Some of the people in the industry that I pegged as pure BS artists are landing clients faster than those with the skills that SHOULD pay the bills.  And it is not by virtue of their ability to rank a site or run an advertising campaign, it’s their ability to BS clients that’s getting them the work.

Don’t get me wrong, I respect your hustle Mr. Snake Oil.  You make more calls, kiss more ass, go to more “networking” events, and hand out more business cards.  You work for yours.  But where are your clients’ sites when you’re done with them?

I’ve been on the frontlines recently.  Pushing out proposals like a madman, researching people’s sites, and checking out the work left behind by previous SEO firms.  What I see, quite frankly, embarasses me.  Mostly because I am getting lumped in with these guys.  Then I get the client’s sob story about their previous experience.  It usually sounds something like this:

“They were great.  We had bi-weekly phone meetings, we used this neat little tool to track our progress, I got reports with graphs in them, and I even rank number one for “Arizona Mortgage Refinancing Specialist Ahwatukee AZ”.  But I just can’t afford the 8k a month retainer anymore“.

Or worse, this:

“They were terrible.  I had a really bad experience with [insert well known company] who promised me rankings.  They charged my 8k a month, and even had the gall to send more invoices when I asked for even the smallest changes“.

My interpretation of both scenarios leads to the same conclusion.

Scenario 1 – You’re a  good bullshitter.  You made your client believe they were getting a value from your shoddy service, overcharged, and dried up the well.

Scenario 2 – You’re a good bullshitter. You made your client believe they were going to get a value for your shoddy service, overcharged, and scared a client from using a better company’s web marketing services down the road.

You’re Doing It Wrong

Either way, I am seeing shoddy work from previous firms and agencies. They’re leaving huge holes in their campaigns.  I’m proposing lower prices than companies were used to paying their old crappy vendors.  I’m seeing low hanging fruit and easy wins for my potential clients.  And I am still having to hustle way more than I ever thought I would have to, just to save a potential client back to the good side of the force.  The fish that normally would be jumping in the boat, are still on the edge.

In cases like these, where clients have been burned, it doesn’t matter that I have rankings and case studies to prove my ability.  It doesn’t matter that I have ringing endorsements from referrals.  It doesn’t matter that I have no problem contracting out clauses or adding performance clauses to mitigate cost risk.  People just have a harder time trusting SEO companies in general, because of the BS artists who left trash in their wake.

If You Can’t Beat ‘Em?

Part of me wishes I had a better line of BS. Maybe I should have gone to more events to glad hand realtors, lawyers, and loan sharks.  Or maybe worked on my fake smiles a little more.  Tried to kiss more ass…

But that part of me IS BS.  I’m actually happy with the being a “no bullshit” kind of guy, even if I am not getting as many clients as more polished sales persons with less skill.  It’s just a shame that the pool of potential clients out there has been tarnished by slicksters who are all style, and little substance.

So far so good. Even with the old haggard design, I’ve been able to score a couple pretty cool clients.  But I could always use more!  No more flying solo and getting clients only by reputation.  I’m gonna work that old site and see what we can do!  It already ranks well, and it’s and older site, so a little link building will go a long way.

Truth be told, I’m looking forward to competing again with some awesome companies out here and getting back into the mix.

Until recently, I forgot how fun it is to help *other* people make money on the web.  As a self proclaimed “advanced web marketing” guy, it’s exciting when I first get my hands on a new site or marketing campaign.  There are always tweaks that are high impact and easy that make an immediate impact. Low hanging fruit all over the place.

So look out Arizona, I’ve flexed my muscles out in the big corporate world and I’m coming back to my roots.  My first successful business on the web.  MCP Media!

And BTW- it has a blog now. The Phoenix SEO Blog. So feel free to head over and give that mofo a little love eh?

Question

“Hi Chris,

I have a question for you which I’ve been trying to figure out for a few months.

If I disallow a page in robots.txt that I don’t want (or need) in the index (terms and conditions, privacy statements, logins etc) those pages are eventually removed from the Google index and their PageRank toolbar turns gray. This would indicate that those pages are not crawled or indexed and therefore do not build a PageRank.

But, is this really the case? If I am removing pages from the index using robots.txt am I inadvertently wasting PageRank by linking to those pages? Is the only way to effectively remove pages from the index and stop them building PageRank by adding nofollows to all the disallowed pages incoming links as well? I know that pages are given a gray tool bar when disallowed in robots.txt but is this a lie?!

This leads me on to the next question! Do nofollow attributes accurately cause the pages PageRank do be redistributed to the remaining followed links on that page?

Any thoughts would be appreciated!”

Answer

Thanks Matt,

The gray in your toolbar is not a lie.  Google will not serve those pages in search results if you properly noindex them in your robots.txt.  I’ve personally found Google to be quite obedient of the robots.txt files.  But other bots might not be as polite :-)

It is best practice to nofollow links to your privacy policy and other non-relevant pages to pass PageRank only to the more important pages.  The practice is known as PageRank Sculpting, or PageRank Siloing.  I would definitely add the nofollow attribute to the links to those pages if you are looking to silo your PageRank to the most important pages.  It does work.

