Why we’re NOT an SEO Agency
Okay, what’s wrong in this picture?
As you can see, SEO is the MOST searched keyword among all the other marketing strategies on the planet. That’s email marketing, online marketing, digital marketing, internet marketing, and marketing plan COMBINED.
“So what’s wrong about that?”
SEO has become a buzzword to online entrepreneurs and business owners. Based on the numbers above, it appears that the focus is mainly on this single marketing strategy instead of the overall marketing strategy.
What Does SEO Do Anyways?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a digital marketing art-form that helps you rank on Google and other search engines.
A VERY Valuable marketing strategy!
There are bots, or internet spiders, that the search engines deploy, and their job is to crawl every nook and cranny of the internet and report what they find back to it's servers.
The data gathered is measured against the search engine algorithm and based on this data, search engine ranks are determined and populate to the searcher of information.
What SEO does is to feed these bots with information needed by search engine algorithms to determine the rank on people’s search queries.
So if your content is optimized for search engines, which is what SEO is all about, there is a chance for it to rank high.
But then again...
So Why Are We Not an SEO Agency?
Too many SEO agencies are concerned with getting backlinks. The sad truth is, these are usually sucky ones since the best backlinks are tough to get. If you do get them, they mostly link to your homepage only which is not the best strategy to rank your whole site.
In Search Engine Algorithms, backlinks are similar to UpVotes.
Yep, just like the votes that win elections. (Well, at least that’s what we’re told they do! LOL)
Those backlinks “tell” a search engine that the page is a great source of information.
But in a traditional SEO agency model, two common problems arise:
- Backlink building is generally dirty.
- Backlinks to existing crappy content is flat out dumb.
Backlinks Building is Generally Dirty and Few SEO Agencies are Out of the Mud
White hat SEO. Black hat SEO.
What’s the difference, aside from the color?
There used to be a huge distinction between the two, but because of Google’s 500 to 600 updates to its algorithm every year, what was once white SEO is often considered black SEO now.
SEO agencies are left to devise new ways to creating cleaner, more acceptable methods until the existing white hat is categorized as black by an update.
Whenever we do our free website evaluations, it’s heartbreaking to discover the backlinks other agencies “earned” for them came from the most spammy, crappy sites on the internet.
As if that’s not bad enough, most of the these links are bought and not even US based websites… Even though we’re talking about Springfield-based businesses!
Don't watch this video with your kids...
It pissed me off that a friend of mine was hoodwinked.
SEO Agencies Build Backlinks to Crappy Content That Is Not Converting
SEO agencies will merely get these crappy backlinks pointed to an already crappy website.
Then, they’ll try to rank website content that needs to be thrown away.
Do backlinks like what was mentioned above sometimes work?
Yes.
But if the website that is ranking higher does not have a good user experience, delivers the wrong message, or hardly converts website traffic into customers, what’s the point?
If you are going to pay monthly for an SEO agency, make sure that you are currently converting the traffic you ARE getting into customers. Otherwise, you are throwing your valuable marketing budget down the drain.
Things Your Site Must Have Before You Hire An SEO Agency
Unless the SEO agency is going to rebuild all of the content on your website, make sure you have these things done BEFORE hiring an SEO agency.
- Know what current benchmark traffic you have and are trying to improve based on the data in Google Analytics.
- Have retargeting set up with a Facebook Pixel so you can chase visitors that do not turn into a lead or customer.
- Know how many calls you are getting from your website with a call tracker.
- Make sure that people don’t hate your current website, bounce rate.
- Evaluate your website and its content, and check if they convey the right message to your best customer.
Does Fluid Frame Do SEO?
Of course. But we are not an SEO agency.
SEO needs to be further clarified than the current understanding of it.
There are two sides of the SEO coin.
- Backlink Building
- Content optimized for Bots but written for Humans
We do the latter.
Fluid Frame is a content marketing agency optimized for search. We want you to be found!
We write on page optimized, kickass content that readers love and gets indexed by the Google spiders just like how it is supposed to be.
We have many pages and posts that rank #1 on search queries for our clients.
So basically, we write words that rock and get ranked because that’s how it should be done and it’s what the Google updates keep forcing SEO agencies to do.
We are the page optimization experts, and here’s the bonus with our content marketing strategy
- you get links without even trying.
When you write the most helpful guide on Don’t Hire An SEO Agency, The Ultimate 30 Day Challenge List, or How to get rid of Back Pain, you are going to get a TON of backlinks because your content is actually worth upvoting.
The Future of SEO Agencies
Google is best at getting searchers the information they want.
Because of the value Google Analytics brings to website owners, it is on almost every published website.
With analytics installed on websites and most people using Chrome, Google can track if a reader bounces or stays on that post. Google can even show how much time it took before either one of those things happened.
Additionally, Google knows if the searcher went to another page on that same website.
RELEVANCY is the game that Google is tenacious about.
Do people chase and crave your content?
If your post is engaging enough to scratch the itch of a searcher, it can stay as the most relevant search result populator for that keyword.
And it will remain as the most searched item on the search engine until another one dethrones it.
Meanwhile, that post can make more money selling Google Ads to those searchers in addition to the other ways Google makes money off of its users.
Voice search is already in our midst, the tool that’s allowing us to get to the right answer fast through an instantaneous relevant search game.
All of Google’s updates are designed to refine searches.
Does your content make the cut because it’s relevant, informative, and read-worthy?
So What Do You Do With An SEO Agency
Only hire one if it fits into your overall marketing strategy, and you want the items listed above optimized and done on your website.
If you do not have a full marketing strategy, then you should do that before you hire an SEO agency.
It only makes sense.
You don’t build a house by only talking to the drywall guy, you don’t bake a cake with just sugar, and you don’t create your whole marketing strategy on one piece of the pie.
You need to have all the components laid out and make sure all of these are relevant to your needs.