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  • Shoemoney, That Really Sucks

    Well, I’m a little sad today. As an SEO, if I’m not first met with complete unawareness of what it is I do, I’m labled a spammer by someone who happens to have had a bad experience with some “SEO Firm.” Usually, it doesn’t bother me too much, for when I get to talk to someone one-on-one, they realize I genuinely want to help. This has a lot to do with a background working as the “SEO” for a company that ripped people off, and I have a God’s promise to run my life differently now. But sometimes, someone I admire says something a little disheartening. Shoemoney wrote a post today on why he doesn’t like 95% of SEO Experts.

    Why does this suck for me so much? A lot of times I can usually write off the bad mouthing as ignorance. After all, SEO is still a new industry, and because of it’s “mystery,” a lot of shady people have been abusing the SEO name to bait a quick buck, then move on. To me, I see this as a perfect opportunity to educate someone on what SEO really is, and help guide them for the future. But Shoemoney?

    He should know better. Hell, he is even one of the Internet Marketing Ninjas. In his defense, he does indeed say 95%, but with some of these statements, and nothing for the other side, it seems like he really doesn’t know what it is we SEO’s do:

    “SEO’s are like the 21st century car salesmen. Most are slimy and have no clue what they are talking about. They tell you you just need to put spammy keywords in your title tag, keyword tag, and write a spammy as hell description meta tag.”

    “This is why SEO’s are like used car salesman…

    1) They can always sell you something.

    2) They can never guarantee results.

    3) They can not be held accountable.

    4) They have a answer for everything.

    5) All the magic happens behind the curtains – they cant tell you what they are actual doing because that would be getting to much into the secret sauce.

    6) Anyone can be a SEO.”

    And then later with a comment:

    “If you really want to hire a seo that can do something for you ask to see their cell phone and look at how many Google/Yahoo/MSN search engineers are in there. These are the people who can do something for you just by making a call. They can also help you when you most need

    it. The rest is all basic seo you can read about in any forum.” 

    Actually I’m hoping that the comment wasn’t from him, but from someone who knows what it means when “SEOs” start claiming they know people in the SEs. 

    Seriously? I’m going to resist the 1000 words I want to write describing how such a broad brush could be painted on any industry, even yours. Most of those statements are BS for SEOs anyway. Instead, I’m going to use one of the same responses I used for Gene Marks. People listen to you. Hell, I listen to you. I send people to listen to you (writers who want to start blogs). With so many eyes on you, I really think you should do a little bit of looking into things before such a post. You have friends, or at least connections to, people I read and strive to become more like every day (Boykin and Malicoat are badasses). Ask them or something.

    I’m not one of those “I’m never reading your stuff Shoe!” or “I’m removing your RSS and never recommending you again!” guys. I’ve always had an affinity for writers with a knack for headlines and awesome content, so you will likely never leave my RSS (unless you pass. Dammit man, don’t pass. I’m still learning to be a better blogger). And I know I’m not some big name. Just a little SEO/half assed blogger. But it sucks, man.

    From one SEO who genuinely desires to help people, to a guy I believe has the same intent, it really sucks.

    With this, and any other post, please read the disclaimer.

  • Disclaimer

    General Disclaimer

    I’m an SEO. I’ve been doing this for a while now. I like to think I’m pretty good at what I do. However, just because I post something on this blog, doesn’t mean it is 100% correct. I will do my best to ensure that what I post is of my best advice, but I can not guarantee that I will always be right or that my mind won’t change in the future. After all, this is SEO. Things change.

    This really should be of your mindset anyway. No matter where you go to get your SEO or SEM information, you should be just a bit sceptical. Again, things change. It’s fine to take some advice, but do your research and/or consult a professional before you make any major decisions on your site.

    Services Disclaimer

    Indeed I offer SEO Services. With these services, there are no guarantees of a certain amount of traffic or rankings. I can, however, guarantee the utmost quality in my work. After all, it’s not a company with enough money to cover up an issue working on your site, it’s my name. And I like my name. It’s clean, shiny, and gets great gas mileage. I wouldn’t do anything to mess that up.

