Criticism
Posted: April 15th, 2012 | Tags: i-com, lakestar, manchester, online ventures group, search agencies, seo, the e word
The company that I have recently become a director of, Online Ventures Group, last-week presented our thoughts to an audience of invited guests at Steelcase in Manchester, which largely included local ‘decision makers’. The tag line of the presentation was purposely provocative. Maybe too provocative 
The intention was to bring attention to the scourge of the industry, not the better search agencies of Manchester including I-Com, The E Word, LakeStar and so on (apologies to the good, local agencies that I have not mentioned – contact me for a mention).
Whilst I am not at all a fan of speaking on behalf of anyone else (I hate it, in fact – who am I to do so?), I thought that this statement was the best way to cause a stir and hopefully try and start to rid Manchester of the truly bad agencies out there (including web design agencies that say that they can do SEO) that steal a living in the search industry from either lack of morals, lack of knowledge, lack of effort, or smoke and mirror tactics – or all four.
Whatever anyone from the search industry may think about our event, if they are stupid enough to close their eyes to a constant stream of ripped-off clients from incorrect selling techniques to atrociously negligent link buying tactics (the worst atrocity in my opinion), then they are ignoring something that desperately needs to be cleaned up, so that the whole local industry benefits – but more importantly, clients benefit. Surely you cannot deny this? If anyone from the search industry believes that there are NOT agencies out there that are like this, please get in touch with me as I have got it all wrong and almost every client that has ever got in touch with me were all incorrect.
One thing that we did of course expect was attacks from those that feel threatened by the message of our event. ’Keyboard warriors’ exist in all walks of life and no controversial news story is immune from this type of presence. What those ‘keyboard warriors’ don’t know is that the people at the event – to a man/woman – understood why they were responding negatively. I would say that in this respect alone, the event was a true success.
Having spoken with around half of the people that attended (35ish, not 12 as reported by a keyboard warrior), it was very clear that they now have the ‘power’ to make decisions about their search strategies without having to sift through the dross, incorrect and purposely misleading information that IS given in SEO proposals and meetings by poor companies.
All I wanted to do was to give the power to those people in the room – and I believe that this is the case. All I want them to do is to know a good search agency from a bad one. If I take flack in the meantime for it, that is just what it takes, but I can sleep at night knowing that I have just helped 30 or so people to not get fooled again.
I didn’t receive any negative press personally, because you know what, every client that I have worked with in the past few years is extremely happy with the results of my work. It has usually put them in a much stronger financial situation than they were prior to my meeting them. Some have given me shares in their own businesses. I may not be the best businessman in the world, or the best at choosing topic titles for events , but I know how to make clients happy – and that is by placing power and control in to their hands. I wonder if this is the same for the keyboard warriors? However, some of the people within my business did receive negative press.
The content of my talk shall remain with those people that came to the event, but it was very simple, I did not sell anything, I did not cloud their judgement or confuse them, I simply showed them how the mathematics of nature unequivocally applied to search engines (specifically Google) and this was the basis of how any website becomes successful - or how any website that ever was successful, became successful. It was done in simple, plain english, and many circles were drawn on the funky whiteboard. There was no theory, just mathematical facts about nature. If you think this is BS, then you really need to brush up on your maths. Those that attended would not agree with you – now.
It only lasted for an hour, but should give a part of the Manchester business world a great understanding of what they need to do for future success. Now, they will start to use companies like I-Com, The E Word, LakeStar etc and me and my own team, rather than the extremely poor SEO companies that really do exist in Manchester.
It may further irk some warriors to know that 9 different businesses came back to our offices after the event to talk, with two large brands (one extremely large) verbally telling us (we had not asked) that they were moving all online activity to us and many of the others showing great interest. Any of you that have ever done a show like this knows that businesses – especially not 25% of them – come back to your offices in such a way, straight after an event.
This was for a few reasons, I believe:
- We didn’t sell anything, just gave information
- We gave the attendees the power to make much better decisions
- The keyboard warriors genuinely helped us greatly – it made sense to the attendees “why they are threatened” – an attendees words, not mine
So, my apology on behalf of the digital industry is exactly that…if you, too, consider yourself a part of the digital industry and consider that those poor, cheating, truly rubbish, and/or inept search agencies are NOT a part of the digital industry, then I hope you understand my sentiments.
