The search engine optimization industry is known to rally around a fallen comrade one moment and in the next instant, eat one of its own. It’s considered a mercy killing needed to save SEO reputations.
It’s never a good idea for an SEO to try and fool another SEO – or a few hundred thousand of them.
We’ve seen the dramatic rise, fall and crash of several SEO companies and individuals. Some have managed to return from the dead but they’re a mere sliver of their previous rock and roll self. Fame is brutal. Some SEO professionals, in an effort to keep the industry viable and reputable, will not hesitate to shove misguided souls out into the arena for inspection or beheading. The latest stake driven into the heart of an SEO occurred when Edward Lewis took on Charles Preston.
It would appear as though Mr. Preston, a rather handsome looking dude, feels as though everyone in the SEO industry knows who he is. As a businessman, with several accomplishments noted in his bio, he wants to tackle a known business need. He has identified that many companies have hired SEO companies and been disappointed by the results. Mr. Preston feels he has the expertise to be able to tell a company considering hiring an SEO whether or not the service is viable. For a monthly fee of $99, an SEO firm can submit their company to a series of questions and tests to be sure they’re qualified for being hired. Mr. Preston even offers a “Verified SEO” badge as an official trustmark.
Edward Lewis carved out such a niche for himself with his free SEO Consultants site back in 2002. Did he feel threatened?
When Preston attempted to defend his website to Lewis, he was unsuccessful. No one was going to defend someone claiming to be an industry leader and yet nobody at Sphinn had ever heard of him. It didn’t take long for the angry reaction to stop Mr. Preston’s plans. He removed the web site. Of course, if you read the comments, it was suggested that this a case of “linkbait” or a very well executed April Fool’s joke.
It didn’t matter if you were the better known person in this situation. Readers were all over the place with opinions and responses. It was like watching somebody pop a balloon and the thing flies hysterically around the room.
One of the mistakes I see SEO’s do is they make claims about their expertise but provide no third-party, objective resources to back it up. I can submit articles by the thousands to article sites but that act alone does not make me an SEO expert. That makes me an article writer. There are thousands of them. Weak claims are part of the marketing process. Certain statements appear to sound good, when they really have no meat. To try and pull off any fake “I’m an expert” tactics to a bunch of marketers is…well, writing your own reputation death sentence.
Preston claimed to have the SEO expertise required to judge the practices of others. In the SEO industry, several organizations exist that had hoped to do this very thing. There are colleges and certification courses. A badge offered by an unknown company doesn’t cut it. What does work with this industry are referrals. The more partnerships and relationships you build, the more likely you are to have proven your skills. I don’t refer anyone that I haven’t worked with. This means much more to the client.
To put a badge on someone’s work illustrated just how much Preston doesn’t know about this industry. It’s not a matter of checking to see if someone got page rank for a web site. Preston claims to have gotten 3000 sites to rank high. So what? The real trick is to keep the pages up there, despite all the new competition. And of course, do they convert? Do the sites do anything productive? Do people return to them? You just can’t slap a badge on that kind of stuff.
It was interesting to watch Preston march into the brick wall and keep playing his drums.
When Charles Preston said he was a well known SEO and yet nobody had ever heard of him, it was time for the cats to play with this little toy mouse. Even Danny Sullivan was surprised at the high number of comments. It was his tweet remarking on it that led me to see what the buzz was about.
Was this a case of the affluent reacting to a newbie encroaching on their turf? It could appear that way. The SEO industry has a reputation for eating its young. It’s as if there is a silent code. If you muck up your entry into the field, you’re left with nothing but a bruised ego and a worthless domain. It may seem cruel, but to truly survive in the search engine marketing industry means that you don’t open your mouth unless you know precisely what you’re talking about. The mere second you show any sign of not knowing your stuff, while at the same time presenting yourself as an expert, you’ll be called on it. Charles Preston made some strong claims and tried to take money by offering a service that plays on “the fear of hiring SEO’s”.
Edward Lewis did what someone who expects excellence from the industry would do. He presented the impostor to the masses. He made his case. The response was reader outrage and then dialog with Charles Preston when he arrived to defend himself. In his mind, I think he was trying to put into place some kind of accountability system for SEO.
However, he didn’t pass his own test.
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If somebody can rank for a good keyword they get a ton of work and have turn down leads and don’t need a badge. IMO anybody who would feel like they need this badge would be suspect. This badge is a red flag.
Fantastic post and very well written. He really is a jerk. How can anyone in their right state of mind and think they could get away with it. And more worryingly think they can make business out of it!
Thanks for a great post
@ogletree
It’s not so much that the badge itself is at issue here. Many sites have “trust marks” on their sites to help communicate security and trust, or memberships in valued organizations. Awards are another. The more prestigious the award, the stronger the message. But a badge that essentially says, “We vouch for this company” that comes from a completely unknown entity has no power. Word of mouth referrals and real testimonials are the preferred choice.
@Louise, thank you. There are hundreds, if not thousands, just like him out there. The sad part is the he, and others like him, are unable to see what’s wrong with their ideas.
At the same time it is nice to see that the only damage that has been done was to himself and not the SEO industry.
I appreciate the more balanced approach you have taken to this story. I risk further ridicule by posting here, however, you seem to at least be open to both sides of the story.
First of all let me say that I admit trying to pass off the whole thing as a joke was a huge mistake. When the attack on me gained a certain critical mass, well, I just freaked out a little.