    Advertising Disclaimer
    I don’t sell links. Sorry, that’s just how it is. I also don’t write reviews on the blog for products or services in exchange for money. Generally, my love and/or attention can not be purchased, but may be earned.

    Sometimes I do promote a service or product that I’ve used personally. On that same note, though I have worked with these individuals, or appreciate their service or product, I can not vouch for the service that you may receive from them.

    If you have any questions on any of this stuff, please feel free to contact me. 

  • Week In Review: 6-6-2008

    Well, it was an interesting week. Seems everyone is at the SMX Advanced this week, so it was a little slow. I thought I would wrap up a few bits of news for a nice Friday informative. I haven’t been blogging a lot lately (seems less and less every week), but that’s just a sign that SEO Factor is doing well. Catch 22 I guess.

    Catch 22
    Speaking of catch 22, Hugo guzman of Zeta Interactive wrote a neat post on The Ranking Report Catch 22: Part 1. This is always a tricky subject. As a business owner, it’s easier to justify an increase in rankings; so you would want to see a report giving you this information. As an SEO/SEM, I want to tell you I don’t care where your traffic comes from or about your rankings, as long as we can get quality traffic that will convert. It’s always a topic for SEOs, but honestly, why not just run the report, give the client what they want, and do what we do at the same time? Those reports don’t take a lot of errort or time. Still a good article.

    No English?
    In usual Shimon Sandler form, he posted a great tactic for building foreign language keyword lists. This guy is probably one of my favorite SEO/SEMs out there. His posts are always great. If you do any work for clients outside of your country, give this post a good read.

    Google Gives It Up
    At the SMX this week, Mike McDonald with WebProNews conducted an interview with Matt Cutts. During the video, Matt reveals that Google Help now offers information on NoFollow and its uses. You can read a ton of details at Matt’s post about the subject.

    Go Directly To UK Jail
    In very interesting news, Sarah Bird over at SEOmoz gave us some detailed information on the New UK Law Criminalizing Stealth Marketing Techniques. It’s a lot to explain, so I suggest checking the post out yourself. It’s so interesting to me because I feel that this is a plight in the US as well. I know of a very successful company that makes use of one of these tactics almost exclusively.

    Decisions, Decisions
    Finally, there seems to be a movement by a lot of my Twitter SEO friends to go to Plurk. This is a little disconserting. I don’t mind moving to Plurk or staying with Twitter either way. However, I don’t get to spend much time on just one, I really hope there isn’t some big split. Mark O’Neill with NowSourcing has a pretty nice coverage of the Plurk system. Sigh…here’s my Twitter account, and here’s my Plurk account. Someone just keep me in the loop on what everyone chooses.

    Well, that’s it for now. I hope everyone has a nice weekend.

    With this, and any other post, please read the disclaimer.

  • TNX Review – Part 1

    I wanted to look into some of these link selling/link buying sites for a better idea on the whole gist. We know that Google has been playing hardball with link sellers lately, so I thought it would be cool to check some of the services out (admittedly, I’ve never taken part in these services, so you’re getting the thoughts of a virgin).

    We’ve all seen the bigger names in the business, so I picked some fresh meat in the game. TNX. Aggressively pushing their free text link ads and an affiliate program, they first seem to be the same as the others.

    Initial Thoughts Right off the bat I noticed the cumbersome nature of the site. The TNX site could really use a usability expert to get in there an clean house. It’s difficult to navigate, even once logged in. Reading through the on-site documentation has me a bit happy. Responding to a FAQ “will this help my PR,” the site reads:

    “We just offer a convenient tool that is used for mass non-reciprocal link placement on websites. Service is not intended to be used for PR growth, but to get more targeted traffic from websites and search engines.” This is exactly why I would want to purchase links anyway. I use a plethora of other methods for rankings, so qualified traffic is a point of interest for me.

