A new “service” marketed as Verified SEO has been making waves throughout the SEO/SEM industry today. Though I doubt they are the waves it’s founder, Charles Preston – a self-described “SEO Expert” – had been hoping for. Claiming to have been a search marketing professional since 1999, Mr. Preston has found his reputation and previous anonymity in industry circles coming under fire from search marketing veterans and douchebaggary outers far & wide. Why, you might ask, would the industry be so quick to damn someone whose intentions might seem benevolent and in the best interest of consumers? There are a lot of reasons…

Verified SEO Is Scamtastic

On it’s face, Verified SEO is an absolutely meaningless display badge provided to those willing to pay $99 a month for the privilege of being endorsed by Mr. Preston and his supposed team of “industry veterans”. Displaying such a badge on their website would merely be an attempt to convince unsuspecting consumers that a particular SEO or SEO company is considered more legitimate than another. In doing so such an SEO would give the illusion of professionalism or effectiveness to consumers who are utterly ignorant of the insubstantial nature of Verified SEO itself.

Verified SEO’s Lack of Transparency

The shenanigans were outed by an actual industry veteran, Edward Lewis, on Sphinn – after first personally reaching out to Mr. Preston to give him the chance to address concerns about who the “industry veterans” behind the Verified SEO brand were. Charles Preston attempted to defend the intent of the service in an incredibly long comment. And for those of you who know me at all, you know how long a comment must be for ME to point out its length!

Despite Mr. Preston’s efforts to defend the premise behind Verified SEO, we still have no idea who these “industry veterans” set to review the work of SEOs truly are. The marketing-ease of the service may as well be, “WE will give you our stamp of approval for the bargain basement price of just $99 per month. And no, it obviously doesn’t matter who ‘WE’ are…”

Unbridled Hubris, Thy Name Is Charles Preston

SEOs are fine with being judged and evaluated by their clients. We expect that. We welcome that. We encourage that. We don’t, however, accept the audacity of a self-described “SEO Expert” believing he has the authority to judge, evaluate and deem us worthy…and spending $99 a month for the privilege. Even those who might have otherwise supported and encouraged the premise behind some kind of certification process suddenly find themselves saying, “So, who is this Preston guy? Has anyone ever heard of him?” The rest jump straight to, “Who the hell do you think you are, Charles Preston?”

No self-respecting search marketing professional would EVER, under any circumstances, hand their client’s sensitive information over to some schmoe no one in the industry has ever heard of – or to anyone, for that matter. Would you, Charles Preston? I’d venture to say you wouldn’t. And if you would, we have even more reason to question your professionalism. More importantly, so do your clients.

Nothing Says, “Caught Red-Handed” Like Quitting

Look, I’m all for holding SEOs accountable and protecting consumers from scams. Hell, it’s the very reason I started the SEOAly blog to begin with. What I’m NOT all for is some dude no one has ever heard of offering a bullshit paid stamp of approval that will lead consumers to believe being a “Verified SEO” actually means something. It means nothing. And the fact that it’s a service that was started by someone no one in the industry has ever heard of and that there are supposed “industry veterans” involved that still remain nameless just smacks of douchebaggary and shenanigans.

After today’s hail storm of criticism surrounding Verified SEO, it seems Mr. Preston has decided his ill-conceived venture is more a liability than a cash cow. After first trying to spin the entire scenario to cast it in the light of a premature April Fool’s joke or massive industry Rickroll, Mr. Preston has now taken the site down completely, as well as having shut down the @VerfiedSEO Twitter account. Rishi from SEO Bullshit, issued “An Open Challenge” to Verified SEO to prove that the site and service was being offered by industry veterans. Since the site no longer exists, I’d think Rishil can probably pick that gauntlet back up. Way to prove you were right and had the best of intentions there, Charles.

An Unnecessary, Self-Induced ORM Nightmare

The unmitigated disaster that is Verified SEO is indisputable at this point. It was the story of the day among many of the loudest and most outspoken voices in the search marketing industry. Thanks to well-known curmudgeons like Edward Lewis and Alan Bleiweiss (you both know I <3 you and that's a term of endearment) to snarktastic souls like Aaron Chronister (a.k.a “TheMadHat”) and Tim Nash (a.k.a. “I know who you are and I saw what you did…”), Verified SEO has become a verifiable nightmare for Charles Preston. His poor decision to launch such a venture has come back to bite him in the ass.

