Archive for March, 2010
Just noticed my website listed up on www.thedailyreviewer.com and it is a bit of a good news bad news situation. The bad news is we are all the way down on page 7 but that is off-set by having a really cool neighbor right beside us, Shoemoney – skills that pay the bills! I also noticed SEW and Graywolf on the page, so I know I am in good company!
I found an interesting blog post on DigitalPoint and that combined with some local research really has me concerned about the current and future state of SEO. Almost every new client I speak to has one or two horror stories under their belt from dealing with SEO in the past. Btw, here is the post:
hiii friends
i have join seo line very shortly n i have no knowledge about it all,, i think i choose better line but some body told me that there is no future. is it true if yes then tell me why.. n if its false then tell me how growth is possible in this field.
To me this is a good example of why so many people have bad SEO experiences. Now don’t get me wrong, my favorite coder is from India and we have been working together for the past four years but if you are going to provide research, content, backlinks and represent a company’s website online you should be able to read, write and speak the language you are optimizing for.
I found a really amazing flash website but please be warned that loading time is really long…..don’t even attempt it on dial-up, you will have to quit your job to wait for this one to load. I found it interesting that the page has been indexed by Google and cached because I have seen clients with big images on their home pages appear to receive penalties for being long to access. On my T1 it took around 3 minutes to load up.
I just spent a few minutes perusing the computer services category of my local Craigslist to see what the local competition is up to….and let me tell you – they are up to no-good!
Usually it would make me feel good to see so many clueless folks calling themselves SEO and SEM experts but I am really starting to get concerned. Why you may ask, would I be concerned if my local competition is a bunch of quacks? Well the thing is that I still think they are getting clients and those same clients will walk away in a few months scratching their heads and thinking SEO/SEM is a total waste of time because of these tricksters.
Let me take a moment to count the ways my local competition scare me (and should scare away clients):
1. Most of their websites have very few backlinks but they all brag that they have 5-10 years experience. How can that be?
2. Most of them don’t rank for anything at all, well almost nothing…one of them ranked for ‘online SEO youtube vids’ – now there is a money term!
3. Most of them offer submission to search engines as part of their service.
4. One doesn’t even have his own website, when I called he said he is not a good designer so he needs to buy one soon?!?!
5. A couple are on free hosting services.
Someone just emailed me this link and it was pretty shocking! With so many spammy link sellers buying dropped domains and re-purposing them – this person either doesn’t speak English or is non-too-bright! Check-out the domain name he is selling links on, www.AntiSemiteOfTheWeek.org!
When the big banks start looking for SEO experts you know the profession has hit mainstream! SEO as a profession is quite big in the USA, UK and other countries around the word but Canada has been lagging a bit behind the rest.
But I just heard about a managment position being offered at TD Bank that has lots of SEO expertise requested in the job description:
Job Requirements
Requirements:. Manage SEO project queue and prioritization list
. Work closely with product and content teams to ensure site navigation and contents are optimized for SEO
. Establish, interpret and analyze critical online KPI targets for SEO/SEM initiatives
. Minimum of 3 – 5 years of online experience, specifically developing and executing SEO/SEM strategies
. Ability to effectively communicate SEO standards and best practices to other departments
This is a great sign and should mean more competition for the few good SEO’s in Canada!
Update June 4, 2010
Looks like RBC Financial Group is hiring for a similar position looking for SEM and SEO experience.
Knowledge of SEM (Search Engine Marketing) / PPC (Pay Per Click) and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies and a minimum one year experience measure success of SEM/PPC and SEO campaigns / efforts.
Now that Google is coming to terms (publicly) with the fact that SEO is real and important it seems they released their own SEO Report Card internally.
Very interesting report and you can download the entire thing here.
BUT DON’T FORGET TO READ THE ENLIGHTENING SMALL PRINT!
“This is a monthly submission and linking service. Remember it is important to submit your web site into the search engines on a regular basis or you may get dropped entirely from many major search engine databases. Once a month is the optimal service to having your site appear in over 1000+ of the most important search engines and internet listing directories! Just fill out the submission software 100% SECURE online order form!”
I don’t know about you but I get 85%-90% of my search traffic from Google and the other 9.99% from Yahoo and Bing
The onion takes on a Google request in American Voices:
You are currently browsing the Toronto SEO Services – Local Search Marketing weblog archives for March, 2010.