It appears that there was some confusion about what I was actually trying to do.
When I first came up with the idea for the service it was intended to help consumers avoid hiring an SEM provider who could not achieve results for them. As I have stated previously, as an SEO consultant for many years dealing primarily with small businesses the issue of trust had always been a big hurdle as many of you well know.
Even when my previous company, Click Response was ranking on the first page of google for “seo services”, “website marketing”, etc and I had tons of case studies and references it was still difficult to combat the skepticism due to the number of people who have been burned in the SEM industry.
I mistakenly thought that SEM vendors would be open to the idea as it might help them get more clients, especially in a depressed economy when consumer skepticism gets even more amplified. Obviously there are SEM providers who have waiting lists of people wanting to use their services but not all SEM providers enjoy such notoriety but still do good work.
I never intended to set myself up as the end all be all expert on SEM. I am not that guy. The core part of what we were going to do was verify an SEM’s case studies and contact some of their clients to ask them how “they” felt about the provider’s services.
This, I thought would be appealing to a consumer searching for an SEM provider, to know that someone with industry experience had done this for them.
So it wasn’t really my investigating an SEM company and then giving them “MY” personal stamp of approval it was letting the past record of success speak for itself and the role of the service was simply to say “yeh, we checked their case studies and they are real”. The criteria we used for verification was what I thought a consumer would want to know in order to feel safe.
I guess it might seem a little redundant to many SEM providers to do such a thing but in speaking to past clients of my own many of them still did not know who to trust even from looking at testimonials and case studies posted on an SEM provider’s website.
So, the genesis of this idea was my honest belief that it would be a useful service for SEM vendors and consumers alike. Yes, I had a fee attached to the service, like any other business service. If the service was of value it would be paid for.
I will be the first to admit that I am a bit of an introvert and simply do not naturally gravitate towards groups. I began my own SEM career over a decade ago reading forums and testing strategies to find out what worked well. I am sure many SEM consultants started out the same way. I simply did not participate in the SEM consultant community as much as I probably should have. I was too busy building my practice and again it just was a part of my personality to do things on my own.
When I first learned of Edward Lewis’s attacks I had no idea who he was, again because of my lack of participation in the community at large. I learned that he was the founder of seoconsultants.com and assumed he just saw me as a threat to his business, therefore I ignored him.
I did not associate my name with the new service because I was still operating my own SEM consultancy and was working on getting other SEM professionals to join the advisory team. I did want to avoid any issues regarding conflict of interest until I had a chance to segue over into just operating Verified. At the time it didnt seem like a big deal but now I realize that was a big mistake as well and not being entirely up front about things.
Prior to this event my online reputation was spotless. I had zero negative feedback about my myself, my previous SEM company and my current practice.
I am in fact not an “imposter” or any of the other libelous claims being made against me, as I have helped thousands of small businesses improve their business via SEO. I built and sold a company doing it.
My business history may not be as impressive as others but it’s meaningful to me and I am proud of what I have achieved.
That does not make me the pope of SEO and I never claimed that it did, by mentioning my history I was trying to defend all the accusations being hurled at me, that I was completely clueless about SEO.
I understand now how the idea of Verified rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. What I don’t understand are the personal attacks and the slander against me personally.
If I had a reputation for scamming consumers and not delivering the results I promised them then I could understand that but that is not the case. 99% of my clients got exactly what they wanted and the 1% who didnt got their money back.
I stand accused by the SEM community for never being heard of and I guess for that I am guilty of something? I stand accused for doing a piss poor job of launching a new business designed to help the SEM industry and for that, yes I am guilty. I really screwed that up. I stand accused of launching a new business that the SEM industry really didn’t need. Well, as far as the “feedback” I got from the community is concerned – I am guilty and have been thoroughly flogged.
I am only human. I did in fact make a huge mistake with Verified. I certainly did not intend to personally spite anyone by launching a business that I honestly believed would be a good idea.
I guess if I had been more active in the community prior to this event I would have known that it already provides A VERY effective consumer protection mechanism.
I very much regret that my name was introduced to the community in this way. I am not a scammer or some evil villain who sought to do harm. I am a person like many of you who has tried to do good work over the years and my clients have been happy with that work. I am a businessman trying to support a family. I would kindly ask that the personal attacks stop.
Verified SEO was a terrible idea. I made huge mistakes in trying to launch it. It’s over now and I certainly learned a lot.
Charles Preston
That sure would have been an EPIC April Fool’s prank!!!
Thanks for telling your side of the story, Charles. There’s a big lesson in Online Reputation Management here. You may want to reference Outspoken Media’s ORM Guide: http://outspokenmedia.com/guides/orm-guide/
@Charles,
What a pleasant surprise! I never expected to hear from you. As difficult at it is for you, coming forth to present your thoughts is the right thing to do. At least here. I don’t eat SEO’s
You wrote: “It appears that there was some confusion about what I was actually trying to do.”
Indeed. Do you have a proper business plan worked out? Who are your targeted customers? How well do you know them and their needs? Yes, small businesses have trust issues. Any size business does. What did your research tell you about what serves best for helping to establish trust? Was it really a badge? Was it really a monthly fee of $100? Can you really get that much money per month from a local start up shop in this economy?
Yes, some SEO’s have waiting lists. This is because they have proven their abilities. Some over-worked SEO’s do more than SEO. They have the staff to support a site’s design, user testing and marketing as well as analytics. So a badge that “verifies” SEO holds little promise for someone seeking a multi-faceted approach.