A search for “Charles Preston SEO” in Google now brings up his site…and several results eluding to the scamtasticness of Verified SEO and questioning his intent/intelligence/competence. This, ladies & gentlemen, is a perfect case study in what NOT to do. Whether Charles Preston intended it or not, he has opened up a huge can of worms that may tarnish the reputation he’s supposedly been building since 1999.

If Charles Preston were the industry veteran he claims, he’d have foreseen this backlash. He’d have prepared for the character assassination that would result. Regardless of his true motivation, he’d have known exactly how the true veterans and loudest voices in the search marketing industry would react in the face of such arrogance. He didn’t. And that pretty much says it all about his experience in this industry…

Charles Preston's Verified SEO = Verifiable Failure is a post from: SEOAly - offering affordable small business website design, SEO Audit and Keyword Research services.

This company touted their ability to rank well for search engine optimization jacksonville as proof of their SEO prowess. A little research into that term would clue anyone in to the fact that it’s A) not all that competitive and not really something to brag about; and B) not a term that generates a great deal of search volume. Those facts alone were enough to tip me off that something wasn’t quite adding up. Further investigation into the sites they build, both for themselves and for their clients, provided me with every shred of proof that I needed to come to the conclusion that they knew very little about SEO, and a great deal about spamming.

SEO Mistakes vs. Malicious Intent by Jacksonville SEO Scammers

To target search engine optimization jacksonville isn’t enough to label someone a charlatan. It might not make a great deal of business sense, but it certainly doesn’t mean a company is offering snake oil services under the premise of providing SEO. So, I decided to dig in a little deeper and pick through the on-site SEO – not only of their company site – but the sites they’ve built for their clients and proudly tout as SEO clients on their ill-conceived, poorly designed, usability nightmare of a corporate website. As I picked apart the on-site SEO – and believe me, I hesitate to even refer to it as that – all I could say was “WOW!”

These were perhaps some of the most poorly optimized sites I had come across during my years in the industry.  While this company bragged about their own site’s rankings for terms like “search engine optimization jacksonville“, I’ve seen do-it-yourselfers build more search engine friendly sites. While there are certainly no on-site SEO “rules” regarding title and description length, number of keywords targeted by a page, etc., there ARE universally accepted best practices that have been followed by industry experts for quite some time now.

These best practices are the foundation of a solid SEO strategy. This company’s tactics, on the other hand, were simply outdated, asinine and completely ineffective in the long term, to say the least. The issues that I uncovered included:

• Keyword spamming within title tags
• Excessively long title tags
• Keyword cannibalization
• Ridiculously long descriptions
• Heavily spammed keywords META tags that included in excess of 30 terms
• Very poor page content to META tag relevancy
• Extremely high keyword density
• Poorly written and keyword spammed text content
• Heavy use of tables
• Improper use of headings
• Lack of optimization of ALT attributes
• Unresolved canonical URL issues
• Massive duplicate content across multiple pages and multiple URLs

As you can see, literally everything that can be done wrong from an on-site SEO standpoint, they were clearly and obviously doing wrong.  While they may have been able to achieve a strong ranking for “search engine optimization jacksonville“, that certainly isn’t the feather in their cap they’d like to believe.  It was almost inconceivable to me that this company claimed to know anything about SEO, let alone charged untold amounts of money to their clients for search engine optimization services.

As a small business website owner you may have no idea what the list of issues above refer to, so let me sum it up for you in one easy to understand sentence: ANYONE claiming to know anything about SEO would never build a site with such a lack of attention to the details of on-site SEO.  That’s pretty cut & dry, don’t you think?

Jacksonville Small Business Owners – BEWARE!

While there may be VERY few searches done for “search engine optimization jacksonville“, that doesn’t mean someone shouldn’t be looking out for the small business owners who may find an SEO charlatan by doing that search.  If this post can keep just one person from making a bad decision, it’s worth the effort.

