Why Does SEO Have A Bad Reputation?

MICHAEL:
Hi guys, Michael here. Do you want a second opinion on your SEO? Head to theseoshow.co and hit the link in the header. We'll take a look under the hood at your SEO, your competitors and your market and tell you how you can improve. All right, let's get into the show.

INTRO: It's time for the SEO show where a couple of nerds talk search engine optimization so you can learn to compete in Google and grow your business online. Now here's your hosts, Michael and Arthur.

MICHAEL: Well, hello and welcome to another episode of the SEO show. Arthur's shaking his head, he doesn't like my welcome. No, you need to work on your intro skills. I thought I was by doing it a little bit differently there. Yeah, but different doesn't necessarily mean better. I know, I'm A-B testing them, just seeing what the response is like and then I'll favor the winners and move on.

ARTHUR: My response or the listener's response?

MICHAEL: All of our adoring fans that write in and tell us about our intros. You know the ones, right? All three of them. Pretty much. Yeah. Well look, Hey, that's a pretty good little segue because see, I was just dodgy then saying all our adoring fans that write in when in reality fans don't really write in. I'm talking it up a bit and it's a bit like the topic of this show today because Someone, Brian, asked, why does the SEO industry have a bad reputation? And they have a bad reputation because there's constantly people making stuff up. Like I just did pretty much. As an SEO, you shouldn't be doing that. No, well, I don't. As an SEO, I don't. But as a co-host of the SEO show, trying to work desperately on my intros, I do a little bit. But. Yes. The SEO industry does have a bit of a bad reputation. We would have normally done this in one of our Q and A episodes, but we felt we could do a whole episode on this one question from Brian. So Brian, you're getting a whole episode dedicated to you today, which is pretty cool. Lucky Brian. Very lucky. And I do agree that the SEO industry does have a bad reputation. It's annoying. Cause, um, well it's annoying as an agency and you know, it's something I've, I've worked in since like the late 20, 2000. So late two thousands, I've been doing SEO since. So seeing it go through, you know, being this new thing and then like a big gold rush and then just lots of dodgy operators coming in that have no idea what they're doing, ripping people off.

ARTHUR: Yeah.

MICHAEL: Causing us to be thrown in with, you know, car sales people and real estate agents as like dodgy operators in some people's opinions. It is annoying. And it comes down to two things really. There's a lot of incompetent people in the SEO world, isn't there? There is. There's also a lot of clients engaging with SEO in the totally wrong way. Very true. With those powers combined, it leads to a bad reputation for the industry, for some people. You know, other people that have really grown their business and had huge success don't think that SEO has a bad reputation. But you know, when you have a bad experience, that's going to cloud your thinking.

ARTHUR: Yeah. And like you said, it's unfortunate for people like us who I think we're good SEOs. So being kind of pigeonholed based on someone else's bad experience with a dodgy SEO is, it is frustrating. And often you have to, I guess, regain someone's trust. So if a client's had a bad experience, it's basically guilty until proven innocent a lot of the time.

MICHAEL: Yeah. So we thought it'd be cool to chat about, why SEO world has a bad industry, bad industry, bad reputation. And, um, in the planning for the, the episode, I thought we could break it down into the industry, the agency and the client and those three things and how they you've prepared. I have prepared for once. I'm going to start with a little story here. Okay. I, my wife, was watching some absolute trash the other night. A show called Byron Bathe. Don't know if you've heard of it. You have, because I was telling you about it. Don't pin it on your wife. You were watching it. No, well, I came in, I'm like, you know what? I'll give this a go. I tried to watch it and I had to leave. Couldn't stand it. But something about it really annoyed me. Something in it. They're introducing all the people and stuff and it flushes up on the bottom of the screen with their name and what they do. Like the title, job title. Yeah. And one of them flashed out with like Johnny or whatever his name was and beneath it, digital marketer. Okay. And like, they're just, he's not a digital marketer, this guy. He wouldn't know his canonical tags from his robots.txt file. He wouldn't, but he's out there like, this is, I'm going to get to my point in a minute. Sounds like a random. He's thrown, he's thrown digital marketer out there as his job title. He definitely isn't working in digital marketing. Okay. But that's sort of the state of things at the moment. There's just so many people piling in to this world because it's a growing industry. It's booming. Like clients are getting results in some cases. Yeah. There's all these gurus out there telling them they can go start a business in digital marketing and just kill it. It's like, it's almost like people on Instagram saying they're an entrepreneur when you don't really know what they do. So, um, the industry itself, you don't need qualifications. So what made Johnny not a digital marketer in your eyes? I could see he wasn't.

