I was recently reading an article talking about web design, and what you should and shouldn’t have on your website. I agreed with most of the points the author made, such as good content, forms to collect user information, less Flash and more Search Engine Optimization (SEO). All good stuff. However, when it came to SEO, the article said that website owners could save a ton of money by hiring a high school junior to optimize their site. I was stunned and dismayed that someone could put out such misleading advice.
Before you start hitting the schoolyards for your next search engine expert, let’s get a few SEO facts straightened out.
SEO is a Full Time Job.
Websites aren’t just optimized once and then forgotten. We run monthly reports on each of our clients to find out where they are in the rankings, and to see what’s working and what isn’t. Aside from the reports and recommendation we put together, search engines are always changing things up, which requires constant learning to stay ahead of the curve. I hate to say it, but your student has a full time job already… like school.
You Need to Be Well Connected.
Link building is an art form. Many factors need to be weighed before your link is added to someone’s website. You have to consider the other site’s content, page rank, relevance and more. Most high school students haven’t a clue about how those factors can affect a website. Worse yet, they don’t have the years of experience building up the connections that will allow them to get good links – that just takes time.
What’s Your Major?
We don’t really know what that student is going to grow up to be. But a professional SEO expert has already made the commitment and devoted the hours that it takes to get good at at their job. They have mastered reading analytics, they understand a multitude of website applications like blogs and ecommerce sites, and how the coding of each will affect search engines.
Been There. Done That.
Your website probably wasn’t free. At some point getting it cost you time and money to populate, to develop and to host. Do you really want to risk all of that on someone who is using your website to learn the SEO trade? We’ve seen simple mistakes devastate the rankings of websites that were doing well in the search engines. A climb back to the top is a lot harder than staying on top in the first place. We’ve also seen “SEO people” who have trashed the code of a website, causing it to show up incorrectly when users see it. What’s the good of ranking if people get to your site and it looks terrible or doesn’t work?
We know that the Search Engine Optimization profession has its share of snake-oil salesmen. You should absolutely research any SEO firm thoroughly before committing to a contract. But we definitely know that a high school student is not going to get you good results. They simply don’t have the experience or the time to commit to doing it well. If you’re in the market for SEO services, please give us a call or check out our website for more information. We get results, we do it well, we’re professional, and yes, it’s our day job.
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