    I also noticed that dealings within the system hardly mention money, but
    talk in the form of points. This is really difficult to get a grasp on at first, but basically everything is dealt in points for the convenience of using them to purchase links yourself seamlessly, or cash them out for legal tender.

    A Little Deeper The list of sites taking part in the program is kept private. This means that nobody at Google can create a quick account and scroll through a list

    of potential future penalty victims.The selection of link buying process is a little bit better than some others, in that you set the criteria, then select the amount of links you want to purchase from a list of results that match that criteria. This seemed great at first, but testing it out proved to be a little different.

    I purchased links for a site I cared little for, and was put off by the selection of sites that picked up my links. I selected a very specific target niche, and what I got in return was a number of links on made-for-AdSense sites. One was listed in a bullet list directly under a scrollable head reading “Advertisements,” and another “Sponsored Listings.” We know this to be a good signal for Google.

    PR aside, if you wanted to purchase a link for traffic reasons, these would also be poor sites. There is no substance to them at all, and likely have a very large bounce rate with use of the browser’s “back”

    button. On the same note, the user menu says that TNX has not checked these links yet, so I’m hoping they will look at the sites, and remove my links without charging my account. I’m not going to notify them to see if the system takes care of it without needing my attention. Which is why this is part 1.

    Part 2 This is my initial response to TNX so far. I was just going to poke around in the TNX network and give my thoughts, but I would like to become more familiar with the system before I pass too much judgement. The site looks and feels horrible, but V8 tastes disgusting, and we know it’s good for

    you…right? So, I’m going to play with it with a few more sites across some other niches, and see what a month produces. Stay tuned.

    With this, and any other post, please read the disclaimer.

  • A Career In SEO? Good Move.

    I just read a post at All Things SEM called ‘A Career in SEO? Bad Move.’ Overall, the post was a warning to those that want to move into the world of SEO, defining the points that would make one want to flee. But, to be perfectly honest, all the points were very one-track. I would like to rebut all of them.

    Oh, before I get started, this isn’t an attack on Marios in any way. I just think that sometimes we need to step back before we make such bold statements, which he did in an earlier post.

    Want a Career in SEO? Awesome Move.

    1. SEO is Moving In House

    “This is the biggest threat to SEO consultants. As companies wise up to the need for SEO, they are also seriously considering handling all of the tasks in house.”

    Yup. Right now. Know what’s happening right now in Jacksonville? “Don’t get into real estate, it’s a buyers market.” I’m hearing this almost every day now (a lot of my freelance work is in the real estate area). Yup. Right now. But what about tomorrow? Tomorrow it will be another sellers market. That’s economy. Ups, downs, and a crap ton of almost predictable trends.

    Right now, there are a lot of companies moving in house, but that’s a trend I don’t think will be the end of the career freelancer. I have a number of peers that work in-house for a while, then leave. The reasons vary from not enough pay, to not enough resources, to not enough ears when it matters most.

    “Don’t believe me? Check out SEMPO’s recent “State of the Search Market 2006″ where it’s reported that almost two thirds of the companies survey plan to bring SEO in-house.”

    Of those companies mentioned in Marios’ post, I’m willing to bet the majority think that SEO is something that it simply isn’t. Our industry is still too new, and business owners have a lot to worry about other than the details of SEO (you know, like running a business). At no fault of their own, most companies just don’t understand the amount of support needed in order to make an online campaign successful. This is a trend like many others. Companies will later find themselves wanting to hire outside to save money, time, resources, or whatever the reason will be at that time.

    2. SEO is a Dead End

    “Some of you might think that being an in-house SEO is a good way to climb the corporate ladder, think again. The reality is that you’re going to have an incredibly hard time going anywhere.”

