Sunday, April 05, 2015

An unexpected SEO horror story.

I thought I'd share this story which illustrates just how bad a name SEO has for a lot of businesses.

Last year I went to Port Douglas for a holiday and when I arrived I was greeted by a very friendly host and his wife. They managed the property. The manager was super keen and had even checked out my site based on my email address. My consulting site is www.OnlineConnections.com.au. The manager explained there's a shortage of good IT support in Port Douglas so was more than happy to push the benefits of moving to Port Douglas.

We stayed at the hotel for around 14 days which in itself was a sizeable purchase. Every day there was a friendly greeting and exchange of conversation. Around the 10th day I spoke to the wife as I needed some help with some testing I was running. I made it clear there was no money involved. I simply wanted to test if I could improve their presence from the 4th page in Google. I'd recently improved an accommodation site in Victoria that was on the fourth page of Google to the second page. I was keen to perform another test and simply needed to work with a business at no cost to them.

During the conversation the husband walked in and heard the words SEO. At that point the entire conversation went down hill fast and their approach to me became quite aggressive. I'd never seen such a reaction before. It was pure hate and anger. I was now seen as the worst of the worst since I'd mentioned SEO. Even though there was no cost, no thought or suggestion of charging, that didn't matter. Not even that fact that I was a customer paying a reasonable amount of money factored in. All I was asking was permission to test if I could give them a better presence which would in turn assist me we my testing.

I completely understand the person's reaction. Over time I like many other businesses been approach by SEO businesses promising the world. I've seen clients use SEO consultants with no return on the money they spend. Not even an improvement in their Google position. I get it.

To help businesses not avoid getting ripped off by SEO business I've created a site called SEO Company Melbourne. On the site there's an approach I suggest people use to lock down their SEO service provider. There's also a calculator which shows an estimated value a position in Google may be worth to their business.

I hope others find the site useful.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.JustLocal.com.au

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