SEO expert pick up lines that are an absolute warning

When you hear an SEO say these lines below, run for the hills!

There are many kinds of SEO “experts” out there, some are quite terrible. In this post, we take the time to describe them and give you the warning signs you should know to ensure you are getting good search engine optimization for your business.

Here below we describe some of these so called experts, read on to learn some of their habits and telling signs.

The IT Guy SEO expert

“We don’t need an SEO firm, I can just google all of it and get us ranking right away! See how easy it is, just found that you need to get links coming into your website, I’ll just go into other people’s blogs and make all the comments with all the links I can come up with!… spam what?”

It is very commonly believed that SEO is an IT thing. Unfortunately, that is only about 20% true. One of the “Experts” we encounter very frequently is the in-house IT guy that believes SEO should stay in the IT department simply because it is computers related. In reality, SEO is more about marketing and understanding the customer mind than code, therefore, an SEO expert requires to truly understand code AND marketing to be effective.

Be wary when your IT guy comes to your office claiming to know everything about search engine optimization right after googling SEO. Be ready for a full-blown marketing disaster were your website looks like the Picasso of websites and conversion disappears faster than your IT Guy when its results delivery time.

The Social Media “Guru” SEO expert

“If we can get 10,000 friends in Facebook and about 20,000 followers in Twitter we will definitively rank on top and we will ‘go viral’  faster than Justin Bieber. The best part is, you can buy these friends and followers so we can be viral right away!”

This is one that not only makes SEOs cringe but also Social Media people. Most real social media experts don’t go around proclaiming they are a guru of sorts, it is usually other people who call them that. This kind of guy likes to think that SEO is a branch of social media and that social media is so much easier than search engine optimization that you don’t need a true SEO team.

This type of SEO expert will drive you crazy with how many followers you get until it becomes obvious that the sales aren’t happening and that most of those “followers” are not interested in what your company does at all, in fact, many are not even real profiles!

There is also the sneaky social media expert who claims that by doing social media, you will rank higher and therefore don’t need an SEO expert. These people are dangerous because they reduce all marketing efforts to simple formulas that end up failing miserably but only after you wasted a lot of money on them.

The Resources Page SEO expert

“To do SEO you just need to have a resources page with links to hundreds of websites related to what you do! Its really easy, can’t see what the mystery in all that is.”

There are still (sadly) many an SEO expert who think that search engine optimization is only creating a “resources” page and then go and convince customers that this is the non-plus-ultra of SEO. We just mentioned them here as they deserve an honourable mention, but this is most frequently heard from clients who heard it from a friend who did the same thing and has lots of traffic… for friends like that, who needs enemies!

By the way, this was a very popular type of fake SEO back in 2005, if you find one of these dinosaurs, take a pic and post it on social media as there might be a reward for anyone with proof that these people still exist!

The Web Designer turned SEO expert

“I graduated from design school X and have created some very stylish websites. Look, this very pretty design I have here will get you sales every day and rank very well too.”

Designers are designers and their graphic skills, however good they are, don’t make them an SEO expert. These people usually like to think that because they learned HTML in school they can do everything related to web. These kind of SEO experts tend to be greedy, that is the only explanation we can think of for why knowing they have no skill in SEO, they choose not to team up with a proper SEO consultant or firm and provide professional and ethical services to their clients. Its like letting a divorce lawyer defend you in a criminal case, they may have heard about it in school, but lack real experience and focus in the field which may cost you dearly.

The Cheap Offshore SEO expert

“Hi, my name is Mike (not) we are firm from (Insert your country of choice here) and we help many people like you. We email websites on google and spam you for fun and profit. We do software service that gives success for your company, guaranteed!”

Yes, there are hundreds, if not thousands of companies that sell SEO services in India, Philippines, Pakistan, China or any other country where labour is cheap. They are sometimes cheaper and all promise unprecedented success. Some of these people have terrible work ethics and deliver late or in some cases never (some of them are honest and real, but unfortunately, they are a minority). Some have terrible spelling, English being their second language. Reading their content is like pulling teeth and this is how you find out that Google is their translator of choice. Google also prefers proper grammar and spelling, so be wary.

We’ve seen our share of disasters with these companies, and would not recommend them even for just web design however cheap they are. Stay clear. You’ve been warned.

SEO is not a joke

We would find most of these people funny if it wasn’t for the fact that their bad service and results give real SEO experts a very bad rep.

Search engine optimization is not an easy job and is full of technical jargon that people can easily find with a couple of google searches. A real SEO expert can show you past work, provide case studies and understand a lot about marketing, web development and business. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and if the Search Engine Optimization guy “goes techie” on you tell him/her to slow down and speak human, we don’t mind… we are passionate about SEO and are known to get carried away from time to time.