Cover both bases to be safe, but don’t bother adding nofollow to the meta tags of those pages you are looking to keep out of the index.  If for some crazy reason they get an IBL (inbound link) from an external site, you still want to pass that pop on to the rest of your site.

Don’t forget guys and gals, if you need some FREE SEO ADVICE then drop me a line.  It’s FREEEEEEEEE!

Question:

Do you use SEOmoz’s Keyword Difficulty Tool? (not really) What different methods do you use to get links for Easy Keywords, Medium Keywords, and Difficult Keywords?

Answer:

I don’t really use that tool.  It’s not a bad tool, I just don’t use it much.

As for methods… As usual, it depends on many factors.  Some keyphrases are so easy, all it takes it writing a single blog post about it and you’ll rank at the top spot easily.  Some are still extremely easy, but need a little extra to push it over the top.  In a scenario like this, an exact match domain with a few blog posts on (so it isn’t too thin) should do the trick.  If the exact match domain is not available, one could easily post a blog then fortify it with a few clean anchor links.  If the phrase you’re trying to rank for is very easy, and also has very little inherent value, here is a cheap and easy way to get a page to rank.

• Post a blog or publish a web page with the exact keyphrase you are trying to rank for as the title (in the tag like this: <title>Keyphrase</title> – if you’re trying to get an already established page to rank, skip this step)
• Create a few simple free blogs on hosted blog sites with the title as the name of the blog.  Wordpress.com, Blogger, Vox, etc.
• Write a short simple blog on each hosted blog you create, with the keyphrase in the title.  Make sure within the content of that blog post the keyphrase is used at least once, and that the keyphrase is a clean anchor text link to the site or page you are trying to rank.  If you are using the visual editor when posting your blog, the link should look like this: keyphrase.  If you are using the code editor, it should look like this <a href=”http://www.SiteOrPageYouAreTryingToRank.com/”>keyphrase</a>.
• Wait for Google to put your site to the top

If the keyphrase you are trying to rank for is very competitive, the course of action depends on you or your client’s risk tolerance versus the potential reward.  Everybody wants fast rankings, but some of the methods it takes to get those rankings may get your site banned or penalized.

It also depends on the potential profitability of those rankings.  If you are directly hooked into a highly monetizable engine, you earn a lot more from those rankings than you would if you were an affiliate for the same company. That means those rankings are far more valuable.  There is no middle man taking a cut. You can probably afford to spend more to achieve long term gains.  In this case, the first thing I would spend it on is TALENT.  Build an in house link building team for that engine, train them to be link ninjas, and work through them to grow your rankings.

If it is a highly profitable operation, then don’t stop at doing just enough to get that top spot on Google.  Build an impenetrable fortress of linkitude that no competitor could even touch.  Once you’re on top, you keep building those clean links.  Do everything in your power to insure that the shifts in link power on next Google update are already covered on your link portfolio to prevent any droppage.

If you are an affiliate marketer, or you are using indirect monetization methods, or your business model is not yielding high margin returns, your strategy probably switches to a more down and dirty approach.  You have less to lose than an already established and highly monetized operation.  Intelligent link purchases, content distribution, social media manipulation, and other aggressive tactics will probably gain you impressive tanking results.  But you increase your risk tremendously.

If your keyphrases are somewhere in the middle of the difficulty range, you will be spending a lot of time analyzing the link portfolios for your competitors that already rank for the keyphrase you are gunning for, and emulating those results.  Just try to do what they do PLUS ONE.  If  they have 100 links from similar quality sites with the same anchor text, get at least 101 of those AND make sure you also get that low hanging fruit on top of that.  Use the same risk / reward mentality, and make sure you know how much your average search engine referral is worth to your site so you know how much you can afford to spend on getting those rankings.

If you have an SEO question, and want some FREE SEO ADVICE, feel free to contact me with your question.  I can’t guarantee all SEO questions will be answered right away, but hey it’s FREE SEO advice!

Jon’s opinion remains unaltered by my domineering attempts to get him to admit my Bailey is cuter than his Tyson.  So I declared a PUPPY-OFF!!!

The rules are simple, I post the two pictures below, and YOU just comment on this thread that my puppy is cuter.  If you choose not to admit MY puppy is cuter, you are also a false prophet of puppy cuteness and you can join Jon among the ranks of people who have no idea how to judge the cuteness of a puppy.

So let’s do this thing…

Tyson

Here is Jon’s puppy.  He’s a 7 week old boxer who doesn’t sleep, whines a lot, and poops gigantically all over the house.  Cute?  Maybe.

Bailey

Now here is my little Bailey.  A sweet little 7 week old Malti-Poo who already is somewhat potty trained and can fit easily into my front pocket for maximum cuteness retention.

Now you be the judge, which puppy is cuter?  (say mine)