You wrote:
“I never intended to set myself up as the end all be all expert on SEM. I am not that guy. The core part of what we were going to do was verify an SEM’s case studies and contact some of their clients to ask them how “they” felt about the provider’s services.”
For a monthly fee? First of all, case studies can be published by the SEO on their own web site or written up as a white paper, available for free download. Contacting clients. Wouldn’t you be contacting the same clients every month, since you’re being paid every month? As a customer, that would piss me off and I would not only refuse to be called, but I’d complain to the company for giving out my information without my permission.
What fun you could have with all this confidential client and case study information! I would never hand over that much information to just anyone. Remember that the work many of us do is under NDA. I’m asked for samples of my audits and long ago learned to never give that information out because its been used, copied, stolen…whatever.
“This, I thought would be appealing to a consumer searching for an SEM provider, to know that someone with industry experience had done this for them.”
You can’t be their baby sitter. Would you hire someone to remodel your kitchen because the contractor has a badge saying he’s a verified builder? Or would you do your own homework.
“When I first learned of Edward Lewis’s attacks I had no idea who he was, again because of my lack of participation in the community at large. I learned that he was the founder of seoconsultants.com and assumed he just saw me as a threat to his business, therefore I ignored him.”
This, among many other things, helped illustrate why you got into trouble. A good businessperson knows who their competition is and absolutely does not ignore them. Edward would not find you to be a threat. He did you a favor (in the way he does things) by showing you your faults and prying your eyeballs open until he’s sure you’ve really looked. Then, he expects you to learn. Why? Because he doesn’t want someone else coming along and doing something to further wreck the already shaky SEO reputation.
“I very much regret that my name was introduced to the community in this way. I am not a scammer or some evil villain who sought to do harm. I am a person like many of you who has tried to do good work over the years and my clients have been happy with that work. I am a businessman trying to support a family. I would kindly ask that the personal attacks stop.”
As I said before, some folks have shot themselves in this biz and gotten right back up with their new thing. Happens all the time. Reputation management is a part of SEO/M, so you have some work ahead of you. You took a hit because you threatened to conduct poor business practices. The SEO industry has its fair share of enemies, making it a challenge for anyone who wishes to do ethical work.
Thank you for your comments.
Kim
Charles,
Taking you at your word, you are guilty of only one thing: mind boggling naivety.
Attempting to impose standards on a community (and as you found out yesterday, it is a community) that you aren’t involved with demonstrated a level of arrogance that more than justified the level of vitriol that was directed your way.
From here, you have but two choices – retreat and hope that this all goes away, or start to engage with the community that you offended so grievously. If you are half the SEO that you claim to be, your opinions will add value to the conversation and this wee transgression will soon be forgiven.
Well, I very much appreciate your posting my comment and your balanced approach to things.
Yes, research was done prior to launching the service however it was obviously not thorough enough, too many things going on all at once, not that that makes a good excuse for completely missing the mark like I did. We were going to preface any research done into an SEM vendor’s history with an NDA. I see now that even that would not have been enough to make the idea fly with a lot of SEM consultants.
Nor was I aware of the community that Edward was involved in.
I had just assumed he was doing his own thing and that the people in his community were simply members of his directory.
My blind spot in this whole thing was caused by focusing on just what I thought the consumer “might” want and not having been active in the SEM community myself, which as I can see now is worth being active in, had I been I would have seen that there was no need really for such a service.
I know this wasn’t all Edward’s responsibility, he just happened to be the first to take notice. I interpreted his response as someone simply with a vested interest which I now realize was not the case.
Again, I admit the whole venture was half-baked and I should have done more research before launching it. I should have been more open and not have made so many assumptions.
I accept responsibility for this misguided caper and it has been a humbling experience, which I think I probably needed.
@James
“Taking you at your word, you are guilty of only one thing: mind boggling naivety.”
There are people who have known me for a long time who would not be surprised. I like to think I am somewhat intelligent however I tend towards being a little myopic at times. Perhaps it comes from being an INTJ personality type, I don’t know. Not one for being socially involved I do think now that I will try to be better at that as well.
And, again, I know it appeared that way to many people,but I really had no intention of imposing standards on the SEM community. I see now how it could look like that and yeh it was a little arrogant. The whole thing was just a huge blunder.
I certainly do not wish to retreat and I appreciate the suggestion that I get involved.
ahem…if this was a “wee” transgression I would hate to see what happens at the other end of that spectrum.
I was actually hoping to get the verifiedSEO badge as I only needed one more to become and Eagle Scout
lol
Good day Kim! Everyone else! Charles, Charles, Charles. [Shakes head] You know, I’m probably not going to be as forgiving when it comes to the kiss and make up routine. You’ve attempted this once before in 2008 correct? That makes two attempts at a similar business model. No, I’m going to remain on the sidelines and wait things out.
You might be able to fool the ladies with your handsome self but I ain’t going for it!
Kim, I always enjoy reading you, the voice of reason.
@jeff selig ….yes, very funny. I suppose I will have to endure more of the same.
@pageoneresults
I posted here to begin with because Kim was the only person who I had found who at least attempted to look at this situation with some semblance of impartiality.
Yes, I already admitted that I tried this business model once before and for the very same reasons. The only difference is that the last time I did it, it garnered no attention from the SEM community and then I got too busy with other things to continue doing it.
