Maybe I should have expected given the nature of the newspaper, however it is always disappointing to see this type of stuff written (regarding SEO) in public forums with big followings. In the Penland and Sommerlad series on the Mirror blog, Nick Sommerlad discusses a ‘new businesses’ email received a company called Leadbank offering him their ‘ethical’ SEO services, and report to have “achieved over 90000 1st page positions and over 27000 number one positions for our clients across all industries and on all major search engines.”. To be honest (on a personal note) any company that throws those figures in a new business email deserves to be flamed publically (my rationale being you can have all the “desert snowman Vietnam” type terms in the world, but ultimately one ’secured loan’ result is far more impressive).

This leads me onto the second point. The company above got flamed not for the above, but for the fact they didn’t appear in the first page (or even the next four) for the term ’search engine optimisation’. I would add at this point – perhaps controversially that anyone that does choose a company for the reason they are top of SEO or search engine optimisation is taking a chance – use it as a research tool to find potential search partners however don’t base a business decision of it.

I will use the top five of the current Google results for ’search engine optimization’ as an example. This isn’t an outing session, so I certainly won’t be mentioning any names, however there are two organisations tactics in their whose tactics are a likely to come awry at some point due to the questionable nature of particularly their link acquisition. I would also add there are a number of good search (and SEO) agencies that do not come in the first couple of pages of results for terms such as SEO but have delivered a number of quality projects and campaigns.

However if you are looking what should you do , I would suggest a REACH type approach is probably worth taking.

R – Research. Probably the most important thing you can do. If you don’t have a miniscule understanding of what SEO is or what is involved, you are more expose. Further to that research the market, place like SEOVendor (from Andy Beal) and SEOMoz both have areas which which you can look at potential search partners, and publications such as NMA in the UK have both the editorial and the marketplace section which will give you an idea of players in the market.

E – Evaluate. Do a bit of homework on them (don’t just look at whether their first page for SEO, Search Engine Optimisation etc). Ask them for examples of their previous work, and results achieved for their clients. I would suggest the old saying ‘cobblers shoes’ applies to a lot of agencies, hence why I would always suggest you looking at client results rather than previous results. This to me means too much time on your hands ….

A – Ask questions. Don’t ever go into a SEO contract blind. My favourite clients are the ones that ask questions right from the beginning. I personally often find an educated client is more likely to buy into new ideas or changes far easier, as they understand the rationale and timescales. The types of questions you should be asking should be along the lines of

• What sort of results can I expect and can you give me potential timescales. Here I would be looking for two answers. One – any mention of guaranteed results and I would generally run a mile. Two, Significant results in Google in a very short time period (ie We will get you top in four weeks), I would always be wary of.
• What happens if I can’t implement something you recommend. Are you going to carry on sending it through, or not doing anything. Any decent agency should work with you, and any limitations you may have – or at the very least explain the implications
• Ask for references and testimonials. Who better to ask than people they have previously worked with – oh and actually follow these up
• How do you develop links. Do they undertake any paid linkage for seo purposes only (if you are Ok with taken a chance with paid links that is your own prerogative – however it is worth understanding the role and thus the risk)
• Expect them to ask questions. SEO is a two way thing. It shouldn’t be a case of just going away and giving you a list of high trafficked keywords. At the end of the day, you (as the client) understand your product far better than we do, however we know how we can get that product found, so it needs both parties to work in harmony. Make sure you know answers to questions such as Average Order Value, Target Cost Per Lead/Acquisition etc. This will ultimately help you get a solutions that is targeted towards your requirements.
• Ask about KPI’s. A campaign without KPI’s is just flying blind – they should have an objective whether this is ROI or traffic led.
• Tracking. What tools does your agency have in place to measure the effectiveness. Have they got any ways of deduping data so you get a clearer channel breakdown. Is their any form of search path analysis in place?

C – Contracts. Make sure you understand your contract. Many agencies don’t work to defined long term contracts, others do. Thats not to say there is anything with being tied into a longer term contract, but just make sure you have some caveats (built into the contract), should contracted hours not be done, or agreed KPI’s not be hit. It is possibly worth understanding as well as to what happens when you leave, going back to the examples above, should you leave I would suggest the vast majority of your linkage is likely to disappear as well.