Many business owners who do not fully understand SEO, unfortunately because poor companies do not explain in detail what their strategy is. Therefore clients will leave poor SEO companies and take business to digital companies who provide a great all round service. I have spoken to a number of businesses who have previously worked with poor companies and moved to another SEO company which they will continue to work with because they openly admit that they cannot garantee results but will device a clear strategy to ensure progress and long term results.
Results speak for themselves not jargon, sorry keyboard warriors.
Thanks for the comment, ‘TB’.
Credit to you James for posting and talking about some of the nonsense which goes on in our industry, not just Manchester but the world over. I used to work very closely with a group of about 400 eCommerce store owners and many of these had sites which had been “SEO’d” by their webdesigner (they paid a premium for it too!) Or they had got into bed with an “SEO Company” offering packages for £150 per month for x number of links, they were just buying links on blog networks and have come unstuck now.
The process of hiring an SEO should be done in the same way you would get a tradesman I alway say, recommendations, viewing examples of their work and actually meeting them is always going to get the best results.
Thanks for the comment. Yes, this is the point entirely.
If you are a good SEO, working with a good SEO company, my aims are not you.
However, the scourge of this industry are those that offer ‘SEO’/bulk link building, knowing less than 10% of what they should do, giving it a bad name and leaving clients in seriously dangerous positions.
What some of those keyboard warriors have done is defended those that give digital and search companies a bad name, which I hope makes them feel a little silly in time.
You put it clearly – there is just too much nonsense and not enough clear, defined, open discussion that treats clients respectfully, rather than confusing them into submission.
Irony at its best here, “Search engine optimisation” is undoubtedly one of the most lucrative and sought after industries you will find online. Yet the search engines don’t offer courses or qualifications in how to be successful online and there are no plaques on the walls of the best SEO’s in the world, only experience!
With this came an opportunity, an opportunity for people who realised that knowing a little more than the person at the other end of the phone and throwing a few buzz words and jargon into pitch can be exploited to make a quick quid! I’m glad that someone finally shed some light on the truth and whether it’s helped one or thirty of the businesses that attended, the word will spread, and so it should.
If the keyboard warriors spent more time doing right by their client’s and less time slating other companies, they’d have less to worry about!
It’s kind of like there are no stupid kids just bad teachers. All of the bad SEO companies out there either don’t know how to do the job or if they do then they are too lazy to do anything about it. This breeds “stupid clients” or at least these bad SEO companies make them feel stupid and as a result they don’t know who to listen to and more importantly who to trust. If someone gave you directions in Chinese, you still wouldn’t know which way to turn.
You care about the client. You do it naturally and you will tear the rule book up and change tactics quickly if it means that the client is rewarded for it.
There are many SEO’s who want an easy life and do not want to put in the hard work and man hours into making someones website a success. Perhaps 10 years ago their methods really did bring success and made the client happy but now we know that Google is getting far more handy at finding “foul-play” and penalising it accordingly.
If you are someone that finds yourself cutting corners just because you want to save yourself time and money then you are very likely to be upset when someone tells you that there is no real substitute for the hard work of hub linking and finding the right links because no one wants a reminder that their work is being made increasingly redundant as time goes on.
It’s no accident that James has always managed to be surrounded by very hard working and talented people.
SEO is a science and an art. Both these disciplines require in-depth knowledge and/or the talent to think outside the box. How can you expect a ‘full-service’ agency to deliver on these points if they don’t wholly dedicate their business to SEO development?
This is not to say all agencies are no good at SEO, just that a small dedicated SEO company is more likely to have the skills to do a decent job and help you see a return on investment. After all their reputation is at stake if they can’t. An agency can try and get away with ‘Oh well, it isn’t our specialty’ or ‘It was just a bolt on product’.
Finally; SEO costs money. If you want it done right; it costs money. If an SEO company says it can get you to number one for this, that and the other for under a couple of grand, run a mile!
This is brilliant, I would work with one informed customer over five uninformed every day of the week.
