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
-
Do changing theme would cause the the seo effects?
I want to ask that i want to change my website theme does this will have any side effects on my humidifier site Seo?
Web Design | | farhankhan110 -
How we can check whether website design is good for SEO or not?
Is there any tool available to check website design whether it is good for SEO or not?
Web Design | | ross254sidney0 -
What seo benefit does setting up a photo gallery where each photo is a separate web page?
what seo benefit does setting up a photo gallery where each photo is a separate web page? My old SEO guy set up my photo gallery like that claiming that because each photo was a separate page, it added a big seo benefit and i never understood what he was talking about. Maybe alt text on the photo with key phrases in it pointing to my other pages to give my site a theme for google? I'm not really sure. He has since moved away and i am considering redoing the photo gallery to multiple images on one page to be more user friendly to my users. This photo gallery is 3 years old and the photos might have some page rank to them helping my site so i don't want to remove this gallery if there really is a benefit to it and it will hurt my site. I once removed four static page rank 3 pages from my site that weren't used for my site anymore and my rankings dropped 5 positions. Thoughts anyone? Thanks! Ron
Web Design | | Ron100 -
How do I gain full SEO value from individual property pages?
A client of ours has a vacation rental business with rental locations all over the country. Their old sites were a messy assembly of black hat, broken links and htaccess files that were used over and over on each site. We are redoing everything for them, in one site, with multiple subdirectories for individual locations, like Aspen, Fort Meyers, etc. Anyhow, I'm putting together the SEO plan for the site and I have a problem. The individual rental properties have great SEO value (lots of text, indexable pictures, can create google/bing location pages), and are great for linking in social media (Look at this wonderful property, rental price just reduced!). However, I don't want individual properties, which will have very similar keywords, links, descriptions, etc, competing with each other when indexed. Truth be told, I don't really want search engines linking directly to the individual property pages at all. The intended browsing experience should allow a user to "narrow down" exactly what they're seeking using the site until the perfect rental appears. What I want is for searchers to be directed to the property listing index that most closely matches what they're seeking (Ft. Meyers Rental Condos or Breckenridge Rental Homes), and then allow them to narrow it down from there. This is ideal for the users, because it allows them to see all available properties that match what they want, and ideal for the customer, because it applies dozens of pages of SEO mojo to a single index, rather than dozens of pages. So I can't "noindex" or "nofollow", because I want all that good SEO mojo. I can't REL=CANONICAL, because the property pages aren't similar enough to the index. I can't 301 Redirect because I want the users to be able to see the property pages at some point. I'm stymied.
Web Design | | SpokeHQ0 -
Changing from All-in-One SEO to Yoast SEO
I am currently using, and have always used the All-in-One SEO plugin for my website, but I have have heard time and again that the Yoast SEO plugin is superior. How do I transfer to this plugin instead? Do I need to deactivate the all in one seo plugin? What happens to all the tags that are already there for the thousands of pages, including the main page, that is functioning from the all in one SEO plugin?
Web Design | | dtlalaw0 -
Should I Remove URL extentions for SEO?
We are having a developer design our website with Magento. I noticed the main pages such as About Us have no file extention in the URL. But the product pages have a .html file extention. I was once told to remove the file extentions. Are there benefits to removing the .html file extension and if so, is there a way we can do this using Magento?
Web Design | | hfranz0 -
Multilingual Website. Best SEO Strategy
Hello.
Web Design | | teconsite.com
We have a client that will extend his business to severak countries in Europe.
So far its main market was the Spanish one. In this market it works with his own domain that is the same that its brand name. The domain does not contain any important keyword but it has been working for 11 years: www.efutgol.com. In Spain has a good ranking. It ranks number 1 or number 2, it fluctuates. But it also sells to France and Portugal. In the France market they used a domain with exact match with the French keyword that they are interested in: www.equipementsfootball.com/. The same strategy www.equipamentosfutebol.com in Portugal. Both have number 1 for the main keyword in those Countries for that keyword Now they are going to sell in more countries.
The problem is that each website have a different CMS what makes necessary double maintenance. We are going to unificate in only one domain, one single design, one single CMS all websites. But were have doubts about SEO consequences of doing that What is the best thing for URLs?
www.efutgol.com/fr/ .....
www.efutgol.com/es/
www.efutgol.com / pt What should we do with the domains that are so well positioned in france and portugal? 301 redirect will work? What should we expect? What would you do? What things we should consider to keep the current position?0 -
How WP Themes work with Navigation Structure for SEO and JQuery Headers?
I am trying to find the best WP Theme for our company. I noticed most of them do not offer a left hand side navigation on the home pages, and usually are on the right side on the inside pages. I always thought that Home Page links were very important for SEO. Currenly we have a left drop down navigation with all of our product catagories, keyword optimized. The structure follows for all the pages. Is this not as important to Search Engines anymore? Is it better to have a products link, to all the products and then the inside pages, have just a navigation bar, for that particular catagory? This seems to be very common on all the templates i am seeing. I also noticed, and really like the JQueary Tabs. I would use this for displaying, PDFs and Specifications Charts. Also, some home page images are using a jquery slider with some text, linking to a page. Is Jquery the new javascript and do search engines see what is in the code? I also noticed they all have footers that have links and some other information. Is this a SEO must have?
Web Design | | hfranz0