H – Have an understanding of whats happening. Don’t let the evaluation process end, when you sign the contract. Make sure you understand what your agency is doing for you via regular reports and reviews (monthly should do). Take an interest in the SEO campaign – theres nothing worse from an agency perspective than merely just being thrown something with little or no client support. Te best campaigns have total client buy-in = and with search becoming more and more intertwined with more traditional marketing (lets use PR which can be used for SEO purposes) buy in and involvement is more important than ever.Flip side to this, make sure your agency is pro-active, and suggesting things which are suitable for you.

Like any sector, there are good search agencies and their are bad search agencies. However if you do your homework, and take an interest in your SEO you will be very surprised at how effective it can be.

SEO in any ones book, seems to be in a purple patch. Certainly in the UK it appears to have gained traction into many mainstream organisations, and is now part of my FTSE 250 and Fortune 500 organisations marketing strategies. However it unfortunately is still tainted by a dark undercurrent of black hat SEO’s and link spammers which continue to create some negative association with the profession – whether that is justified or not justified is another question.

However it is a couple of posts that have been made that have got me thinking, namely Rand Fishkin’s 8 ways to buy links without ‘buying links’ and Chris Hart’s ‘What if SEO was spelled TSA’

Indeed Rand’s post is indicative of just what a different beast SEO has become. ‘Traditional’ forms of marketing such as Online PR play a far more important role in SEO than ever before – not just from a linkage perspective, but also in terms of branding and standalone traffic acquisition tools – with social media bringing a facet of marketing not previously available to marketeers (either online or offline) to the table.

Just look at metrics for measurment these days. Gone are the days when rankings were the only way to measure SEO success. Blended search has certainly created food for thought here – as well as new channels for savvy marketeers to exploit. ‘SEO’ is far more tactical than ever. Online Brand Reputation for example should have ‘SEO’ at its heart, with brand exposure and coverage more important and high profile than ever.

Surely we (as search marketeers) have evolved from merely optimising for search engine rankings alone. Is search engine optimisation therefore the best term to describe what we do?  The term ’search engine optimisation’ appears to have been around for around 11 years or so now (one of the earliest references I can find is fom David Stoddard from Frontiernet in August 1997) – however Danny Sullivan gives a great breakdown of this on the Search Engine Watch Forums. I would suggest SEO has changed significantly since then – lets face it Google was nowhere near the beast it has become, search marketing industry still in its infancy and social media just a glimmer on the horizon.

In the absence of any suitable replacements, bar ‘digital asset optimisation’ (coined by Lee Odden in 2007) it appears it is still here for a while, however one can’t help thinking whether SEO 3.0 could see a new beginning, and potentially a new name?

[ This post from Peter Young's blog contains only his personal opinions. ]

This is a slightly off kilter conversation following a post I read on the Vertical Leap blog today, regarding ‘SEO for £35 per month????’. . It certainly does remind of earlier SEO ventures, where the likelihood of coming up against said competitors was far higher, however I think it helps to lookat why and where this perception comes from.

Now I may be reading between the lines here (and no offence meant here Gina), however I would suggest the organisation in question here is reasonably small, certainly not FTSE 250. Certainly my experience within the marketplace would suggest awareness and perception of SEO is greatest in startups/smaller organisations and the larger enterprise level organisations, with a middle tier that often garners a mixed response (I would add at this point – and at the time of writing I have absolutely no physical back up for that comment bar personal experience). So why does this perception exist.

Whilst the marketplace is becoming more digital/search savvy there is a lot of ignorance/lack of awareness out there as regards what search and in particular SEO can do and where it fits in. With such a wide range of services available – and lets face it a lack of benchmarks on which to base a decision – it can often be difficult to seperate Joe Bloggs from Enterprise level SEO organisation.

There is also the issue of web development company vs search specialist. Many web development agencies these days offer SEO services as part of their remit. Whilst I think they are personally well placed to do so, I unfortunately also have experiences of a very one sided service, certainly more focussed on search engine friendly design, rather than search engine optimisation, persay – however that is a personal sidenote.

Read a forum or blog, and you are bound to see some reference to shady goings on, or SEO campaigns that haven’t worked. Whilst SEO has come along way from the ’snake oil salesman’ perception it had, it still has some way to go, and I would certainly say this is more the case the further down the enterprise ladder you go.

With larger organisations, it is often the case that terms of business and SLA’s are in place, and rewards are higher both for said organisation and the search agency. Whilst it is not always the case, it is very much a enterprise service with the associated time dedicated to the account. That point alone is bound to get some feedback – however let me caveat that.