Its VERY rare to actually speak to a company who hasn’t had bad experiences with bad SEO companies.Most have 2 or 3 under there belt and finally learn enough to spot the good ones, they are out there. (Best found by talking to their clients, looking at their experience)
Baffling you with jargon is the first ploy and when the client falls for it they use the jargon to justify it ” I pay X and get 200 of these a month 100 of this a month 3 blog posts 20 follows and 5 tweets”. What they dont know is they are paying for a service that will ultimately damage their web property/ is ineffective. REAL SEO is about hard work, grinding getting the name out there for your client, offering the best websites not only for google but for the users.
All the best to any SEO company who works their arse off and get the results (There are plenty) because they truly deserve it and bad luck the undeliverables (There are plenty).
@Tudor, @Matt, @Chris and @Tim thanks for your comments.
A culmination of what you are suggesting is what I am also saying – caring about the client, speaking in plain english, ensuring that you have their best interests at heart, ensuring that they play their own part in their own online success and working on their behalf without endangering them with awful services such as poor, anaemic link building.
@Warren – exactly…you cant tweet when you are busy out of your mind…not in work hours anyway.
I have to say that the title was one of the main things that intrigued me into going – so well done James it worked! As a client I found the angle of the event very refreshing and to be honest – who wouldn’t choose a BS-free approach over jargon and smoke and mirrors?
No names were mentioned, nobody was ‘outed’, the digital industry hasn’t been blown up from the inside; but hopefully a few people will be empowered to make better buying decisions.
Thanks for your comments, Charlotte.
It is nice to hear the opinion of someone that came to the event and saw what really went on, without pre-judgment.
And yes, great comment – “who wouldn’t choose a BS-free approach over jargon and smoke and mirrors?”
I have spoken to so many clients recently who have been ‘sold’ seo services (understanding little of exactly what they have agreed too) who have spent a fortune for poor results. Too many seos still get away with trading off their ‘poor’ services…if, for instance, this was a different industry sector s e.g. financial products the IFA would have slapped them silly (in theory)
. I think the information you provided to the companies who came to see you is exactly what this industry needs (and on an even wider level if it were possible). The seo companies offering poor services give the industry as a whole a ‘bad name.’ I know lots of clients who just ‘don’t know who to trust’. In some ways I see the poorly operating agencies as almost ‘stealing’. Additionally, its not escaped everyone’s notice that most integrated agencies have suddenly become seo experts too as an ‘add on’ to their core businesses. Sadly integrated agencies (unless dedicated to it) do not have the structure or expertise in place to support seo as an ‘add on’ service.In an industry where there is no absolute guarantee on results/time and clear definitive benchmarks I feel its been easier for poor seo businesses to operate within. I think you should be doing more of these informative talks and on a larger scale. Brilliant ! There are enemies everywhere..if you have enemies in your own industry from speaking the truth then fair play to you (I know you’re doing something right!) sod em…make some more and keep informing those businesses who have been ripped off. 
Thanks, Sam!
You are right – at this rate, I am going to have to do more of these talks about honeycombs and SEO…if it helps to separate the good from the bad and (as I have alluded to many times), most importantly helps the clients.
As someone who has actually spent his company money on not one but two “traditional” style SEO providers I am more than able to confirm the frustration and disappointment that the client experiences when BS baffles brains. The worst element is the loss of time, the one thing that is so crucial in all things online and which simply cannot be replaced. It is bad enough when someone tricks you out of money and fails to produce a result, however, when you then wake up to the damage that being literally years behind your competitors can do to your business it is heartbreaking. Thanks James for lifting the veil and letting in the light.
Where do I begin! Having known James now for approximately two years, from the moment we met it was like a breath of fresh air! (Sounds like a first date???) Seriously it was James’ can do attitude and not being afraid of saying what he believed in as opposed to perhaps what we may have first wanted to hear! It was very clear from the outset that this was not going to be a simple supplier/client relationship, which is exactly what we needed. James and the team around him wanted to, to understand the cogs that made our business work so that he could assist with our on-line presence. In the process he helped with a lot of other things without even knowing it, that were none SEO related! We had previously worked with one of the largest national SEO companies who no doubt, for the coca cola’s of this world, their approach may have worked. However, providing us with a 50 page “off the shelf” template it’s only use for us was as a door wedge! We feel privileged to have met James and feel one of the lucky ones! How many more challenging experiencing would we have had with so called SEO companies? I’m sure as James pointed out there are lots of other good companies out there, it’s just the quantities of bad ones that does the SEO industry no good.