ARTHUR: Just the look of him?

MICHAEL: Just the look of him. 30 seconds of watching him on the screen. Okay. You know what? I'm probably wrong. I'll go, his name is not even Johnny. I can't remember what it was.

ARTHUR: But the point you're trying to make is there's a lot of people out there claiming to be digital marketing experts when really they don't know what they're talking about. Trying to get as many clients and sign as many people as they can. Correct. Scam them to a degree and build a business out of it. Yeah.

MICHAEL: Okay. I don't even necessarily think a lot of them are actively scamming. I think I just think they like the idea of being in business and stuff, but they don't come from a nerdy technical digital marketing background.

ARTHUR: So they're not selling marketing courses. They're just digital marketers.

MICHAEL: Yeah, I don't know what he thinks he does as a digital marketer.

ARTHUR: Because there are those people out there that are selling courses. Yeah, the gurus. The gurus, you know, dropshipping, digital marketing, they're scammers in my eyes.

MICHAEL: Well, if there's one thing more incompetent than a dodgy digital marketer. The dodgy dropshipper. No, it's an online course guru selling the dream. Why are they spending all their time selling courses on how to do digital marketing and make all this money rather than just doing that themselves if it's that easy? They're preying on these… They're creating more competition for themselves. Yeah, because they're not actually doing the stuff they're teaching most of the time. But they're also preying on people that want to very quickly and easily go create this business and make all this money without actually thinking about the product or service they deliver and the clients that they look after. Yeah. The dodgy digital marketers. So there's a lot of this stuff and there's no qualifications needed, no certifications or industry body memberships or regulatory oversight in the industry. And so anyone can just rock up and say that they're a digital marketer, like some bloke off Byron Bay and start taking money off people. I've got to watch this show tonight. Don't, don't do it to yourself. But look, everyone sort of knows there's a bit of a gold rush as we're saying in this space at the moment. So how do you, how do you address that? Well, it's really researching who you work with, right? I think so. Look at their background.

ARTHUR: I feel like we've spoken, I remember we had an episode that kind of touched on it. Yeah, we did like dodgy, dodgy health tactics. So I think, yeah, having a look at the agency and having a look at the team, how long they've been around, have a look on LinkedIn and like have a look at the SEO. Like chops. Yeah. Basically have a look through their team and their pedigree, their pedigree. I like that. Yeah. So I guess have a look at the experience. How long have, you know, the person you're dealing with, if you're dealing with the SEO specialist, how long have they been in SEO, you know, how they've been doing it for a year and they're a specialist already or how they've been doing it for, you know, six years, you know, someone that's been doing it for six years is going to be a lot more knowledgeable and have a lot more experience than someone that's just claimed to be a specialist. And yeah, you know,

MICHAEL: Yeah. Do the people that run the place have a background in doing this stuff or are they just people that have started a business after doing a YouTube course and are now selling services that they're thoroughly incapable of delivering out to people?

ARTHUR: It's not to say that someone, if someone's been doing it for a long time, that they're good, but you know, you would think that over the years they would have picked up enough experience to know a thing or two about digital marketing.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

MICHAEL: And like, let's say with your accountant, would you go give it to someone that has just done a YouTube, watched some YouTube videos and thrown up a website saying- The difference is accountants have certification. I know that, but like that aside, you would want to be, you'd want to see that they've actually worked as an accountant before and know what they're doing.

ARTHUR: They're not just someone that- There's probably a lot of dodgy tax accountants out there that are very similar.

MICHAEL: Probably isn't because of regulation, as you said. But like maybe bookkeepers.

ARTHUR: Yes.

MICHAEL: Anyone can say they're a bookkeeper and do it and I believe anyway, and you're going to have varying degrees of quality. But look, that's the first pillar of why the SEO world can have a bad reputation with some people that have a bad experience. Because as we said, not everyone has a bad experience. Lots of clients love SEO. So that side of things. The dodgy side of, you know, training courses, no qualifications needed will lead to dodgy agencies. So as you said, people with no experience selling services to anyone. The other thing is some agencies will offer prescription without diagnosis. I love that line.