I still thought it was a good idea and so it was re-branded and started again. That’s how much I thought it would be a good idea. As it turns out it was a terrible idea and there you have it.
I don’t expect anything from anyone at this point. I am doing what I think is the responsible thing to do in this situation and that is to fess up to what I did wrong and to clarify some of what had been misconstrued during all the ruckus.
Whatever anyone wishes to say about how crappy of an idea Verified SEO was and how it was executed is no longer up for argument. I admit it was a bad idea and I went about launching a bad idea in a bad way.
I do think that attacking me personally beyond that point isn’t necessary and quite frankly isn’t warranted. As I have stated before I have been making a living for a long time as an SEO consultant and the clients who I have worked with have been happy with my work. Again, my online reputation was spotless before this event. I do take pride in that as anyone would.
I made a huge mistake and I took the hit for it and will be taking that hit for quite some time. More importantly I did learn a lot from it and in many ways it cleared my vision.
As far as “fooling the ladies with my handsome self” goes I’ll bet you could give me a lesson or two in that area with a mug like yours
Possibly blasphemous but I can’t help but wonder if Mr. Preston would submit himself to some kind of verification. Slippery slope I know. In doing so of course it could possibly “validate” his idea. Just couldn’t help but think of it.
@Justin are you serious?
@jeff selig…yes, funny, I guess I will have to endure much of the same.
Serious it was an interesting thought but not a great idea.
@pageoneresults
I decided to post a response here because it was the only place where I could find some semblance of impartiality. I am thankful to Kim for that and it speaks volumes about her character.
Yes, I tried to launch this service before and for the very same reasons. Last time however it went unnoticed by the SEM community and then I got too busy to take it any further than beta.
I thought it was a good idea so I re-branded it and did it again, that’s how much I honestly believed it would be of value. I have other things I am working on. This wasn’t some scheme I thought would make me rich at the expense of the SEM community. I just thought it was a good idea. Obviously, I couldn’t have been more wrong about something.
I do not expect anything from anybody at this point. I am doing what I feel is the responsible thing to do and that is to admit that I was wrong where I was wrong and clarify a few things that got misconstrued during all the ruckus.
Due to my not being involved in the community I had no idea where you were coming from and made the wrong assumption about your intentions. I understand now what you and everyone else were trying to do and have learned a lot about the value of online communities in the process. From now on I will try not to be so much of a hermit and it looks like I don’t have a choice at this point. I am not going to stop practicing SEM which is something I very much like to do.
I cannot argue with anyone about what they may say in regards to Verified. It was a bad idea that was badly launched. I made a huge mistake. I f@cked it up royally, verifiably even.
I do not agree with the personal attacks nor do I believe they are warranted. Again, my online reputation was spotless previous to this event. I had largely flown under the radar keeping my head down as I am not all that much into being in the spotlight. (ha, ironic now, I know) I have made a living as an SEO consultant for many years and my clients have been happy with my work. I am proud of that fact as anyone else would be.
and as far as “fooling the ladies with my handsome self”, well, I might do good to take a lesson or two from you with a mug like yours
@Charles,
If I might offer some suggestions regarding getting to know the SEO community, have you investigated SEMPO? MarketMotive offers a teaching vessel that goes to great trouble to make sure its students truly know their stuff. There are forums like Cre8asiteforums (the one I founded), and many others, where you can network. Granted….you may need to change your name (I’m sorry!)…
I hope you learn and make better choices. I’m happy you felt comfortable here to talk.
Kim
@cre8pc
Thanks. I am familiar with SEMPO and will check out Cre8asiteforums. I hope I don’t have to change my name…eeesh.
Maybe I’ll go on the lecture circuit now and talk about how to go from nobody to online super star asshat in 24 hours.
Kim/Charles/ Everyone,
Well – I just got half way down the Edward Lewis Sphinn thing. There was someone there who said:
“All this being said I do believe that some type of SEO/SEM Company monitoring should be going on as most of my clients have been burned in the past. Maybe it is time for a group of SEO’s to start an accountability group.”
Odd that, don’t you think?
I actually think Charles’ idea of verifying SEM/SEO companies was a good idea*. I’m sure that there’s a lot of SEM companies thinking about the time when THERE IS “an accountability group” or industry standard watchdog…. or “verified SEO”.
Other industries have such things – why not this one?
(*How you going about doing this is, of course, a different kettle of fish!)
What I cannot seem to get my head round is that why would any good SEO/SEM company or individual feel the need to get verified when all these professionals already have references and past work illustrated on their website?!
SEO is a passion not a competition of who is better than who or who has more points. The reality is that any decent SEO company will not need to have a verification badge on their website as they will be able to demonstrate their work in a portfolio as well as allowing references from past clients.
I think I’ll take up this point about “verification”…
I work for a media organisation who audit newspapers, magazines, (and websites), to verify their circulation/distribution, (and visitors to websites), figures. We do this by auditing “agreed industry standards” – that’s standards which have been agreed by the media companies and the “media audit organisation”. Media companies who have their circulation figures audited & verified get to have the “media audit organisation”‘s little badge on their publications which indicates that the claim of X circulation figures is correct – as per all the “agreed industry standards” which everyone has agreed to.
And, likewise, we in turn are audited by external auditors to ensure our methods, procedures, results, reporting etc are correct – and meet the goals that we set out to do.
So, where does that leave the SEM/SEO industry? Well, (unless someone can tell me otherwise), there are no “agreed industry standards” by which all SEM/SEO companies can be measured/audited to. Once those are in place, then an organisations, like the one Charles proposes, can then only possibly begin exist.
