Summary version of page content that may provide a better experience for screen readers.

Skip to Sidebar

Is Your SEO Company Selling You Snake Oil?

June 7th, 2016 by admin

"Hi, my name is __________________, and I’d like to get your company to the #1 spot on Google!"

Being a business professional, you're probably getting this phone call three times a day, selling ranking on Google like it's a timeshare in the Hamptons. These companies claim that if you pay them hundreds to thousands of dollars a month, they will be able to provide the secret formula that will supply your website with unlimited traffic and unlimited leads. When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), is your website getting the necessary nutrients, or are you feeding your website snake oil?

Treat your website as a living entity!

There's a lot of confusion about what SEO is and what you can do to improve your site. Most business professionals just know that SEO exists and that if they don’t have it, it’s a bad thing. However, treating SEO as supplementary to your website is a huge mistake. There is no magic formula that will always remain relevant, so you have to develop an SEO plan that grows with your business.

Here are the top 3 myths regarding SEO

  • Myth #1: I want to be #1 on Google for anyone searching for the term “_______.”
    • The Truth Any company reporting a specific ranking number to you is giving you useless, false and misleading information. Stop paying attention to where you rank and start looking at the impact on your website's traffic and, more importantly, the sales and conversions that your site is helping you achieve.
  • Myth #2: I’m #1 on Google now!
    • The Truth No, you aren’t. Google results are different for each user, based on browsing history, location, and a multitude of other factors. Again, any company telling you that you are #1 is misleading you. No, you aren’t. Google results are different for each user, based on browsing history, location, and a multitude of other factors. Again, any company telling you that you are #1 is misleading you.
  • Myth #3: I’m highly ranked on Google and I have a lot of traffic to my site, so I should have lots of sales.
    • The Truth This is something that a lot of prospective clients have a difficult time understanding: Your web site is only the beginning of the journey.  Taking your website traffic and converting it to leads is just as, if not more, important than traffic volume itself. Too many supposed SEO "experts" only pay attention to ranking without regard for doing anything meaningful with those numbers.

Atomic8Ball gets your website on the track to success by adopting healthy SEO habits that get results.

  • Lean, mean code
    • Just like the human body, the better things you put in to your website, the more you get out of it.
    • At Atomic8Ball, we write lean code, which means your site not weighed down by useless bloat that ends up making it harder for your clients to use. This coding policy helps your website perform better overall and do better in rankings.
  • Lightning fast page speed
    • Everyone hates super slow websites! Google knows this as well. That’s why Google looks for the fastest, most responsive websites to deliver to their customers. You may not look at Google's search engine as a business, but they are also looking to deliver to their customers the results that make them happiest.
    • If your website takes longer than 3 seconds to load, nearly half of your potential visitors have already moved on. At Atomic8Ball, we use Amazon’s CloudFront Content Delivery Network (CDN) to provide blazing fast websites. A typical Atomic8Ball website loads in less than half of a second.
  • Security
    • Many older sites are still using the obsolete SHA1 cryptographic hashing function. This older encryption style is insufficient for modern transactions.
    • Atomic8Ball websites are encrypted using a modern cipher suite. We use TLS 1.2, encrypted and authenticated using AES_128_GCM and using ECDHE_RSA as they key exchange mechanism.
  • Mobile-friendly
    • Atomic8Ball’s websites pass Google’s mobile-friendly check and are optimized for mobile devices. Why is this important? Searches that originate from mobile devices favor results that are mobile-friendly. If your website is built with only desktop computers in mind, your relevancy in the mobile space is diminished.
  • Keyword tuning
    • Just because people in your industry use a particular phrase a lot doesn’t mean it's the same phrase your clients search for. For example, in the website industry we call proactive updates to your site “web presence management,” but most of our clients search for “web design.”
    • Like any good routine, SEO needs to be periodically re-evaluated and modified to get optimum results. At Atomic8Ball, we proactively do keyword tuning on your website to make sure you stay relevant in your industry.
  • Fresh Organic Content
    • There’s nothing worse than visiting a company’s website in the summer and seeing that it's still decorated for Christmas specials. Understanding that your website is a living entity, it’s important to keep feeding it fresh content that continues to make your website relevant. We meet with you on a monthly basis to talk about what’s new and exciting at your company to ensure you consistently have fresh content on your site.
    • We offer you unlimited updates to your site to ensure that there is never a barrier to you having the newest and best content for your site.

Posted in: business help, business philosophy, SEO