Don’t ask God …ask an SEO Expert instead.

So here’s the question.  Are all these SEO guys that are calling me all the time full of crap?  That’s what I want to know.  So I got talking to a friend of mine the other day,  and it turns out he’s an SEO practitioner. So I said to him,” what’s the deal with search engine optimization is this just a big scam or is it for real?”  This is his website and   and Facebook Page. And he was polite in his answer.  This is what he said.

He said search engine optimization is a funny thing . It’s not really taught in school.  So there are two ways you can learn it.  You can learn it the hard way through trial and error.  And believe you me that’s the hard way.  Or you can pay somebody who learned it the hard way to teach you.  So I said, “which way did you do it? “ And my friend said “well….. I paid somebody to teach me.”   But I still wasn’t convinced of the seriousness of search engine optimization.  I figured it was pretty straightforward and simple.  So I plied my friend to convince me otherwise. And convince me he did.  he said there are about two hundred things approximately that the search engines look at to evaluate which website should rank where.

so I said 200  things?  when you say things what exactly do you mean?  and he said this.  There are generally two basic categories of criteria that are measured to determine rank.  Those two criteria our subject matter and location matter.  Think about it,  Google, in particular,  has a very elaborate mapping system that we’re all familiar with.  Obviously, they know where things are.  but if you can help them know where you are better then they credit you for that.  So I said, they’ve got this great system in place already how hard can it be for them to know where you are already.  Why do I need some SEO guy to help me tell Google where I am.  And he said, because in the English language, in particular, there are so many places that have the same or similar names that it requires additional more detailed criteria to help Google zero in on where you are specifically .

And as far as subject criteria, there can be hundreds if not thousands of different businesses that have very similar names and business descriptions.  So the key is to know that by adding details to these criteria, you can make it easier for Google to determine who you are and why someone should see you first. After all, Google is a service provider.  the service that they provide is to help people find what they want when they type something into the search browser.  Certainly, Google has ulterior motives for this which we won’t talk about at this juncture,  but they are a business, after all.

We talked over lunch about this idea and by the end of that 2 hours, my friend has really opened my eyes to the value search engine optimization.  sometimes it takes somebody with an educated point of view to open your eyes and reveal the truth.  another truth that my friend revealed was that many search engine optimization people are really still in the beginning phase of their learning.  The internet, being the frontier that it is, allows them to appear to be as educated as someone with real experience in this field.

So here’s a little checklist that he said to go over if you were to ever consider hiring an SEO.

1.       Do your homework
   2. Make sure they can prove that they have at least ranked themselves and a few clients for some terms better at least moderately challenging.  it’s not necessarily so important but they’ve been practicing SEO for years and years but that the time they have practiced, they produce some results.
   3.
   4. He also said to make sure that they have an open-ended contract or a basic letter of agreement that would allow you to get out of the agreement if you were not happy with their performance
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   6. He also said to make sure that you at least speak to them over the phone half an hour to an hour and get a feel for what type of person they are and how they will be to get along with. After all, this is a business transaction  and you want someone that you feel good about when you speak to them.   Many internet practitioners like to hide behind their keyboard.  make sure you speak to them if not in person at least over the phone.
   7.
   8. Check out their LinkedIn profile and make sure they have a few testimonials from real business people other than SEO people from  other companies.
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   10. And lastly, don’t skimp on the budget.  I if you want a good SEO guy they’re not going to be super cheap.  Cheap SEO is another myth.
   11.

In closing, he suggested to just use some common sense.  if something sounds too good to be true it probably is.

He was there for thirteen days. I remember getting frustrated because I just wanted my baby home again. Once again time was being taken away from me and dammit it just wasn’t fair. I was back to crying myself to sleep every night. I was back to driving to a hospital every day. I was back to only being able to spend a few hours a day with my baby. When they told me he could finally come home, I would have drove through hell to get to him. The bad thing about Jay being in school is that he brings home tons of germs And even though I disinfect my house, we sanitize our hands, and wash our hands; Kage caught something from whatever Jay brought home. He was coughing, had a runny nose, and just down right didn’t feel good. I was taking care of him and making sure he stayed away from the babies, but the next day the babies didn’t feel good. They got progressively worse as the day went on and they both wound up in the hospital the day they turned three months old. Jax was hospitalized on Saturday and Kade was in there on Sunday, but thank God he was able to come home.