Thanks, Steve.
As you say, there are plenty of really good SEO companies out there.
@Mike. Thanks for getting involved. It is appreciated.
As you say, the problem is probably most apparent when you realise that could have wasted months, probably years by too much nonsense, that you fall so far behind the competition.
Totally agree with Mike! If only we could turn back time! Where we would we have been now if we would have met James 6 years ago…..
This is getting a bit embarrassing now
As someone who attended the actual event I would also like to contribute to the “debate”.
Only recently, in the process of redesigning one of the company’s web sites, I started digging into SEO again. I used to do hands-on SEO at a time when Alta Vista was “the” search engine and Google was only just emerging… Things have changed quite a bit.
The fact that I started reading up again on SEO resulted out of a frustration of never getting a straight answer when asking an SEO company (or web agency) “And what is it you will do?”. The answer mostly sounded as if SEOs are practitioners of a skill somewhere between witchcraft and alchemy. Is it because the sales people who are actually trying to sell these services don’t really understand the intricacies of SEO, or is it an attempt at confusing customers with an eye on overcharging for SEO voodoo witchcraft?
Over the last month I have learnt that the question “How?” has never been more relevant as it is today (700,000 unnatural link notice emails sent by Google). If you don’t know what your SEO company is doing, you might be taking a major risk with your brand while also paying over the odds for what you are actually getting.
I decided to educate myself and read up on everything relating to SEO, from Super White Hat to dodgy but fascinating Black Hat. I must admit that my inner-Geek does like some of the Black Hat hacks, but these techniques should never be used by a company who is trying to build a brand and is playing the long game. If you have a few affiliate sites generating money, then I understand one could be tempted by quick fix risky strategies. If the house comes down and it all implodes – because Google penalises your rankings and you end up trying to sell your products or services in a digital desert – you just start again!
My conclusion after reading endless blog posts, watching numerous videos and testing many tools the conclusion is quite simple:
1) On-site SEO can only get you so far (according to different sources between 15 and 25% of your ability to rank depends on this). There is only so much you can do on-site and these techniques are quite well documented.
2) The rest of your SEO potential is defined by the links you can obtain from other web sites. The more “trusted”, the more “authority” the web site has linking back to you, the better your site will be for it. So, then the only 2 questions remaining are “Who are these trusted web sites?” and “Why would these link to my own site?”
And this is where OVG comes in!
When I received the invitation I was quite intrigued but I also kind of knew what I wanted to hear.
James didn’t try to sell OVG’s services but explained Network Science, how Nature creates order from chaos, the concept of hubs in daily life and online, etc. We basically were explained the science behind Google’s algorithm, which in turn explained why you should go after “hub” sites when deciding on a link building strategy. It was an inspirational talk that put in plain English what it is you should aim for when deciding on an SEO strategy, and it also armed the attendees with a good understanding of what an SEO company should be doing for you.
The presentation also – indirectly – showed that SEO has to be a partnership between the customer and the supplier. If your SEO company can just start doing its job without your involvement this should be of concern. Why would you get excellent links from “hub sites” if you are not providing content or functionality?
I can confirm that the event was a pure exercise in “educating the customer”… in a non-patronising way. There was no hard-selling going on, I would even say there was no selling going on at all. It was just about sharing really, which in itself is quite a good sales strategy
Should really learn to summarise reading back this comment…
Sorry to break up the love-in… but I think a large part of the frustration (aside from the obvious and deliberately incendiary title) wasn’t really in what was being said. It was WHO was saying it. We’ve both worked at a business JUST like the ones you’ve “apologised” for… if I remember correctly you left under a cloud, disillusioned with it all. I wasn’t far behind you. What’s more, you didn’t have to work there to know that they were amongst the worst in the industry. They were notorious.
Now you’re back, with the former owner of said company, apologising on behalf of the rest of the industry? I KNOW you understand why some of us found that to be, not to put to fine a point on it, a load of old bollocks.
As somebody who was openly critical of this, I’d like to pick up on something.
