December 29, 2008

Guaranteed Rankings? - There's No Such Thing

I would say that guaranteeing rankings is so 1980, but SEO hasn't been around that long. in fact; the earliest known use of the phrase "search engine optimization" was in 1997 posted on Usenet.

Now don't get me wrong SEO in general is very subjective, there are often a number of different ways to go about doing something. But, when it comes to search engine rankings, you cannot guarantee any position period. Google themselves tell you this in their webmaster section.

Too many people out their are getting screwed on a "guaranteed" sales pitch because they don't know any better. It makes those of us who really care about SEO and helping people perform better within search engines look bad.

So my question is for Joel Cheeseman who took the below video at ERE. Joel, as a fellow SEO strategist in the recruiting field how come you didn't ask him more about this? I'd be curious to know how SEO4Jobs is able to guarantee something that is completely out of our control.




To be fair, If you're talking about "performance based guarantees" thats not new either. In my opinion, probably not a very good strategy being rankings are so unstable these days with personalized search and geo-targeting. I prefer to concentrate on a company's key performance indicators? (KPI's) such as number of quality hires, aren't those the true measures of ROI anyway?

Kodos for incorporating linkbuilding, I agree, it's a very important aspect to SEO. Remember, its not just the link that matters, its the quality of the link. 100's of links from the same domain are not going to do you a whole lot of good. Linkbuilding in itself should be a well thought out, on-going strategy.

December 11, 2008

A Must See - "You Oughta Know Inbound Marketing"

Paul Debettingnies aka MN Headhunter introduced me to this amazing video today. It's the coolest and most creative thing I have seen in some time. Hat tip to HubSpot's Rebecca Corliss

It's one of those things that you come across and say "Brillant, why didn't I think of that"

Here's Viral Marketing hard at Work...Enjoy



"Oughta Know Inbound Marketing"


If I make one more call
I might go punch a wall.
No one understands
That this doesn't work.

They hang up cause I'm a creep.
The mail I send they don't read.
They always find a way to
Ignore me.
I'm interrupting their lives
So they threaten me with knives.
I didn't think that marketing was like torture.

Cause the calls, direct mail
TV ads, they all fail.
And they aren't getting me anywhere. They don't work.
No!
And every time I try to sell
'Didja know that I'm told I should go to hell?
Then I cry. Then I cry.
And you wonder why.

I want leads
To come to me.
Fix our SEO
Get some inbound links.
RSS
Let's get blogging.
Why don't we just use inbound marketing?
You. You. You. Oughta know.

Get my page rank up.
Tag my content.
Fix my landing page.
Let them come to me.

Now I can blog I can tweet
Publish things you will read.
Won't have to bug you in the middle of dinner.
Google me organically
Search results one two and three.
You need my products? Uh huh. Yeah you'll find me.

Cause the calls, direct mail
TV ads, they all failed.
And they weren't getting me anywhere. They don't work.
No!
And every time I tried to sell
'Didja know I was told I should go to hell.
Then I cried. Then I cried.
And you wondered why.

Now my leads
They come to me
Fixed our SEO
Got some inbound links
RSS
Now we're blogging
Thank god now we use inbound marketing.
You. You. You. Oughta know.