ARTHUR: I like it too. I saw it here in the notes. It stands out. It does stand out. So it's like prescription without diagnosis.

MICHAEL: Yeah, so you call up, I need some SEO, 500 bucks a month.

ARTHUR: They're going to package it out, hearing out your actual problem. It's like a doctor saying, yep, I'm going to… Prescribe antibiotics without even knowing that, you know, you need them.

MICHAEL: Yes. So there's that going on a lot. The other thing is some services out there are just charging too little. SEO is slow and expensive, can't escape that. We've spoken about that before. So if they're charging too little, they're going to ultimately deliver a bad service. Then the person on the other end of it is going to think SEO is dodgy. And then SEO is going to have a bad reputation. Um, I would say services run by salespeople, not nerds in the SEO world, like some person that's come from not in the industry and just started a business and is selling it all and doesn't isn't weird in that they like to build websites and like build and do content and all that stuff that SEO people do. You're probably not going to be the best experience in terms of what they deliver their clients.

ARTHUR: If the salesperson is the person that's actually doing the digital marketing, is that what you're saying?

MICHAEL: Yeah. If the salesperson is the one driving the business.

ARTHUR: Or if the business is just very sales driven, like. Not to say that that's wrong, but if you can kind of get the sense that they're more like, I'd like to think we're nerds at heart and we kind of portray that with our website and our branding and I guess the way we operate. But there's agencies out there which just seem like they're more of a sales machine and you can just kind of tell by looking at their site and the fact that they're just constantly pushing.

MICHAEL: Do you know what I'm trying to say? Yeah, a hundred percent. And I reckon most clients should be able to pick up on that.

ARTHUR: Well, that's the thing I was thinking about it and it is kind of hard for me to put on, you know, client colored goggles for lack of better words. But I can see through the bullshit. It's because I've been doing it for a long time. But if you're a client and you're seeing that sort of messaging and, you know, sales tactics and promises and guarantees and I can see why it is appealing.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Well, a guarantee of results and you know, that's a red flag. We'll work for free. If we don't get results, we don't get paid all that stuff. Totally appealing, but it's usually not true.

ARTHUR: I find not that I'm a salesperson, but you know, I, clients do ask, do you have any guarantees? You know, if I sign with SEO, can you guarantee me position one in three months? The answer is no. Cause you know, No one can guarantee that. If they are, they're lying. Yeah. And if they're, if they're doing guarantees, they're often, you know, picking cherry picking keywords that have no search volume that aren't going to drive traffic, but they know they can rank very quickly. So on paper, you might see a list of 20 keywords ranking first, they'll take that off, but they don't have any volume or traffic or relevance. Not achieving any sort of business outcome for you. Yeah. So, you know, it's a scam. It's, you know, misleading to the client. They're probably thinking, wow, look cool. I've got all these position one keywords, but reality it's not doing anything.

MICHAEL: Hmm. Well, maybe this is a good segue to talk about the third pillar of this, which is clients contributing to why SEO has a dodgy reputation in some parts, because you just said there, um, what do you say? Clients wanting guarantees and stuff and all the rest of it. You know, if, if a client doesn't understand what they're buying, And then they get angry about it. I see that happen a lot. Like they'll think they want SEO or need SEO when really they need Google ads or something like that because they're going for quick results. Yes. But they want to buy SEO and a dodgy SEO agency says, yep, we'll sell you it. Yep. if they're then gonna blame SEO when it takes months and months and months to get results, fire the agency and swear it off, say it's dodgy.

ARTHUR: Yeah, and look, it's happened a lot. And that goes back to what I said earlier, then you're basically guilty until proven innocent, working hard to try to convince the client or whoever you're working with that it does work, that it is a great channel for driving revenue or whatever your goals are. but they have this tainted, you know, picture of SEO and it's just so hard to, you know, bring them back, I guess, for lack of better words.

MICHAEL: No, that's exactly what it is. You've got to sort of build up that trust again that was lost with dodgy engagement.

ARTHUR: And that could also lead to a bad, I guess, relationship with the client because if they're, they don't trust you, then they're going to be hitting you up a lot and you'll get a feel for that. You know what I mean? You know that they don't trust you and it can be frustrating for the person on the other end because they're dealing with this client that's constantly unhappy. You're trying to explain everything, trying to, I guess, educate them along the way, but they still have this perception of SEO that it's a scam or whatever. So it can lead to, I guess, having communication issues with a client and just an unpleasant experience for both parties.