At the moment, for a brand new business who knows nothing about SEM/SEO, it is a mammoth task to even try to understand the things they want/need from a SEM company because there are no “agreed industry standards” to go by. Note: even having lists and lists of references and testimonials saying how good the SEM company is not an agreed standard as each deal with each reference would have been different and therefore the references are gained on an un-level playing field in comparison to the other references from the SEM company, or, indeed in comparison with references from other SEM companies.
I appreciate that the comparison is a little different, but the idea of “agreed industry standards” for the SEM/SEO industry should be a starting point don’t you think?
I must agree that especially at the low end this could help clients (smb’s) make a selection. They have approximately 0 time to make a selection and I would imagine often fail. Everyone knows how many snake oil pitches there are out there I’d guess probably 90% of all seo/Internet marketing pitches are baloney.
Thinking in terms of potential clients and then in turn ourselves, this could supply a valuable service. I remember thinking this same thing about web
design and development in the past.
I work with some remodeling contractors and they have some prestigious certifications with very rigorous requirements to achieve which help knowledgable remodelers stand out in the marketplace.
The IT world is neck deep in training and certifications and it is very dynamic just like SEO so it can certainly be done.
Personally I would strive to be a black belt in seo if this kind of designation existed. And of I didn’t have the training and went up against one I would certainly expect to get my butt kicked.
This could be the opportunity for real SEO’s to kick the butt of the shisters right put of the industry.
@Justin & Paul & Louise
Louise I understand now why it seems like a moot point to many. Yes, SEO is a passion for those who practice it but in reality it is a competition as far as the consumer is concerned. The competition is between people who are doing good work and those that are selling vapor. Most often the average consumer has a REALLY hard time telling the difference.
On the other hand, and this was the main reason I thought it was a good idea, is that from what I have learned by surveying my clients is that the level of confusion out there among the average consumers is maybe a lot higher than one might first think.
Even with a portfolio, the consumer is still confused. How do I know this? I surveyed my clients over the years as well as prospective clients during the sales process. Most of them do not know what SEMPO is, they don’t have a clue who is who in the SEO world. They don’t know how to look at a case study and do their own research to verify that it is real.
What I found in my research prior to trying to launching this service is that most business decision makers are terribly ignorant of what many of us would consider obvious evidence that someone is worth hiring for an SEO project.
Even though I did a poor job of trying to remedy this I do think the one thing I can offer all of you at this point is a chance to really take a look at this issue. It may be more relevant to the industry than it appears at first glance. The majority of business going on out there is small business so that includes the huge local SEO market as well. These are also the very same people who could REALLY use a good SEO campaign and could get the most out of it. They are also the ones who fall for most of the snake oil pitches. Every time this happens we lose and the industry as whole gets even more tarnished.
They just want to know if the SEO can get the results however they don’t know how to (and excuse the pun) “verify” that for themselves in a way that they can understand. For the layperson SEO seems very, very, technical and complicated and I think this is what adds to the confusion for the average consumer.
other industries have a vetting process for professionals as you guys mentioned and they are created primarily for the consumer to avoid getting ripped off.
As SEO consultants the more we can convince old media buyers to start buying new media the more our industry grows which is good for everybody. I personally think throwing money into old media is foolish and I lament that so many businesses still spend too much there when they could be getting a lot more bang for their buck with SEM – HOWEVER, could it be possible that many of them are not quite convinced due to all the RISK involved in finding a vendor.
I don’t know what the answer is here but it’s something to definitely think about.
Charles
I can see the customers worries that they have and I can certainly agree that there are a load of fakes out there. But a true to heart SEO/SEM company would be able to prove to the client from reports written simply so clients can understand what the technical terms mean.
The company I work with show clients their improvements written in a simple .doc file and in plain English. The company also offer telephone support to clients so they too can get a better understanding of SEO. A useless SEO would not be able to prove 1) their findings and 2) implement on them.
Although I think that yes some sort of measurements should take place to get rid of the trash in the industry, at the same time I thought your idea was too extreme.
I have a bit of compassion for Charles for his feeling of lacking community closeness. SEO is a pretty fickle industry, and sometimes just staying away feels like the right thing to do.
I participate in a lot of different SEO communities, and I know all the names, but sometimes I only participate as an onlooker. The “good old boys club” can often be like a band that is marching out of tune. Since the band is synchronous, nobody notices any flaws. Against so many social rules, I must say that popular acceptance does not always make something 100% correct. Does anybody recall that Jim Jones incident in Guyana? There are a handful of Jim Jones type personalities in SEO to whom everybody flocks. Just because there is a flock, it should not hinder independent thought … but it often does.
I appreciate your reference to the industry eating its own, Kim. The huge influx of new SEO has made a lot of people feel frustrated and threatened. Sometimes a beheading it is quite justified, but sometimes it is just pettiness out of control.
I wonder how many SEO with a decent level of talent are out there working mostly as a lone wolf. They may never be popular or really need the popularity to do a good job. Collaboration is fantastic and can produce great results, but sometimes it opens a dangerous can of worms. In such a distrusting and critical field, it is often hard to know who your friends are.
@Louise
Duly noted. In hindsight, yes I suppose it was too extreme. The issue I see is primarily pre-sale. In other words, the actual shopping experience for a consumer looking for an SEM provider.