    O.K. Let’s think about this (and I already have. Thought about it, and lived it). You take the time to take an in house SEO position. You found one of those companies that will give you the support you need. You show success. The company grows. Know what happens when a company grows? The employee count follows. If you can play your part, you may even end up hiring another SEO yourself. Then you start heading SEO projects like company blogs, online marketing efforts (which will require you to hire more SEOs or SEMs), leaving you to lead them as the SEO manager.

    Moving up in a company when starting in SEO is like any other position. You have to show that there is a need for your advancement. If you’ve proven the need for SEO, have provided success (either by saving or making money for the company) you’re going to have a few ears when you start talking.

    3. R-E-S-P-E-C-T

    “You’ll get none. Ignoring the likes of Danny Sullivan who can command the attention of thousands, optimizers receive little regard to more established web professions (who I might add don’t get much regard either).”

    I’ve been in this game for just over three years (this makes me a newbie in the grand scheme). Still, there are companies who’s halls I can walk down and still get praise from anyone who happens to see me. There isn’t a month that goes by that a CEO wants me to join for a game of golf (and I can’t stand golf), a day on their boat (I tend to get sea sick), or some other event.

    “This lack of respect for the profession manifests itself in subtle ways. How? Your opinion about anything other than SEO will be ignored as if you have no insight on anything other than title tags…”

    I don’t do my job and go home at the end of the day. When I take on an SEO job, I excel. To these CEOs and company owners, I don’t optimize title tags, promote articles, build links, or any of that. I bring them money. That’s what they see. They couldn’t be happier with me, and I couldn’t ask for a more tuned ear.

    “…requests for hardware will be mysteriously held up by procurement until a hand-me down becomes available; and you’ll probably be tucked away in the bowels of corporate headquarters which is really just another signal that your efforts don’t require the kind of work environment conducive to thinking.”

    I’m writing this on my 21 inch flat panel monitor at my full time position. I’m comparing it repeatedly with the original post on the other one to make sure my thoughts are coming out like something more than a rant. My peers are setup the same way. My boss (yeah, he started in SEO and has moved up) has three 17’s. His Boss (he would be that sole SEO guy for this company, that followed that line of thinking I showed you a little earlier) has three 21’s. To be honest, when we ask for hardware or software around here, it’s to be nice. We don’t have to ask, we only have to order.

    4. SEO Could Become Obsolete

    “The search engines created the SEO market and they can also destroy it.”

    The search engines didn’t create this market. The need for marketing products and services created this market. SEO was around long before the search engines, it was just called something else. That something else isn’t obsolete, it has just changes. Now, I think we need to talk semantics. SEO IS obsolete. You can’t get away with optimizing the title tags and text, then call it a day. Nope, you have to build links. You can’t just optimize the title tags, the text, and build links. Nope, you need to reach out to your customers socially. You can’t just optimize the title tags, the text, build links, reach out socially…I hope you see where I’m going with this.

    SEO as a term has taken on a lot of different meanings. But in reality, it’s been dead for a while now. It’s SEM, or SMM, or whatever it is now. The point is, things change, the market changes, the successful adapt. We have been doing it all along, we just don’t always know it.

    5. No Barriers to Entry

    “Ignoring the silliness of whether SEO is rocket science or not, the reality is that anyone can eventually be good at SEO.”

    Anyone can be a a good SEO, only some are. Anyone can be a brain surgeon, only some are. Anyone can be a firefighter, only some are. Anyone can do anything, but only some do.

    “The result of having no barriers to entry are twofold. First, you end up having to compete with many, many people who say they do SEO, but don’t really have a good handle on the bigger picture. For example, copywriters oversimplify the process as having the right keyword density; designers figure having a blurb of text below their fancy Flash movies makes them SEO experts; and web developers conclude that since their code is elegantly written, the resulting web site will be search engine friendly.”

    Thinking and saying these things does not make them reality. When the copywriter or designer has been proven incorrect after a month or so, someone calls me.

