Everyone wants to be on the first page...
The other day, I got a call from someone who used to attend our church wanting to know if I was still in the website business. I told her I had sold my web design business and retired from working on other people’s websites, and now work only on my own. Apparently she had “somebody” do a website for her and now she wants to get it to come up on the first page. (Oh brother…here we go…). She had a painting she was trying to sell and she built a website just to sell this painting which worth about $7500. I told her that getting on the first page of search engine results is a very complex undertaking and there is no “magic pill” that will do it (other than pay-per-click). I also told her that companies charge thousands of dollars for this kind of work, and I hardly think it’s worth that kind of expense to sell $7500 painting. I suggested she sell it on eBay, instead.
It never ceases to amaze me how many people and companies think they can just build a website and then magically get it to show up on the first page for every search phrase they can think of. I have so many high-ranking pages I can’t count them all, but I’ve worked for years to get them there and sustain them. Unfortunately, the SEO business is perceived only slightly better than the used car business (no offense to any used car salesmen/SEO’s out there ;). There are a lot of shady companies offering “SEO services” with empty guarantees, but a lot of us work really hard at it and do good work. Before I sold my portfolio of around fifty clients, I had to put up with phone calls from clients asking things like, “We just slipped from the second position on Google for “[insert keyword phrase here]” to the third position. What happened?” Pu-lllllease! Unless you want to pay me to work on your SEO on an ongoing basis, don’t expect me to give a rip about a one-position drop in the rankings (or a one hundred point drop either, for that matter :o).
Enough, already. If you’re in the business you know what I’m talking about. Everyone wants the results, but few are willing to pay for it. That’s why I’m glad to be done doing SEO for everyone else and only doing it for myself. The rewards are much greater!
