STOP TAKING ADVICE FROM SEO COMPANIES!

9:55 Creative recently hosted an SEO seminar in Ipswich to which we invited a number of company marketing executives and business owners.

I am pleased to say it was a great success, with over 50 delegates and some great feedback received. We were since approached by a number of businesses asking for help with their SEO. What struck me, once again, was how many of them have been paying apparently credible agencies for SEO services that deliver NOTHING.

I am starting to get pretty peeved with this now. So I now offer new advice – “Stop taking advice from SEO companies!”

Go straight to Google

Seriously, stop. Don’t listen to any of us, not even the good guys (like us). Do not read blogs about SEO (like this one). There is so much inconsistent, misleading and contradictory garbage out there… ignore it ALL, please. (Even us, shining light in a murky world though we may be).
Instead go straight to the guys who will offer genuine, comprehensive, logical and consistent advice. Go straight to Google. Seriously, have you seen the sheer amount of help there is available online from these guys? Go straight to the fabulous Matt Cutts. He heads up the search quality team at Google and has posted a video blog on YouTube for just about every SEO-related query you could think of. Here is one of my favourites, which offers a simple introduction to the subject:

Here’s some links to some of their other great and informative videos:
What are some myths about SEO?
What does Google think of single-page websites?
Does Google still need text to understand my site?
Is it necessary for every page to have a meta description?
Do you recommend article marketing as an SEO strategy?
What should we expect in the next few months in terms of SEO for Google?
What are the top 3-5 SEO areas where webmasters make the most mistakes?

Make an informed decision about which SEO agency to use

Odds are that you will be investing a fair amount of time and money into boosting your search engine visibility, so please first take the time to understand how search works. You can then make an informed decision about your SEO strategy, which agency is worth listening to and which to show the door. Failure to do so makes you fair game to the numerous charlatans out there, and twelve months working with the wrong agency is twelve months where your online visibility is going backwards. .

How to pick a good SEO agency

Simple. Pick one that bases it’s methodologies on what Google Webmasters say you should do. Like us.