There is no doubt that search engine optimization is essential for helping your business appear in search results. With so many people relying on the internet to find out pertinent information about your business, SEO is not merely a luxury – it is a must.
However, how do you know when your SEO marketing consultant is truly up-to-date on current search engine optimization strategies?
Below are SEO tactics that no longer work, but yet many SEO marketing consultant companies are still utilizing and charging their clients for despite the lack of effectiveness. If you see a consultant offering these things, reconsider your decision.
They Tell You They Have a “Secret” to Trick Google 
LinkedIn has over 18,000 software engineers listed at Google, but you are telling me that this guy has a secret to outsmart all of them? I may have believed that story 10 years ago, but not today. Even if they did have a loophole, it would close very quickly.
In short, don’t ever hire anyone that is trying to “outsmart” or “trick” Google. Instead, hire an SEO marketing consultant that is determined to do it the right way (which often takes a lot more time).
They Talk To You about The Keyword Metatags
I am amazed how many people still talk about the keyword metatag. Google has officially told us over and over that they totally ignore it. People still continue to stuff keywords in there “just in case.” I say “Thank you” because if you are the competition you just made my research a whole lot easier.
In short, you can optimize your website for search engine optimization the right way, and stuffing keyword metatags on all of your web pages does not help your SEO efforts.
They Never Talk With You about Domain Authority
You can do all of the SEO you want but if your Domain Authority (DA) is low then you will have a very hard time ranking for most terms.
Instead, at Uptick, we try to find keywords you can rank for instead of shooting for the stars and ending up on page 10 because you have a low DA.
They Talk About Rankings Instead of Conversions
Rankings are useless as a measuring stick for several reasons:
- You may be ranking for 1000 terms, but that doesn’t mean anyone is searching for them.
- You could put five people in a room and have them search for the same term and all get different results based on their search history, where Google thinks their device is located, their social circles, if they are logged into a Gmail account or not, and several other things.
- It doesn’t matter if you are getting all kinds of traffic if you aren’t converting any of the traffic. SEO today includes taking the visitor through the conversion instead of stopping at the visit.
In short, where you are ranked doesn’t matter unless you are actually reaching people with the terms that you are optimizing your website for.
They Never Bring Up Blogging, Local Optimization, Reviews or Social Media
Search Engine Optimization is no longer just about what happens on the website. Google’s algorithm is always changing and as it continues to get more sophisticated. Without blogging, capturing your local information, getting reviews, and participating in social media, your on-page SEO will suffer greatly.
They Talk About Adding a Large Number Of Links To Your Website
The whole value of links changed years ago when the number of links became less important and source of the link became more important. When the number of links mattered, people would trade links with another website and hope that they could help each other’s business and at the same time make Google like them. That doesn’t work anymore.
Instead, you need a link from other trusted websites. Having a large number of bad websites (ones with low domain authority) linking back to your website will hurt your website, not help it. Links are important, but only the good links help.
They Act Like SEO Is an Overnight Success
SEO is hard work and takes a long time to really be effective. It is a great long term strategy to drive solid traffic to your site for a long time. The most recent stats say that search engine traffic makes up an average of 64% of all traffic. That’s a lot and shouldn’t be ignored, but it takes time to do it right and time for the results to show up.
SEO and digital marketing go hand and hand. If you are working with a company that doesn’t understand modern SEO, you need to run away very quickly before they hurt your business and waste your money.
Experience the Uptick Difference
At Uptick Marketing, we take a holistic approach to digital marketing and SEO is an important piece of that puzzle.
At the end of the day, we are more interested in website optimization over search engine optimization, because we want to take the visitor through the entire sales process instead of just driving traffic. Click here to learn more about our approach to digital marketing and advertising.
We would love to talk with you about how to drive traffic to your website, generate leads from that traffic, and then turn those leads into sales. Contact us today to learn how our Birmingham marketing agency can help your business grow.
