Toronto SEO Firm
Search Engine Optimization Marketing Services

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 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.

You know search engine optimization has gone mainstream when it shows up in a Dilbert comic strip!

but sometimes you can be too honest?  Now I should first point out that this SEO has his site hosted on free hosting and has virtually no ranking himself but I do find his ‘tell it like it is’ attitude refreshing.  Please see the below quote from his website:

The following can all affect the price you might pay for organic optimization:

Size & Complexity of Website

Competitiveness of Rankings in the market sector

Personality Issues (if you’re a very controlling personality, expect a generally higher price)

Love the third point!!

Here is a great simple pie chart showing how valuable SEO is in relation to PPC.  This is not to say that PPC has no value but finding the right mix for your company can really help boost the quantity and quality of visitors you receive from the search engines.

Rand has certainly outdone himself yet again, proving why this guys time might actually be worth $1,000 an hour.  I was playing around with OSE today and it is really a great, simple to use tool that gives you a nice quick snapshot of the relative authority and SEO value of a website.  If Yahoo! is really pulling the plug on Yahoo! Site Explorer than this tool will be even more in-demand!  See our screenshot below, looks like I need to work on root domain authority, since this site is relatively new (I made the mistake of using GooglePages for three years prior to starting this site) I think I should hit the mid 70’s by next year.

I received a private message at a forum I have been a member of for many years and it was from a relatively senior member that was promoting some discounted listings reviews in his network of web directories.  The directories themselves look pretty nice, good templates and category structure but I took a quick look through the backlink profile of one of them and I was quite shocked!

I found backlinks from porn, coming soon sites and even from a page that was simply 10k+ links jammed full of porn, gambling and rx - I was going to post a screenshot of the page but it crashed my browser twice so I figured I better not push my luck.

Most good SEO’s always check backlink profiles before building links but there are many ‘cut-rate’ services out there that won’t spend the extra time doing this type of due diligence.  So be very careful or your website might just become part of a ‘bad neighborhood’.