Seven Deadly Sins of SEO Services – Wrath
April 15, 2013
Wrath – Rage Quitting SEO Services Before You’ve Given Them a Chance
So, I have a question for you… How long does it take a webpage to get on page one of Google?
- Within 7 days
- Less than 1 Month
- 1-2 Months
- 2-3 Months
- Longer than that
Have you got an answer in mind? If so, keep reading. (If not, well… keep reading too)
Some of my more SEO savvy readers may have noticed that I have left out a few remarkably important details. Like, what page are they are currently on, what SEO services they have had, what their backlink structure currently looks like and how it compares to the competitors on page one, and what term they are going for. Because really, if you have a website there is something that you are on page one for… whether or not that’s a term that anyone searches for is another thing entirely.
So before I get into the answer to my first question, let me ask you another one (didn’t know you were going to be quizzed, did you?)… Regardless of what you think the answer to my first question is, what do you do if your SEO services don’t live up to that expectation?
Does it look something like this?
I QUIT!
This is a phenomenon generally known as rage quitting, and is the subject of this post. So what do I mean when I say “rage quitting”? Well, I mean abruptly cancelling or giving up on SEO services because they haven’t gotten a site to page one in what can only be (politely) described as an ambitious amount of time.
I am sure there are a few skeptics at least who are now sat with an arched eyebrow, and perhaps stroking a beard, thinking “Well isn’t that convenient? A representative of SEO services doesn’t want me to quit my SEO services. Shocking.”
I know, I know. It seems in incredibly self-serving thing to suggest… but I didn’t actually say that, did I?
The sin is “Wrath – Rage Quitting SEO Services before you have given them a chance.”
So how do you avoid doing that? The first thing would be to talk to your SEO provider or account manager and ask them what a reasonable time frame is. As I have already discussed, there is no way to guarantee page one ranking ever, especially not using legitimate methods of SEO. Still, good SEO services will be able to look at the competitiveness of your chosen keywords in conjunction with whatever plan you have decided to go for and will try to give you a realistic expectation. We can do this, because we have years of experience informing us on what works and how long it has historically taken us to do similar work for other clients. My colleague, Jori, put it best when she said, “SEO: If You Don’t Know, Ask A Pro!”
Another thing to keep in mind is that there are more measures of success to SEO services than page one. Make sure your account manager is able and willing to report back on many metrics that show how their SEO services have effected your campaign to show, even if you haven’t yet seen page one, what success you have so far achieved.
Finally, you need to be proactive where you website is involved. Simply having a website and content is not enough. Now I know that you are probably thinking that you have hired your SEO services for exactly that reason… Which is why I am dedicating my penultimate blog post in this series to Sloth – Assumptions that slow down your SEO services.
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Christine Martindale is one of the Account Managers at SEOhaus. If you would like to stay up-to-date on all of the latest SEO industry news and tips, you can subscribe to our blog here. Thanks for reading the SEOhaus blog!