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This is obviously a fairy tale, no SEO consultant would ever give a quantified, testable prediction of the effects of their work.

by Harkins 18y ago

wmeredith 18y ago
Oh, bullshit. I'm an SEO. You'll find a link to a downloadable pdf case study right here: http://www.voltagecreative.com/search-engine-optimization.php http://www.voltagecreative.com/search-engine-optimization.ph... True, many SEO are snake oil salesmen, but not me or my firm. We back our SEM program with results. </mild-overreaction>
- alex_c 18y ago
  I'm sorry to say, but my first reaction was "How much are they charging for the PDF?" There are a LOT of SEO snake oil salesmen out there. Or maybe there aren't that many, but they're bad/loud/obnoxious enough to give the majority a bad name. Unfortunately, the result is the same...
  - wmeredith 18y ago
    "How much are they charging for the PDF?" :-) It's FREE
    - Hexstream 18y ago
      You mean like the iPods? Over time I've been conditioned to be dubious of some words such as "free", especially in capitals.
- Harkins 18y ago
  So, when hired, you'll make a specific claim like "You'll see a 462% increase in traffic from organic search engine results in 2 weeks."? Your case study is pretty, but it's not predictive, you just say "We did [proprietary stuff redacted] and afterwards traffic jumped." I'd be impressed if you'd published this PDF beforehand and said "We'll increase traffic to the site at least 3x by 2 weeks from today." and your case study was about how you did or didn't meet that specific goal. (And don't even get me started on the fact that the site with the big percentage increase went from 5 daily visitors to 25, or that you seem to claim that your changes were instantly reflected in search engine rankings.) I'm not saying what you do is snake oil, just that I've never seen an SEO confident enough to make a testable, quanitified promise. It doesn't sound like you're making them, either.
  - wmeredith 18y ago
    Not at all. SEO is like farming, we can lay the ground work, but there are tons of factors out of even the best SEO's control. So if SEO is farming Google is the weather. That's why it's an art and not a science. We can and do apply best practices and we do a good job of increasing traffic and conversions for our clients, but there's no SEO that can guarantee anything. (Unless you're doing black hat which is fine, but is always a short term solution and we usually shy away from that.)

This is obviously a fairy tale, no SEO consultant would ever give a quantified, testable prediction of the effects of their work.

by Harkins 18y ago

This is obviously a fairy tale, no SEO consultant would ever give a quantified, testable prediction of the effects of their work.

wmeredith 18y ago

Oh, bullshit. I'm an SEO. You'll find a link to a downloadable pdf case study right here: http://www.voltagecreative.com/search-engine-optimization.php http://www.voltagecreative.com/search-engine-optimization.ph... True, many SEO are snake oil salesmen, but not me or my firm. We back our SEM program with results. </mild-overreaction>

alex_c 18y ago
I'm sorry to say, but my first reaction was "How much are they charging for the PDF?" There are a LOT of SEO snake oil salesmen out there. Or maybe there aren't that many, but they're bad/loud/obnoxious enough to give the majority a bad name. Unfortunately, the result is the same...
- wmeredith 18y ago
  "How much are they charging for the PDF?" :-) It's FREE
  - Hexstream 18y ago
    You mean like the iPods? Over time I've been conditioned to be dubious of some words such as "free", especially in capitals.
Harkins 18y ago
So, when hired, you'll make a specific claim like "You'll see a 462% increase in traffic from organic search engine results in 2 weeks."? Your case study is pretty, but it's not predictive, you just say "We did [proprietary stuff redacted] and afterwards traffic jumped." I'd be impressed if you'd published this PDF beforehand and said "We'll increase traffic to the site at least 3x by 2 weeks from today." and your case study was about how you did or didn't meet that specific goal. (And don't even get me started on the fact that the site with the big percentage increase went from 5 daily visitors to 25, or that you seem to claim that your changes were instantly reflected in search engine rankings.) I'm not saying what you do is snake oil, just that I've never seen an SEO confident enough to make a testable, quanitified promise. It doesn't sound like you're making them, either.
- wmeredith 18y ago
  Not at all. SEO is like farming, we can lay the ground work, but there are tons of factors out of even the best SEO's control. So if SEO is farming Google is the weather. That's why it's an art and not a science. We can and do apply best practices and we do a good job of increasing traffic and conversions for our clients, but there's no SEO that can guarantee anything. (Unless you're doing black hat which is fine, but is always a short term solution and we usually shy away from that.)