SEO Consultants – The Good The Bad and The Ugly

SEO in Manchester have many respected agencies and many digital agencies are also employing SEO Consultants but not all SEO Consultants are created equally.

SEO is much like a lot of other professions where you get some good SEO consultants and some bad SEO consultants. Search Engine Optimisation is a skilled profession that requires a technical aptitude with marketing skills and a flair for business. Not many people fit into this niche as many techinical people are not as good at the creative side of marketing. However, there are enough SEO’s around to create some healthy competition.

In Manchester we are lucky enough to be part of a very active SEO community in which there are many ‘good’ SEO’s but how do you spot a bad one?

Here are a few tips on spotting good and bad SEO’s.

Good SEO Consultant

Good SEO Consultants are not as rare as you may think and they are easy to spot just look out for these signs:

• Good SEO Consultants are brutaly honest – even if it isn’t what you want to hear a good SEO Consultant will let you know what to expect from a campaign.
• SEO Consultants don’t just talk about SEO – A good SEO Consultant will always be thinking of ways to get traffic to your website, not just SEO but social media and other forms of online and offline marketing
• A good SEO will try to improve your website – Long gone are the days when SEO was just optimising the home page and throwing links at it, now we look at conversion rates and usbility to make sure the website is performing as well as it can.

Bad SEO Consultants

Unfortunately like any industries there are bad SEO’s who give the rest of us a bad name, there few points to look out for when speaking to a SEO to see whether they would be considered bad.

• A bad SEO has little respect for others in the industry – The first thing a bad SEO will do is attack anyone that has been doing SEO on your website previously. Instead of pointing out ways to improve the campaign they stay tight lipped on what they would do to improve the campaign but slate any company or individual you have been working on.
• They Guarantee results – Anyone that guarantees results is not a good SEO as there are no guarantees in SEO, Google is constantly moving the goal posts and SEO’s have to keep up. You also have the added pressure of competitors who are working on their own SEO campaigns therefore offering guarantees means they either don’t know what they are doing or they may be misleading you with small print.
• They are misleading with sponsored results – there is a difference between sponsored (PPC) listings bad SEO consultants often use the sponsored results as proof of their work but this type of marketing is different and should be sold and run as a different campaign

It is only a small number of bad SEO consultants, these SEO Cowboys give the industry a bad name but if you look out for the signs and use a good SEO consultant then you have nothing to worry about and you should enjoy a good SEO campaign that will help you get valuable traffic that will convert on your website.

As for the Ugly…. well you should see us after a few drinks at Manc SEO

About Sadie

Sadie is the Head of SEO for SEO Creative. She manages all search, social and PPC campaigns, although she does have a keen interest in photography, and an eye for design, so many of her blog pots will reflect this. She spends a lot of time online and drinks lots of cups of tea.

Author: Sadie
Categories: Manchester SEO
Tags: SEO Consultant, SEO Cowboys, SEO Manchester