    “Second, anyone just starting to get into SEO is likely to underbid someone that has been at it for 10 years. So how does the veteran distinguish himself from the newbie? It can be difficult because SEO best practices change and knowledge from 10 years ago may not be perceived to be valuable. So unless you don’t care about moving beyond your newbie salary, you better be prepared for a tough fight.”

    I can almost repeat my last statement. Company hires snake oil salesman that charges $89 a month, realizes the folly within a few months, and then calls me (or one of my peers). To be honest, I wish they didn’t have to go through this process. It’s really sad. But, as time goes on, we will be seen as needed.

    Wrap-Up
    You wanna be a lawyer? Bad Move. There are a ton of them out there. Some of them are bad lawyers. Hell, with the Internet, you can fill out a lot of the papers you need yourself anyway. There are even services that allow you a number of calls and contract write-ups per month for a flat fee.

    Wanna be a doctor? Bad Move. There are a ton of them out there. Some of them are bad doctors. Besides, I have WebMD.

    Wanna be an SEO? Come on over. It’s a lot of work, but it’s a fun ride. I’ve met some of the nicest and coolest people because of this industry. To be perfectly honest, I could turn this computer off, pick up my things, go home, and never return to this office. Because of this industry, I am afforded the things I couldn’t have if I finished school (oh wait…that’s a bad message). However, like other specialized fields, it’s not all fun and games. I am at an office for 9 hours a day, and I’m playing with my SEO all night (at least until I go blind). If you’re willing to work hard and play ethically, the rewards are pretty good.

    With this, and any other post, please read the disclaimer.

  • Some Common SEO Questions

    As part of my initiative to take my freelancing SEO services more seriously, I decided to branch out to communities comprised of more than just other Internet marketers (sorry Sphinn, I still love you though). I posed a question to the members of FreelanceSwitch about some common questions the design folks may have about SEO. You guys/gals have any problems you can’t figure out? Any common questions you need answers to? I got a few ideas from the responses there, but one member sent me something today that I really wanted to respond to.

    I was sent an email with a link to a LinkedIn question, ‘What are the Top 3 Questions You Want to Ask about SEO?’ The specific post would like others to post their questions, so I didn’t want to answer them there. Instead, I would like to touch on the questions myself, in this post, to help some of my new designer friends.

    Answers To Some Common SEO Questions

    What is SEO and why does it matter?
    Actually, I already answered these 2 questions (2 questions in one…pfft…can’t trick me!) with the start of the eBook. You can find it at: Search Engine Optimizaton (SEO)

    What do you do in your SEO-related field of work?
    What do I do? SEO work varies from provider to provider. I can speak for myself on the way I live my SEO life. By day, I am an SEO for Vizergy.com, where we provide services to the hospitality Industry. I can’t tell you how fun it can be (read: “challenging”). With my free time, I offer my SEO services on a freelance basis. For Vizergy I handle the on-page optimization, link building, and social profiles for our clients. For my personal clients, I offer it all…except design.

    How much should the average blogger know about SEO?
    The average blogger should know of the basics, and grow from there. Blogging is unique in that you learn a lot as you go. It also offers different challenges than a static website with the issues of pagination, canonicalization, etc. Blogging also offers a whole new world of link-building opportunities. This post isn’t really long enough to cover Blog SEO, but know that quality, fresh content will help a great deal. Get the basics, and be open to learning as you grow.

    How does SEO apply to businesses?
    Greatly. I also covered this in a page from the SEO eBook, ‘What Can SEO Do For My Business’ (seems like I’m pushing that thing too much, eh?). To answer simply, having a website without an online promotion plan (be it SEM, SEO, SMM, whatever) is like having a car without gas. It might look great, but it’s not going anywhere.

    How does Singapore measure in terms of SEO familiarity and utilisation, as compared with the rest of the world?I have absolutely no idea. There are guys in this industry that could answer that with more integrity than I could, so I’m not going to make a fool of myself.