There was a similar conference on the same day – Brighton SEO. You may have heard of it. That conference, most of the speakers have put their slides online. Sascon, a conference I have attended, and is a few hundred quid to attend, ends up with the most of the slides online. Same with Thinkvisibility, Linklove etc.
You, in wanting to keep the industry from smoke and mirrors, has purposefully kept your talk with attendees?
Surely also if you were on a quest to clean up the industry you’d share this information & educate as many people as you possibly can?
@Rhys – Hi Rhys, thanks for your comment. I had not heard about SEO conferences before. They sound like such a good idea.
What I talked about is available to anyone, at any time and always has been. You dont need to download slides, you dont need to visit conferences to see it.
Its nice to know that you have attended Sascon and spent a few hundred quid, thanks for telling me. I respect you that much more now.
I, like Rhys and Matt, was an open critic of your ‘event’.
I find it telling, in the extreme, that you don’t reply to Matt’s comment. I think your response to Rhys also says quite a lot too. In particular your witty put down in response to Rhys is hilarious, given your need to state how many companies shifted their business to you after the event.
There are doubtless a fair number of charlatans in the digital arena, but then again there are also a huge amount of great agencies (and indeed individuals). There are a great deal of passionate, talented individuals who are anything but charlatans though. You’ve managed to tar a lot of people with the same brush, a lot of people who are thoroughly undeserving of your scathing critique.
I do, however, find it incredibly interesting that the goals of your company are stated as being:
“The Group was set up in August last year, aiming to achieve a £6m turnover by 2013 and float on the stock exchange in the same year.” i.e. incredibly fast growth, with a view to floating as fast as possible.
Not that that is not a valid goal to have, just that, some might argue, quality cannot be your primary concern whilst you’re concentrating on growth. To my mind, it’s just interesting that you chose to make those your goals, rather than making the quality of your offering your main goal, particularly given the title you gave your event.
Perhaps you should take a step back and view it from the prospective client’s perspective. SEO is still quite new to most of them: smoke and mirrors, the Dark Side, etc. What they’re used to is Paid Search: they’ve been using it for years, and it works (most of the time). And the best thing about PPC is that you know what you’re getting for your money. You put money in one end and get instant gratification at the other. And if the ads don’t work, you can change them and see results in hours.
By contrast, SEO can take weeks! Months!
There’s no book of rules, at least none that the Search Engines are willing to share, and no absolute way of showing how x affects y. But “everyone” says it’s good. You’ve read an article somewhere that says it’s much more cost effective than Paid Search. And it’s Free Search, so it must be as cheap as chips.
So you’re interested in “doing” SEO.
Two companies come along. One says, “it will take time and money and commitment, on your part as well as ours. You will need to do what we say, in good time, and we may ask you to do things which include quite a bit of effort but you might actually get to quite like it. But the result is long-lasting improvement which is more trusted by the end consumer and will get AT LEAST around six times the return on investment than paid search”.
The other says, “We’ll get you to the top of page one on Google for not a lot of money – just don’t ask too many questions, and don’t look too closely what searches you come out top of. We’ll give you shiny statistics (which you won’t understand) but they’ll look quite spectacular. Just one thing, the minute you stop paying us, you’ll disappear from the SERPs quicker than sunshine on a British Bank Holiday”.
So the powers that be – probably all accountants by training – say, “We like ‘long-lasting improvement’ and ‘better RoI than Paid Search’, but we also like ‘not a lot of money’, and after all, if it’s this cheap why would we stop doing it. And we REALLY like the idea of lots of ‘shiny staistics’ that we can put into our PowerPoint presentations, even if we don’t know what they mean.”
No wonder then that the Honest Ron (behind the back of the bike sheds) SEO warehouse companies win business. This sort of near-sighted attitide is very prevalent in small and large business. It’s all about the bottom line for them.
The only way to break the chain is education and information; perhaps some REAL shiny statistics in the form of honest, open and transparent case studies.
I didn’t see James’s presentation – I wish I had – but he taught me a long time ago that SEO (and especially internal SEO) is all about getting the real facts across, especially when they don’t necessarily make pleasant reading. Only when you admit to having a problem, can you tackle it.
The best way to squeeze the Honest Rons out of the market is to show to prosepctive clients what the actual cost of their brand of SEO actually is.
What Max said!