I think consumers are mostly confused by the parameters with which one should judge what is a successful SEO or not. I can geek out on SEO all day, and do, but when a potential client calls what I have to talk to them about is ROI. From their standpoint, SEO is just a new marketing tactic designed to get a sales lead – which plainly speaking, is true. So the only real parameters should be based around bottom line sales that resulted from a campaign which includes many factors that go well beyond the technical logistics of SEO.
Things like having a good USP, good marketing copy that clearly articulates the USP in a language that the consumer understands, website usability, etc. In other words all the stuff that needs to happen after the visitor lands on the page via a 1st page ranking.
The problem is that many consumers look at case studies that announce successful results from having ranked 1st page for a keyword out of such and such millions of results. We all know that the number of results pages returned for a search has no bearing on anything substantial but some people see that and say, “wow that’s amazing, 1st page out of 1,443,555 results”.
They hire that SEO consultant and then 6 months later have not seen any return for money spent because the parameters they used to judge that SEO provider’s effectiveness were not remotely related to achieving ROI.
Maybe it might just come down to more consumer education. Teaching consumers, in very simple language, more about how to gauge the effectiveness of an SEO campaign so that they know what to look for when shopping for SEM.
@Mark
Lone wolf has definitely been my modus operandi for a long time. In my case and particularly as it relates to the SEM industry, I could have saved myself a lot of trouble by being a bit more active in the community. As far as sharing ideas and what not and keeping up with industry news it’s probably very helpful. I’m not much for cliques or politics though and picking up on pecking orders and social etiquette is something I am quite retarded at. I am working on it though, any extreme one way or the other is probably not good. I tend to extremes so that’s something I need to work on for sure.
Which communities do you recommend? There seems to be quite a lot to choose from out there.
Just wondering if anyone has an opinion on the “headspace” plugin for wordpress. Is there a better SEO plugin available?
Charles,
We’re supposed to trust the investigation of someone who lists the following for education on their LinkedIn profile?
R.W. School of Business
PhD Marketing, Sales, SEO, Copywriting
2000 – 2009
Well, Charles…I have to admire the fact that you didn’t just crawl into a hole after all this.
While I can certainly appreciate the original premise behind your ill-conceived and improperly carried out venture, I think we can all agree that the approach couldn’t have hit further from the mark if it had been strapped to a rocket and launched into outer space.
That said, I started SEOAly as a not-for-profit blog solely with the intent to help small businesses avoid being scammed by the many, many snake oil SEOs passing themselves off as pros. It’s despicable. It’s contemptible. And there’s little that can be done to stop it, aside from making sure small business owners make informed decisions. That information can’t be gleaned from a $99 a month badge.
That brings me to the disconnect between you and the search marketing community. While your primary concern may have been protecting consumers, they’re not the ones whose confidence you would have had to gain initially. Your service was built upon the notion of a consumer trusting your brand enough to believe your evaluation and stamp of approval on another SEOs work meant something. What you never took into consideration for a second that the SEOs you intended to evaluate had never heard of you. As Kim and others have pointed out, this is a community.
It’s not a closed community, but it is a close community – one that will defend itself and its members from outside attacks. And what Verified SEO appeared to be was an outside attack…a threat from an unknown entity whose intent showed every sign of being malicious. Had this venture been undertaken by a member of the community – and believe me, we have all discussed iterations of this idea tirelessly – the reaction would have been quite different.
More importantly, had it been Edward or Kim or any other well-known member of the industry to launch such a venture, we would have known what their intentions were…because we know who they are. Don’t get me wrong, there would have been some, “Edward can suck it…I’m not paying him $99 a month to tell me how wrong I am – he already does that for free!” reaction, but it wouldn’t have been the wounded animal feeding frenzy you experienced.
No matter how great an idea may seem in the abstract, you have to anticipate and plan for the reality of the idea…and the worst case scenarios the idea can lead to, as well. This is a good case study in the unmitigated catastrophe that ensues when we fail to have a fundamental understanding of our target market. Which, for you, was the search marketing industry community.
You’re not shrouded in anonymity anymore, Charles. What you choose to do from this point forward is up to you. From one INTJ to another, I hope you’ll consider this a learning experience and use it to your advantage by now becoming a contributing part of the community. Perhaps int he future you can be a part of a larger effort by the community as a whole to address consumer protection issues, rather than being seen as an outsider trying to turn a profit by offering a service only the least qualified on the fringes of the industry would consider useful. The good news? We all know your name now.
By the way, Charles…I use Headspace now & then, but I know many others use it exclusively. On some of my sites I use Platinum SEO Pack, on others a combination of All-In-One SEO Pack and Robots META.
Different strokes for different folks. Just depends what you’re hoping to accomplish and how granular you need the control to be. Hope that helps a bit.
I’ve been a quiet observer of this ordeal for the last couple of weeks.
Online, many of us are quick to pull out the spears. “Kill the pig, spill his blood.” It’s easy when we don’t consider the humanity of the people on the other end.
I’m hesitant to throw my hat in as I don’t know the good it will do one way or the other. Verified SEO was a mistake, and I think Charles is aware of that at this point – painfully so.
In situations such as this I find myself going back to something a preacher from Georgia once said:
— Martin Luther King Jr.