How on earth, is a good job meant to be done on a site for £35 a month. On a minium wage that would equate to around 6 hours a month. Now he is going to have to source links (or alternatively outsource -which would take up around half that budget if he outsourced cheaply overseas), so your looking at a minute amount on which to develop a campaign.

I don’t mean to be rude but – How can a proper job be done on that amount of money. And if you do decide to use said vendor, how can you be suprised if it doesn’t deliver the quantifiable results you wanted instead of some obscure 5 word phrase that no man ever has or ever will search for?

In a modern day search landscape where search isn’t just about optimising your meta descriptions and keywords, where rewards are so much greater, and competition so much more fierce – is it really worth taking a chance and basing such a potentially lucrative decision merely on price. In a landscape where link acquisition is far more complicated (who had used nofollow to not pass linkvalue 2 years ago – or didn’t use either directories or paid links as part of their link building strategies), on-page is not a case of meta tags, but a mix of technical and content based optimisation (lets think geotargeting for a start here), SEO is far more complicated, and far more lucrative than ever. Just look at the stats, In April 2008, over 31 million UK adults (15+) searched on the Internet thats:

• 93% of the UK ‘Net population
• 4.1 billion search queries
• 10 searches per usage day
• 30 visits per month
• 5 searches per visit

Thats a huge potential marketplace

I once had a trainer say to me, you will never lose a sale on price. If you do – you just haven’t sold well enough. I would turn that comment round, and say – If you base a purchasing decision solely on price – then you havent considered your options well enough – and you run a far higher risk of that decision not being the right one.

[ This post from Peter Young's blog contains only his personal opinions. ]

No, your eyes do not deceive you.

Google has released its very own guide to SEO, the aptly named ‘Search Engine Optimization
Starter Guide’. Developed by Google’s very own search quality team, it goes into a lot of the on-page SEO considerations such as:

• Title Optimisation
• Page Naming
• Navigation
• Content
• Page Structure
• Image Optimisation
• Robots Management

All in all a decent starting point, however it is interesting to see one major aspect of modern day SEO missing or more precisely hidden and not at all prominent.

Surely some more detailed referencs to linkage, and the role it plays in the optimisation process. The only real references to ‘promotion’ in the document are:

Good practices for promoting your website
• Blog about new content or services – A blog post on your own site letting your visitor base
know that you added something new is a great way to get the word out about new content or
services. Other webmasters who follow your site or RSS feed could pick the story up as well.
• Don’t forget about offline promotion – Putting effort into the offline promotion of your
company or site can also be rewarding. For example, if you have a business site, make sure
its URL is listed on your business cards, letterhead, posters, etc. You could also send out
recurring newsletters to clients through the mail letting them know about new content on the
company’s website.
• Know about social media sites – Sites built around user interaction and sharing have made
it easier to match interested groups of people up with relevant content.
Avoid:
-  attempting to promote each new, small piece of content you create; go for big,
interesting items
-  involving your site in schemes where your content is artificially promoted to the
top of these services
• Add your business to Google’s Local Business Center – If you run a local business,
adding its information to Google’s Local Business Center will help you reach customers on
Google Maps and web search. The Webmaster Help Center has more tips on promoting
your local business.
• Reach out to those in your site’s related community – Chances are, there are a number
of sites that cover topic areas similar to yours. Opening up communication with these sites is
usually beneficial. Hot topics in your niche or community could spark additional ideas for
content or building a good community resource.
Avoid:
-  spamming link requests out to all sites related to your topic area
-  purchasing links

Source: Google Search Engine Starters Guide

Whilst it does refer to a number of methods of acquiring linkage to the site, I can’t help thinking this may provide a slightly lobsided view of the importance of off-page in the SEO process to beginners. Yes on-page is important but lets face it MoneySupermarket would be nothing without the million odd links it has pointing to it, neither would Tesco etc etc, and thus anyone reading this could be forgiven for thinking merely implementing such tactics without any offpage would give them a reasonable chance of competing (which on non-competitive terms/sectors – such as rarest baseball cards – may be the case – but not likely when we are talking casino, car insurance or the like). I guess the real worry here is many DIY-SEO’ers may (continue) to look at SEO as merely an on-page exercise with little consideration to the promotion/off-page aspect of the process.

I will finish with the fact It is a good document, and certainly worth a read (would suggest if you are a intermediate to expert SEO there is very little you will get out of it). Its not really going to tell you anything amazing, however it is good to see Google out there, and at last having more of a say in SEO.