So, if you contact a company that ranks well for “search engine optimization jacksonville” and they brag about that as if it’s some kind of challenge, here are a few reasons you should run:

• There are only 157,000 results for “search engine optimization jacksonville” at the time this post was written
• There are only 2,100 allintitle: results for “search engine optimization jacksonville” at the time this post was written
• There are only 89,000 allinanchor: results for “search engine optimization jacksonville” at the time this post was written

For the purposes of comparison, this site ranks in the #19 position for “small business search engine optimization“.  And here are the stats on the competition for that term:

• 4,140,000 results for “small business search engine optimization” at the time this post was written
• 16,600 allintitle: results for “small business search engine optimization” at the time this post was written
• 2,670,000 allinanchor: results for “small business search engine optimization” at the time this post was written

If you don’t know what “allintitle:” and “allinanchor:” means (and I’d be shocked if you do), all you need to know is that the higher those numbers, the greater the competition for those terms, particularly the allinanchor: results.  Many small businesses opt for a hometown firm to provide search engine optimization because they believe they’re less likely to “get had”. I think I’ve just shattered that myth.

Don’t fall victim to a scam by typing “search engine optimization jacksonville” in to Google, throwing a dart at the first page of search results and going with whatever company the dart hits within the first page of results.  Trust me when I tell you that ranking well for that term is not a considerable challenge.

The fact is that Google is very good at recognizing and eliminating spammers from their index, but they’re not perfect. There are tactics that can be used to manipulate algorithms in the short term – like paying for inbound links – that have disastrous results over time. By disastrous, I mean having your domain banned from the search engines indefinitely – yes, Google takes paying for links THAT seriously.

As many know, I’ve also spent the better part of a year on this blog trying to help small business owners avoid being scammed by SEO charlatans. Most small business owners that fall victim to scammers aren’t stupid, they simply don’t know how to go about checking out an SEO firm before hiring them. That said, here’s a tip. Use Website Grader to assess a company’s site BEFORE you even consider contacting them to discuss optimizing your website.

While the information provided by Website Grader is extremely basic, it does give those outside the search marketing industry some very valuable information – like whether or not the company incorporates basic on-site best practices into the optimization of their own site. I can tell you with a great deal of confidence that if an SEO firm doesn’t know enough about the basics to incorporate them into the optimization of their own site, you should not even consider having them optimize yours!

Search Engine Optimization Jacksonville – Hometown Scams is a post from: SEOAly - offering affordable small business website design, SEO Audit and Keyword Research services.

The advice he was given, particularly with regard to the permalink structure of the URLs of his blog, was absolutely CORRECT. The problem lies, not with the suggestion his unnamed “SEO Maven” friend offered, but that this individual gave him only part of the information necessary in order to make the changes properly. Mr. Dvorak elected to run with this partial information and tackle the task of changing the URL structure of his blog without fully understanding the appropriate process for doing so, nor the necessary steps required to do it properly.

Therein lies the problem with search engine optimization: do-it-yourselfers armed with partial information and the over-reaching egos that lead them to believe a massive undertaking – like changing the URL structure of an entire site or blog – can be properly carried out based on the limited information provided during an IM conversation. See, part of the problem with many who know something about SEO is that they neglect to understand that sharing tidbits of information, like “…you should be using long URLs…” (which, if quoted by Mr. Dvorak correctly is NOT the appropriate explanation), doesn’t provide whomever they’re speaking to with a realistic picture of what is involved in making such a massive change to an existing site or blog.

What Mr. Dvorak’s SEO pal neglected to mention was that before even considering making such a change, he should think long and hard about what the new URLs should be and that simply changing the URL structure in the permalinks settings of WordPress would not be enough. Nor was he properly advised to use the custom permalink structure /%postname%/, as to include only the title of the post in the URL – not the date.

Furthermore, Mr. Dvorak also neglected to edit the individual permalinks to include only the most pertinent information regarding the post’s topic and the applicable keywords. Like this post, for instance, whose URL is not http://www.seoaly.com/ignorant-do-it-yourselfers-and-their-seo-fiascoes-the-real-trouble-with-search-engine-optimization, but the more search engine friendly and user-friendly http://www.seoaly.com/real-trouble-with-search-engine-optimization instead.

Another thing not taken into account when Mr. Dvorak changed his URLs was: what will happen to any existing links to the old post URLs? You see, when permalinks are changed it will break the existing links to the old URL. Someone who fully understands SEO, rather than thinking they can glean all of the information needed from a brief IM conversation, would have understood that installing a plugin – like Redirection – would be necessary in order create a 301 redirect and to prevent any existing links from breaking as a result of the changes to the post URLs. Immediately creating a new sitemap and submitting it to Google would help to make them aware of the changes to the URL structure of the blog, as well – but I doubt that step was taken into consideration either.