@Keri Morgret
No, that’s an inside joke. R.W. stands for real world. I dropped out of high school twice (long story) and attended the art institute of dallas for a semester then left. I never really found anything that appealed to me enough to stick to until I got my first computer in my early twenties. When my daughter was born I realized I needed to find something I could do to earn enough to support a fam without having spend 2 years in college. I bought some books and taught myself computer programming and web design. Eventually I got an entry level job and from there worked my way up. It wasn’t until I became a business owner that I found my true passion was technology and owning a business as well as helping other people succeed with their own businesses. I guess I have always taken great pride in having bootstrapped myself into a fulfilling career without having to have gone to college. I learned everything along the way and often the hard way as recent events have shown.
Look, I’m not asking for anyone to trust me or like me, especially if you don’t know me. Maybe some of you will after some time, that remains to be seen, trust has to be earned, it’s that way for everybody. I know I pissed a lot of people off but seriously I had no malicious intentions. I am out here in the open because I need to take responsibility for the mistakes I made and try to give this community participation stuff a shot. I also intend to clear my name and at present I only have my previous reputation, albeit not very well known within the SEM community, to stand on. If I was a real shyster I would have nothing to lose and actually could crawl into a hole somewhere but I’m not and I do intend on proving that.
@Alysson
Re:SEOAly…nice!
you said:
“That brings me to the disconnect between you and the search marketing community. While your primary concern may have been protecting consumers, they’re not the ones whose confidence you would have had to gain initially. Your service was built upon the notion of a consumer trusting your brand enough to believe your evaluation and stamp of approval on another SEOs work meant something. What you never took into consideration for a second that the SEOs you intended to evaluate had never heard of you. As Kim and others have pointed out, this is a community.”
Exactly. I never did take into consideration the importance of being known by the SEM community. In my VERY one-sided way of looking at it, I honestly didn’t think it would matter because I had hoped that the process of verification itself would be enough for the customer to find value in it. I also didn’t really see myself as being the judge and jury of any SEM consultant but rather the SEM consultant’s track record itself would speak to the SEM consultant’s abilities. I actually thought that SEM consultants would be glad to have a service that did that. It stands to reason that if you have a great record of success with your clients you would naturally want to prove that. Again, I know that we all have testimonials and case studies that we show people. I had thought that by adding an extra layer of validity to those would make customers naturally flock to the people who got results. I never in a million years thought that I would be perceived by other SEM consultants as setting myself up on a pedestal and judging them based on my personal opinion. Of course I am not qualified to do that and I don’t know who would be. We all have our own opinions of how to do what we do within the radius of what is commonly accepted as “white hat” SEO. I am proud of what I have done for my clients over the years however other SEM’s might not be all that impressed. I can only know my worth by what the majority of my clients have told me and I assume most everybody else in this line of work measures themselves by the same standard. I was very naive about many things as far as all of this is concerned and I made some big mistakes in the execution of the idea. The idea itself wasn’t coming from a bad place though, at least I didn’t think it was.
@Alysson
p.s.- thanks for the feedback on headspace I am using it and like it so far.
“I bought some books and taught myself computer programming and web design.”
You know, I think I bought those same books. That FrontPage Bible was awesomeness! All 1200 pages of it.
“I never in a million years thought that I would be perceived by other SEM consultants as setting myself up on a pedestal and judging them based on my personal opinion.”
Charles? Stop it before you get yourself into further trouble. You’ve had two ventures to date that set yourself up as just that. One was called SEOWatchDog.org and this recent was VerifiedSEO.com. The label on the tin says it all.
“SEO Watchdog is the first consumer reporting and quality assurance verification service for the search engine optimization industry. The scam-busters of the Internet marketing business, SEO watchdog offers consumers the chance to come get the cold, hard facts on today’s SEO providers straight from the horse’s mouth.”
Charles, please do respect the fact that some of us have done some rather extensive research into your history. You’ll have to understand, you’ve done the dirty deed more than once. History has shown that there will most likely be a third attempt.
By the way, who were the Industry Veterans that were assisting you with that failed attempt at regulating the SEO Industry?
@pageoneresults
I am having hard time seeing how I am getting myself into further trouble here. The only “dirty deed” committed was my fumbling of the execution of my idea, my shortsightedness in crafting the idea itself and my super FAIL attempt at trying to pass it all off as a joke.
Again, I can clearly see how someone might at first glance get the idea that I myself was claiming that I personally had the authority to deem an SEM provider good or bad. I was not intending for that. If you re-read my previous response @Alysson I am doing my level best at trying to explain my rationale in regards to letting the service itself do the judging, which was designed to verify an SEM providers past record of success with previous clients – that’s all it was intended to do.
I wasn’t asking for someone to take an exam to prove to ME that they knew SEO. I was not issuing any kind of competency certification. I was providing another layer of credibility to someone’s already existing record of success – and here is the crucial distinction – this was intended to give the CONSUMER more confidence in choosing a provider who had been through this verification process – it was not designed as some kind of ego badge for the SEO provider. All it represented was that someone with industry experience had vouched for your track record.
Yes I and a couple of colleagues came up with the criteria for verification, ie at least 20 case studies, etc and that criteria was what we thought the average small business consumer who knew nothing about who was who in the SEM community and who was super confused about how to find an SEM provider would like to see. In some respects it was a little arrogant to think that was all that would be needed. Having no community involvement prior to all of this it was easy for me to miss the fact that the community had it’s own mechanisms for ferreting out bad apples. This perhaps is maybe good enough.
