I have been struggling recently with one particularly vexing SEO problem. As sometimes happens to me when I run slam into a brick wall, I had a bit of a crisis of confidence. Seemed no matter what I thought I knew, or what I tried ... I simply could not fix this client's problem.
So ... I turned to my short-list of SEO gurus to ask advice. None of the reputable people I talked to could find anything that I had not already explored.
So ... I made a mistake. One that you may have made, too, in this brave new world of internet marketing, I ran an ad. I thought perhaps I would find someone, somewhere who held the Holy Grail of search engine optimization -- one person who could unlock the craziness that is now Google Panda and bestow order where chaos appears to reign.
To quote the young folks ... OMG! I was bombarded, flooded, drowned with replies from every imaginable type of crackpot with every imaginable kind of advice. I had people trying to sell me 100's of "backlinks" at so much per link. I had people telling me to purchase listings in various directories. I had one guy be so presumptuous as to tell me I should fire my entire staff and hire him -- because he was able to get one website ranked well in one very small market. And the prices quoted? Again, OMG! I had "bids" for my project ranging from a low of $30 to a high of $3,000 -- and I am not making those numbers up!
I shut my ad down this morning and deleted every response I had received. This primarily so I could find the real email that I need to read and respond to this morning.
Friends -- it's a jungle out there!
So ... I am back to square one.
Back to doing what I know is right, and doing it in a systematic manner. Don't change too many variables at once, make logical choices, wait and see what Google does with those choices, then keep plugging. Put on my Sherlock Holmes hat, grab my magnifying glass, and just keep searching for the answers.
When it comes to SEO for estate planning or elder law -- there is no magic pixie dust that guarantees results. You cannot buy 1,000 backlinks and put your website on Google's Page One. (In fact, that's a really good way to jettison your website into Google's Oblivion!) You have to do the hard work, and keep doing it.
The good news is we continue to see client websites land on Google's Page One for organic search in competitive markets. As I posted on Friday, Rial Moulton's law office just landed on Page One for 13 relevant searches! So, thanks but no thanks, web guy who thinks you know everything because you got one website ranked. This is what we do, day-in and day-out, day after day. And we don't do it with gimmicks or magic pixie dust. We do it with research, logical reasoning, and hard work.
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