    For most bloggers who may not appear in the first page of a Google search’s results, what basic steps can we take to improve that ranking?

    Keep the content fresh, make it good, and network with your peers. Build quality inbound links to your site (you can do the directory thing, but it’s a dying methodolgy. Can’t hurt though). Try gues blogging at someone else’s blog for a link to yours.

    What other factors affect search rankings besides SEO?
    Well, that’s the essence of SEO. We are talking semantics here. Some would say link building has branched into it’s own niche, but it all started as SEO, and I probably won’t call it something else. The deeper you get into SEO, the more you see what drives rankings up, and realise that SEO is the only way. Even if you do it yourself, it’s still SEO.

    What are the ways people abuse SEO, and how do we look out for them?
    I could start a blog in and of itself about the abusers. I would like to keep clear that “SEO abusers” are often mis-understood as black hat SEOs, and this simply isn’t true. What are some ways? SEO realies heavily on the content on the site, and the links pointing to it. I would say that, other than the escalations that come across my desk, those two factors take up 75% of my SEO efforts. I’m sre you can imagine the creative ways people try to spam the content on their site by hiding it, or serving different versions to the search engines that they would a human visitor. Or the clever ways one would attempt to get tons of links pointing to a site.

    Google changes it’s search algorithms from time to time, does that mean my previous SEO efforts have gone to waste?
    Not at all. A lot of us charge a downpayment, and then a monthly fee for upkeep for a little while. I like to work with my clients in 9-month incriments. If I feel things are well at that 9 month mark, I usually let the client let me go for a few months. The site will likely carry itslelf for a bit, and then I can be, and usually am hired again a few months later. So you see, there are times when you just don’t want to keep poking around. Let the site roll for a second.

    Please note that this isn’t always the case. The more competitive the market, or higher the goals of my client, the more attention it will require. Most of the time though, I usually let it roll for a few months without me, or with a much lower fee just for tracking and reporting.

    What is the biggest, most common misunderstanding of SEO?
    There are a few unfortunately. SEO is a mystery to a lot of people, so there are a great deal of firms and individuals using that cloud as a means of taking advantage of new business owners. It’s sad, and a big part of the reason I want to reach out to those outside of my immediate community.

    There is a misunderstanding that we as SEOs can guarantee rankings. I’m sorry, but this just isn’t the case. Either you are being lied to, or you are getting involved with a black hat. Black hats usually let you know what they are doing and warn you accordingly (if you can even find a black hat to take a job on, they are a secretive bunch). I get to communicate with a black hate every once in a while, and he tells me that he can’t remember a tactic that lasted more than 30 days. Those methods are meant for rank fast and get out situations where you don’t care if you lose rankings after a week or so.

    There are people at Google that don’t know what it takes to rank exactly. So nobody can guarantee a certain ranking or amount of traffic. We work heavily on our experience and research.

    Finally, and the most important, the idea that SEO is the magic bullet. I wish it was, becuase I would charge way more than I do for my services. SEO is a piece of your marketing puzzle. You still want to consider real-world marketing, you still have to have a wanted product or service, you still have to run your business, etc. SEO can be related to advertising, just with a new, modern twist. All the rankings in the world won’t help if you are selling a poor product or service. Being number 1 for a search term is no good if people don’t even know of your product or service. You still have to get the other parts in order, we just happen to be able to help in a large way.

    Well, that was all in the list. I want to thank Andreas for sending me this, and everyone at FreelanceSwitch for playing along for me, and creating a pretty neat community for us freelancers. Good on ya.

    Oh. And as always, if you every have any questions, please feel free to contact me. I leave ways to do so all over this site, so you have no excuses.

    With this, and any other post, please read the disclaimer.

  • Custom SEO and SEO Consulting Services

    Have Knowledge, Will Travel

    Though the local and national SEO services cover a lot of needs, SEO is sometimes too fluid to be packaged into 2 packages alone. To increase effectiveness, I offer my services for the needs of cusomized solutions and consulting or training.

