Five situations in which SEO will fail

If you provide SEO services, there are several red flags that should make you want to steer clear of a potential job.

The goal of an SEO campaign is to achieve high rankings for keywords that will expose the site to its target market and help create new business. However, some websites are easier for an SEO to work with than others. I have listed a few scenarios that may have you scratching your head about the best way to proceed. If you’ve ever had a client in these categories, you know how quickly an SEO campaign can stall.

1. You are stuck with content that is not suitable for search engines

Imagine this scenario: The client is trying to achieve the top search engine position for a term that is being competed for by sites with lots of free information, recent industry news, a blog, and other search engine-friendly content. Your client’s site, however, is an outdated site designed in Flash with very little content, and the home page is the only page indexed by search engines. Sure, you could try to make up for the lack of content with a link-intensive campaign, but the odds are stacked against you, especially if you decide to go with black hat SEO methods.

2. Restrictive web publishing or content management systems

Some CMS options are difficult for search engine marketers because they are outdated or don’t provide enough access to the raw web page code. They can also increase the size of the page with bad coding practices and excessive scripting. Many people also choose a hosting plan that offers just a simple online site builder. Sometimes very few of the important areas, such as page titles, H1 tags, or internal linking structure, can be changed. Can you convince the customer to convert to a new system or hosting provider? If so, great. But if not, you may find yourself stuck spending extra hours installing SEO patches for software or hassling the hosting company for better access.

3. The client is in a volatile industry

Stockbrokers, real estate agents, work-from-home schemes, or infomercial “gurus” don’t always make good long-term clients. Use your judgment when approached by a potential customer and ask yourself a few questions:

– Are you trying to succeed in an unstable market? (IE. mortgage loans in October 2008)

– What kind of presence does this company have in your industry?

– Are there any BBB complaints or bad press written about them?

– Do you hide contact information on the website and in your Whois record?

– Can I realistically see them as my client a year from now? Two years?

If you’re like me, you take that gut feeling into consideration when making decisions in life. The same can be true in business: if something “just doesn’t feel right” about someone or their company, then it probably doesn’t.

4. The customer is simply not with the times

The Web has become a highly interactive place. In many industries, a website’s search engine ranking will suffer if the company is slow to keep up with current trends and technologies. As a musician, online audio streaming and a creative, interactive web presence are essential. Someone in real estate needs to offer tools like a mortgage calculator, buyer’s guide, or market reports to their visitors.

In every industry, there is an established benchmark for online resources. If a potential customer is years behind in that kind of thinking, chances are they won’t get much business, even if it does get them to rank high on the search engines.

5. Too many cooks in the kitchen

This is a real hobby of mine. If a company has invested thousands of dollars in SEO outsourcing, let the SEO company do its job without restrictions. It may cost the customer additional fees if others have access to the web server and unknowingly overwrite the optimized content. If your client has multiple people with direct access to the web archives, ask them to set up a meeting to get everyone on the same page and brief them on the SEO process.

If a company or independent individual handles the design and development of the content first, have an SEO consultant on board during that time to advise on creating search engine friendly content. In many cases, a client will not know that web designers may not be following SEO best practices.

Make sure there is a clear and legally binding separation in the SEO company that is handling content development. I had a scenario years ago where I had finished optimizing a client’s content only to get an angry phone call out of the blue from the old designer demanding an explanation. A client who has built their website from several different sources may have lurking web designers and web servers still with FTP access. The “too many cooks in the kitchen” scenario can turn nasty if someone gets too defensive about the site change.

Search engine optimization isn’t always easy, but being aware of the most common pitfalls beforehand can definitely ease frustration. We hope this helps you in your future endeavors.