MICHAEL: Um, on the client side as well, I would say unrealistic expectations and like two compressed timeframes. Like, you know, just need it quickly and I need amazing results and I need to be spending 500 bucks a month to get it.

ARTHUR: Yeah. I think the worst thing is when you do tell a client it's going to be X amount of time and they say, yep, yep. Yeah, no, I understand. But then when you send them the first report and they don't see what, you know, they've, they've set this benchmark in their mind and no matter what you say, no matter how much you try to steer them in the right direction, they've got this benchmark in their mind. So although they say, yeah, I understand it's six months, they're going to be disappointed after month one. Yeah. So they're already kind of, you know, set those benchmarks. Hmm.

MICHAEL: So it really SEO works where there's a fit between skilled practitioner that knows what they're doing with a strategy that's customized to the customer, a customer with a realistic investment and a realistic timeframe that understands what they're actually buying. Yes. And then the ultimately the product or service that's being promoted has a chance of generating enough sales to generate a return to recover that investment. All of those things need to be in balance for the engagement to be right. And if things are out of balance there, it often will lead to a bad engagement. So then again, the same as, you know, used car dealers, they have a bad reputation, but there's plenty of really good ones. Real estate agents have a bad reputation.

ARTHUR: Have we talked about reviews in this episode? No. In what sense? Well, I mean, that's another thing to look at. I mean, when you're looking and you're doing your research on the people at an agency, have a look at the agency and see what sort of reviews they have.

MICHAEL: The only thing I would say on that just, yeah.

ARTHUR: Well, they can be fake. Yes.

MICHAEL: Yes. Yeah. You got to do all your research like usual, but, um, review that can be a fact, a part of why the industry has a bad reputation in fact, because the fake reviews. Yeah. Like a dodgy operation will actively manipulate their reviews to make them look better than what the real customers are saying to keep winning business and then rip off more people. And it happens a lot.

ARTHUR: Yeah, you could try dig a little bit deeper than just Google reviews. I remember Whirlpool was a good source of, you know, getting legitimate feedback from people that I've actually dealt with bad agencies and those massive threads back in the day.

MICHAEL: Yeah. I don't know if there still is. I think there would be.

ARTHUR: I haven't checked in a long time, but do your research, you know, see what other people are saying. If they're a big agency, then there's probably some sort of chatter about them online.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Look, if they've been around for years and years and years, and that's a good sign. That's a good sign in itself. That would be the one thing like this. There's a lot of like Johnny come lately, as they say in this world that pop up for a while and then disappear or they get a new name. So look for that. I guess we're not trying to, with this episode necessarily teach you what to look out for in terms of qualifying these agencies. It's just more about this question that was sent in by Brian where He says, why does the SEO industry have a bad reputation? I feel it only does with, I guess, people that have engaged the wrong sort of agency or gone into the wrong expectations. The ones where everything is in alignment generally will have a good experience and SEO is a massive channel for those types of businesses, for a lot of businesses. So, um, yeah, we thought this warranted its own episode. We have touched on all of these types of things in previous episodes, but you know, in a rapid fire way, we wanted to answer that question today for Brian and, um, get on our soapbox a bit like at the start and let you all know not to watch Byron Baes, whatever you do.

ARTHUR: I'm going to watch it tonight.

MICHAEL: Maybe not tonight, but this weekend you got to watch the Broncos tonight.

ARTHUR: Is that tonight? It's Friday.

MICHAEL: Yeah. So watch that and then see how you go with Byron Baes. I don't, I don't think you'll get through it.

ARTHUR: I'll give it a crack. I want to see this Johnny guy now or this digital marketer.

MICHAEL: Yeah. I forget his name. It was a blonde dude. So you'll see the first step was 10 minutes into the first episode. He's not a digital marketer. Oh yeah. He's not. Well, he might be.

ARTHUR: We should probably give research. I'll give it a little bit more than 10 minutes and I'll give you my feedback.

MICHAEL: All right. Well, I'm glad you've got your night sorted, but to everyone listening, thank you for tuning in. We'll be back next week with another episode of the SEO show. In the meantime, happy SEOing. See ya. Bye. Bye.

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