    Custom SEO: Some online projects just don’t fit into the local or national SEO service outlines. For those projects, contact me and we can compile a customized SEO strategy that will fit your website’s needs.

    SEO Consulting: I also offer my services on a consultation level for those with a do-it-yourself attitude or businesses with the resources to implement changes, and want to contribute resources to doing so. I may be contracted to consult in the following ways:

    • On-site Training
    • Phone Consulting

    Contact Me Today
    For more information on a custom SEO service or SEO consulting, simply fill out the quick form to the left.

  • Stepping Up With SEO Factor

    As SEO Factor is concerned, I haven’t really taken the business aspect seriously. SEO Factor started as just a blog to share a little information to a small group of people. Over the years, business owners would often contact me for services. Though I was all to happy to accommodate, I never sought new business. Over the last few years, I’ve been contacted more and more, and so as increased my desire to take SEO Factor to the next level.

    2008: Year of the LLC
    I decided in late 2007 that I was going to take SEO Factor more seriously as my means of income and living. A few months ago I filed for an LLC, evaluated my budget and gave SEO Factor the outlook that it deserved; that of a small business.

    The One Burning Question
    As an SEO, especially one that offers SEO services, I am often asked the same questions about my services. There is one that always changes the tone of the conversation:

    “May I see some of your past clients, and what successes they have had?”

    Why is this such a tough question? For a number of reasons. You see, the majority of my clients don’t want to share a part of their strategy. They don’t like the idea that a competitor could become privy to a new method of gaining on them. So, I often sign a non-disclosure and non-compete clause (all too happily as I can understand the reasoning behind it). However, I can also understand the question that brings this conversation (I am never happy to fork over money for a mysterious service myself).

    There is also a stigma, however dying as it may be, that SEO is like cheating. That anyone that uses such tactics to grow their business is setting themselves up for some sort of penalty.

    The answers to these concerns are always the same:

    “Well, my previous clients don’t allow me to give out who they are (for the reasons above)”

    or 

    “Well, there is always a level of risk. I’m what is considered “white-hat” so those risks are incredibly low (with a large amount of education following)”

    Until this year, those answers were just fine as I wasn’t in the position to treat SEO Factor like a business. If I got a gig, neat. If not, that’s OK too. But I don’t think a business should be OK with turning away perfectly good business, especially if I can indeed provide a quality service. So, you can see why this is a tough topic. What am I to do?

    No Problems. Only Solutions.
    I think I have a solution to this problem. I need to build a portfolio and some testimonials. I won’t need to do this forever, but at least until I have a good range of varying business types, sizes and models for reference. I also understand that this is a benefit to me, and it would mean that a client would have to be willing to forego any non-disclosure agreements, so I’m going to offer a compensation.

    Discounted SEO Services
    Here’s the deal. If I feel that I could use your site as part of a portfolio then I will provide my services at a discounted rate. If not, I will still provide a proposal of services and options that may be of interest.

    The Catch
    There’s always a catch; I’m not just going to give my services away for free after all. In order to take advantage of the discounted services, I will be asking for a few things in return. One being a testimonial nearing the end of service (good or bad), a conservative link at the bottom of your site (small and neat is fine), and the permission to use your site as part of a portfolio.

    Contact Me Today
    So, head over to the discounted SEO services page and see if your site qualifies. 

    With this, and any other post, please read the disclaimer.

  • My Post on AnyWired

    I recently wrote an article for Skellie of Anywired.com on 7 Signs of SEO Scams. It was posted yesterday, and I would like to direct my readers to it. It was a post on SEO offers that should be noted as signs of a scam. It’s on Anywired because the blog caters to the entrepreneur, and these are the people most likely to be offered such fantastic “services.”

    So head on over and check it out. Any spreading of the common signs of an SEO scam will only help educate the small business owner, and better the perception of the SEO community.

    With this, and any other post, please read the disclaimer.