One of the job post caught my eye, I was interested at first because it’s a music industry, other than I love music I also never had a client in that industry yet. His first few lines also tells me that he might be a match for me – not for dating or anything romantic, I mean for me as my client, and me as his SEO specialist. Yes, I’m choosy with clients, working for 7 years in this industry and 8 years online it makes you develop this dream boss.
Anyway, but when I read the detail one or two of his requirements made me laugh, one was “you should tell me your strategy” and the best one was “you should give me an estimate on when I’ll be ranking #1”
If you’re wondering why I’m laughing at it, it’s because (1) if I share my strategy will he understand it? By the way he is saying things, he seems to me that he just found out about SEO and then is now looking for someone to do it. (2) Maybe you won’t like it me saying this, but if I immediately share to him my strategy, when I’m not hired yet, he can totally apply the strategy without hiring me, and hire someone to do things hourly.
The second one is the topic we’ll be discussing actually. But don’t get me wrong, who doesn’t want to rank #1? I want all my clients to rank #1 in all keywords, in all countries, in all search engines! Wooohoo for me! Bravo for my clients? And maybe if they’re kind and happy enough they’ll buy me a couple of things on my wish list.
IT’S LIKE A WEATHER
But again, as I always share it here. SEO is not magic, it’s not like disease that if you give someone a medication, you should expect this in a few hours and if it doesn’t work we’ll increase or change the medication.I’d like to compare SEO to a weather. Sure, you can expect it to rain tomorrow, to be sunny the next day, to be cloudy the whole week next week but then you won’t expect and even can tell that on the month of June there will be surely a typhoon. Sure! You can see the typhoon coming but were you able to tell exactly when? When your app says it will be sunny tomorrow, it will be a great time to go to the beach and then when you’re there, there’s this huge typhoon coming in! – I can relate to this because it do happen here. I make plans for a trip and then viola! The flights are cancelled, the beach is not sunny but wet and you haven’t even reached the shore yet.
How does this similar to SEO? Maybe if you say “if there’s no update in 6 months, when will I rank?” I can probably say, maybe in this month. But….
I AM NOT GOOGLE (or Bing, or Yahoo)
I don’t work for Google as I always highlight. SEOs don’t work secretly for these search engines – I mean, I wish, I get money from the client, I get money from Google. I’m probably rich by now! But I’m not. I don’t even own my own house.Google don’t tell us right away that “hey, we’ll be doing this today and what you have to do on your client’s website is this and that..” they even launch updates secretly and we just notice some changes. Then we talk to other SEO experts out there and then they go “OH DARN IT! YOU FOUND IT! YOU GOT US THERE…”
So, when Google will be so kind to us and share their update and their secret formula and algorithm on how they rank websites, get back to me and I’ll give you the accurate day that you’ll be #1.
THE KEYWORD
Other than search engine algorithm updates, one of the things that will effect on your ranking is the keyword that you want to rank. There are actually multiple things about your keyword that will effect on when you’ll rank at most on the first page but majority of the time they are:- Keyword Competition – of course if you’re competing with 10 million websites who are also doing SEO, where maybe 10% of it have been doing it for at least a year, and here you are a new comer, it will surely take time. It’s like “hey try my dog food product” but people know Royal Canine, Pedigree, Alpo, and other dog food who have been around for years and even some on vet clinics.
- Keyword Match – one of the issue that may have not been noticed or just taken granted by some is the keyword they want to rank. It doesn’t mean that you want to rank on the keyword “dog” when you have a dog food product, you can totally rank. Or maybe rank for “cat food” when you have a dog food. Some even want to rank to scientific names, when there’s a more common and most used by the internet users these days. Sometimes the intention is not even right.
THE WEBSITE
This is for me one of the sad part, some really want to rank, willing to pay, willing to follow your instructions and let you do whatever you want but never ever touch the website because I’m happy with it. Some are even happy with these simple websites, so simple that my 10 year old niece can probably make one 10 times better.Sure you’re happy with the look! But have you thought of your visitors? If you’re the visitor to that website, will you even spend a minute on it? Will you even scroll down? Will you even trust the company?
It’s not about just looking good, but also looking professional. Think of it like applying for a job, will you wear shorts, sleeveless for a job as a front desk? As a flight attendant? As a manager? No, you want to look good. Another thing is, you want to look presentable, easy on the eyes. How this relate to SEO? Make your website easy to navigate, easy to understand, easy to access things.
Also, having a well-constructed website will totally help in boosting your ranking, and of course, a well optimized site.
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
As you might know I do offer my SEO service as a package, and I don’t accept jobs for hourly or fixed rate per month for multiple website. There are some clients who expect way too much for my cheaper service, and that’s even with me informing them that it’s may not be as effective as the one I’m recommending.I do sometimes suggest the cheaper one when I think they’re in a tight budget, and the keywords are not that competitive but still give a disclaimer that I can’t promise that it will give a huge impact.
You see, this is like losing weight, when you only do a 5 minutes workout and expect to lose 10 lbs. in a month, and without even a diet.
THE FIRST ONE IS NOT ALWAYS RIGHT
The final one (at last!) is that at first I aim the top 10, once that is reached, I aim for the top 5, and after that the top 3. If they rank #1, then great! If they rank #3 it’s great!I can’t find that study and test done by my fellow SEO specialists a long time ago, that ranking #1 does not always gets the gold. Their test shows that the websites ranking 2-5 can get more clicks than the one ranking #1. One of the reason is that when you’re ranked #1, it’s more nearer to the ads, so they sometimes ignore the ones ranking 1-2 first, and most likely click on the other 3-5 ranking website.
It’s like relationships. Your first one does not mean he’s surely your forever.
Therefore, there are a number of things to consider, there’s no exact or even accurate way to say when or even if you’ll be able to rank #1.
But what I can guarantee is that in a few months, and even in all my clients they do notice an increase in their traffic in a month. As for the ranking, it depends, some clients just don’t really want to do things on their website or just takes too long for them to do on their website (e.g. having someone write a content), that in a matter of 3 months there are just few changes, and a number of my clients got great results in 3 months.
I don’t deny it though, there are SEOs that can guarantee the #1 ranking. But I have to warn you though, it’s not good for you, for your business, for your reputation, and your website.
