Dave had a meeting with a client on Friday which I came in on at the closing stages.
Since starting here one thing I have noticed about Dave is that he likes to explain SEO tactics directly to clients, face to face with a pretty down to earth approach. The client had no online presence and had no experience as to how much value the Internet could give to them or the concepts behind an effective online marketing campaign.
Not for the first time when I walked in the meeting room it was quite clear that the clients looked totally confused by the link building process.
Dave had already gone over the process of obtaining links from quality web sites and establishing authority. He had also fully explained about paid links going through redirects and using the all famous rel= nofollow attribute.
The levels of confusion had started to rise when it was explained that footprints should be eliminated and linking directly to certain sites may well look as if the client were simply paying for links and not be good for the sites ranking in the eyes of search engines who certainly wouldn’t see these links as unbiased.
The meeting went on for another twenty minutes and question that triggered Dave’s exit was “I thought you were supposed to act in the customers interests not just for search engines?”
I ended up trying to explain again what Dave had already gone through in great detail and yet it still seemed the client had been crushed by footprints. It’s not always easy then to explain why we do things in SEO and we can empathise with client’s lack of understanding of processes.
Dan Horton Seo
6 Comments
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8th October 2007 @ 12:00
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Dave was trying to explain link footprints to somebody who doesn’t even have a website. Wow, that’s brave!
8th October 2007 @ 12:20
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boy, do I know that feeling… And the worst part is when they say “but all my competitors do that and they rank well!”… sigh.
8th October 2007 @ 13:09
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Brave to say the least….
Have to say, explaining something as complex as the current link building landscape to an SEO virgin by all accounts sounds brave. I have found most clients are more interested in results, and actually worry very little about how this is done, no matter how much we want to advise them.
9th October 2007 @ 14:48
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[...] links aren’t paid in order to not receive a penalty. Some links that are editorial picks may look like paid links in some cases, right? Although I couldn’t care less about a PR penalty, I still think this is [...]
9th October 2007 @ 15:13
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I have stopped trying to explain it and just say only link to quality related sites and not adult sites.
I find that’s normally enough for someone that has not idea about what I do.
10th October 2007 @ 11:48
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Hehe, good post Dan, but are ou sure the client even understood Dave’s speed talking hard to grasp accent? I know I’m struggeling and I’ve know Dave for a long time
.. but yes, explaining what we do to clients that have no idea, can be very very tricky.