though it is indexed.
As a side note, I checked and the Google Adwords bid on that very term + “blog” is priced out of my budget! Very Fair, Google….NOT! But I guess since the term comes up organically, it really doesnt matter - so o.k.
So in terms of organic, Im finding Google more fair. When Im looking at Yahoo Organic and Google PPC, it makes me have to go back to my meditation chair.
January 11th, 2007 at 9:35 am
Howdy Mar!
Thanks for your insight on MSN and Yahoo. Like I said, I don’t watch MSN too closely, so it is interesting to hear that things seem to be stabilizing over there. I am also impressed that you are able to get 20% of your traffic from there…nice work!
Regarding Yahoo - I think there are a couple things going on there. Number one, I think Yahoo relies on quantity of links rather than quality (as Google does)…and I have heard that on-page factors are very important to Yahoo. With that said, I don’t know if on-page optimization can get you too far on insurance terms in Yahoo these days…I think good on-page optimization is enough to get you into the game, but you need a ton of links to do well.
The other thing with Yahoo is that, in general, they are slanted to rank big companies rather than affiliate sites. I have a feeling there is a good deal of human (and maybe automated) manipulation behind the first page results for big $ terms. I think that is why you don’t see a whole lot of smaller sites or blogs ranking well on Yahoo.
Very good observations with your blog - I always find it interesting how differently the various search engines handle ranking blogs.
By the way, I think every affiliate needs a meditation chair…maybe we should put on a contest or something.