I know you have a reputation for being a bull dog, and I can respect that, but I am assuming that you are also a fair and decent human being and so I am choosing to believe that I am just not doing a very good job of explaining what the true intention behind the service really was and not that you are deliberately trying to “not see” what I am saying for whatever reason. I am more than willing to discuss it on the phone with you (512-297-7408)
As far as who else was involved with the idea, I had, as I mentioned earlier discussed the idea with a few friends and a couple of colleagues who also work in the industry. These are people who also have little to no major community involvement and at this point it would be bad form for me to share the blame for this with anybody else. It was primarily my idea. I take responsibility. My plan was to test the idea to see if consumers would respond to such a service and then start reaching out to SEO notables to see if they would be interested in signing on in an advisory capacity. Cart before horse -
@pageoneresults
3rd attempt. Are you kidding?
Charles? I did give you warning up above, right?
Okay, here comes shot over the bow number one. You state that you’re an SEO correct? SEO as in Search Engine Optimization? Agreed?
Now, splain this to me…
^ Do you know where that is from? It is from CharlesPreston.com – Now tell me Charles, what is wrong with that? You, as a long time Industry Veteran SEO operating covertly with 3,000 SEO clients, should know what is wrong with that. That’s what we refer to as an SEO 101 Fail.
Now, before you opine further, that is just 1 of 52 items on my list of failures. If you’d like, we can discuss each one individually. I may even have a couple of Jokers in there.
^ Ah, my code example went AWOL. Here it is minus the opening and closing…
img src=”images/cp-logo.jpg” border=”0″
Oh, and Charles, the purpose of this exercise is to first Verify your credentials. You’re like this James Bond of SEO if I read all of that above and elsewhere. Who are you working for? MI5? CIA? Google?
@Charles
I think most good SEO really want to be helpful. It is a common trait I find in about every SEO that sticks around a while and makes any significant impact. From an informational standpoint I find it hard to make recommendations of specific communities, but what may be more important is to use diligence in what you take from any of them.
Like I said before, SEO is a pretty fickle industry. You can get your neck chopped off in any public setting. I think it is the death of many good communities if the hatchet becomes the norm, though. I have been in the Internet industry since the mid 1990′s and seen enough communities fall down to a level of picking on the words somebody chooses. From there, it starts to look like a “my dad can beat up your dad” competition. Some just have a longer life-cycle.
I read a lot of blogs and forums but just pick and choose nuggets of information here and there. I may seem like a bit of a lone wolf myself in some ways, but I mostly find it is best to try and be courteous and useful when I can. I spend a lot more time on specific contributors blogs than I do in the other communities they belong to. I find that a blog is often at the hub of a good SEO’s thoughts, and a better way to know the individuals you respect, and on a more personal level. It may not seem totally efficient for reaching out to every one of the squillion SEO with a thought to share, but it allows me a better focus, so I make it work.
Just remember that there are a lot of sheep, and many SEO aspire to be the shepherd. Lone wolves will likely always be treated with suspicion when circling the flock. Being friendly, courteous, and helpful seems to help, but not always.
@Mark Aaron Murnahan
duly noted.
@Charles Preston is verifiedseo.com for sale? Let me know.
As for the rest, I think you’re too hard on yourself here (taking too much blame, admitting too much fault), and not hard enough on yourself for failing to stand up to the SEO Critic’s Challenge.
These folks who called you out? They saw you as anonymous, thus eligible for abuse. You should have done what every other successful SEO attacker has done — stand up for yourself, get them to explain in great detail how you should have done better at any particular aspect they criticized (free advice) and perhaps invited a few to be on your Board of Advisors (for free) until you didn’t need them any more.
You could be rich by now.
Seriously… you started by noting the marketplace needed it, and end by admitting the industry does a good job providing by itself. Really?
I say go for it. I bet you could tune it and that it would work, and I also bet many of your critics know it would succeed in the marketplace if it were championed by a strong leader.
“I say go for it. I bet you could tune it and that it would work, and I also bet many of your critics know it would succeed in the marketplace if it were championed by a strong leader.”
He already went for it John, twice now.
No, our industry is nowhere near allowing anyone to set up shop like this, I don’t care how big your name is and/or, names are. It was mentioned in the Sphinn topic that our industry is self-governing and it surely is as evidenced by this debacle.
Charles, are you ready to continue with your SEO site review so that we can Verify your SEO credentials?
Kim, please don’t let pageoneoesults turn this into another SEO = validated code thread — which it appears he’s trying to do with his review of Charles’ website.
“One of the mistakes I see SEO’s do is they make claims about their expertise but provide no third-party, objective resources to back it up.”
Not to detract from Mr. Preston’s press parade or anything, but I’m STILL waiting for “third-party, objective resources” about the SEO industry to appear.
Maybe it would be helpful if people started sharing which sites they feel qualify. SEOmoz’s directory? SEO Consultants? SEMPO’s directory? Why are they objective? What other SEO directories are out there? Should we expect each other to be listed in those directories? If you’re an agency SEO (like me), should you seek vindication in such a directory even if the agency is listed?
Are client testimonials (on their own sites) acceptable to anyone? How many SEOs seek such client-hosted testimonials? What happens if the client changes SEOs, brings it in-house, or changes Web strategy (or goes out of business)?
If someone wanted to publish a “Who’s Who In Search Engine Optimization” directory, and they charged the usual fees that are charged for such books, would the SEO industry jump all over that initiative like cats on milk or like piranha on a fresh kill?
The answers to these and other troubling questions require some careful thought and consideration from our peers (assuming we have any).