There are two things that confound me about this business. I will tell only one today.
The first is that small business owners get a cold call from a company in “Nowhere, FL” and get hooked into buying a monthly SEO plan only to end up with four “listings” - Facebook, Goggle Local, Twitter and Yelp.
As an added bonus, these business owners get “generic” photos to represent their online presence. Finally they get nine posts a month to Facebook which is linked to Twitter. And the posts are not necessarily representative of the company.
One client, a restaurant owner, had generic very modern urban inside photos of a coffee counter posted on his Google and Yelp pages. This is a hometown diner here. Reminiscent of the old lunch counters in the Midwest.
The posts to his Facebook page included a photo of a TV Dinner – yup, Salisbury Steak, Mashed Potatoes and Peas. The caption was “Celebrating the anniversary of the TV dinner.”
Don’t do it. Don’t buy into some pie-in the sky promise to get you listed first and take care of your monthly Social Marketing. They do not even know you, let alone speak with your voice or attitude. Your customers know this. Your potential customers will walk in, see it wasn’t the place pictured and walk out.
Another “gimmick” some of these companies use is to lead you on month-to-month and when you finally decide it isn’t worth it, they’ll keep all your log-in information from you and/or delete all the posts. Now you have to start over.
There are two proper ways to do SEO. Do it yourself. Read about SEO from reputable persons who are the gurus of this type marketing. Some are listed on my Clients and Friends page. Then take the time to do it. Just a short warning – you will probably take a lot of time to do it and the whole time you will be thinking “I really should be doing my books right now.”
Or hire someone you know and trust – someone who will work with you and then give control to you when the initial SEO has been completed. Interview them like you would a potential employee and research them online.
Of course new to the industry but not unfamiliar with it, I am working locally with people I can meet with, in order to build reputation and clients. Small start, but I already have a few feathers in my cap.