Again, having a partial understanding of the process and not being aware of all that occurs when a post URL is changed was your undoing, Mr. Dvorak – not the advice that adjustments to the URLs would increase the optimization of the individual posts on your blog. This is no “trick”, as you claim – this is an accepted and effective SEO strategy that is not only employed by reputable SEOs, but actually recommended by Google and documented at the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog. Here are two of the many posts that give some insight into Google’s recommendations for URL structure: Dynamic URLs vs. Static URLs and Google’s SEO Starter Guide.

A further claim was made that making changes to the URLs “…does nothing” and that “…long URLs are crap and stupid.” Again, I question the use of the term “long URLs” and tend to believe the use of this improper terminology as further proof that he was not provided with the appropriate information initially. Nevertheless, this claim is based purely on ignorance, rather than being based in fact. Creating URLs that contain keywords, rather than simply the domain and “?p=3100″, as is the WordPress default format for URLs, DOES – in fact – have an impact on the ranking of the post in the search results. In much the same way that having a keyword in the domain itself helps to improve ranking, so does having the post’s main keywords in the URL string of the individual page or post. This is a fact and it is undisputed, as illustrated by the aforementioned posts at Google’s official webmaster blog.

You see, Mr. Dvorak, search engine optimization and learning all that is involved with it is a full time undertaking. Those of us involved in the industry do this all day, every day and – unlike you – have a complete understanding of the far-reaching implications and potential problems with changing the URL structure of a blog. Unlike you, we understand the big picture of the overall optimization of a site or blog. SEO is not something that should be tackled by just anyone completing task after task on a universal checklist. Your claim that SEO is snake oil speaks more to your ignorance than to fact. Making such a claim is the imbecilic equivalent of diagnosing someone with Appendicitis and attempting to remove their appendix based on the information available at WebMD, then proceeding to hold WebMD accountable when the patient dies on the table.

Ignorant Do-It-Yourselfers & Their SEO Fiascoes: The Real Trouble With Search Engine Optimization is a post from: SEOAly - offering affordable small business website design, SEO Audit and Keyword Research services.

Whether you’ve already hired someone to optimize your small business website or you’re just entertaining the notion, SEO audits can help to ensure that your marketing dollars are being spent wisely. Every day it seems as though there are hundreds more companies looking to make a quick buck by charging you for search engine optimization whether they know anything about SEO or not. If they don’t, I’m sure you’d prefer to know now rather than later…right?

SEO Audits Equal Peace of Mind

An SEO audit is a sure-fire way to determine whether your site is following the search engines’ accepted best practices. Unfortunately what you don’t know can really hurt you. SEO audits help to identify the issues that may be causing your site to perform poorly, as well as helping to discover if you’ve been wasting precious marketing dollars on an SEO scam.

The unpleasant truth is that there are an inordinate number of companies out there that sell search engine optimization services with no real understanding of how to properly optimize a website for long term success in the search results. Contrary to the claims of many a search marketing charlatan, there is no “quick & easy” solution for optimizing a website. There is no way to guarantee a #1 ranking in Google. There is no method for achieving a page one ranking in 7 days and keeping that page one ranking for long. Optimizing a site takes time and real work. Simply implementing the on-page SEO basics can be a time consuming endeavor, depending on how well your site your was built initially.

Many companies will charge for SEO services with absolutely no understanding of how search marketing has changed over the past couple of years or the direction its continued evolution will likely take. Website designers and development firms are often the worst offenders. Keeping up to date with the search marketing industry requires dedication and ongoing training. In the last year alone search engine optimization strategies have begun to incorporate Social Media campaigns as an integral part of the process of driving traffic to a site. Why? Because that is the direction that search marketing is moving. If you’re working with a firm that isn’t aware of that, you’re at a huge disadvantage and probably wasting your marketing dollars. The fact of the matter is that SEO is incredibly involved. Actually understanding SEO is a full time job in and of itself.

Bad SEO Is Worse Than No SEO

Many small business website owners trust their optimization strategy to a company they know little or nothing about. Are you one of them? What does the company optimizing your site actually know about SEO? Do they even understand the importance of basics – like how title lengths and what should be included within them? What tactics are being used in the optimization of your site? Do you know? When the future of your small business is at stake, it is better to be safe than sorry.

Are You Already the Victim of an SEO Scam?

An SEO audit can help you learn more about how well your site has been optimized and whether or not your SEO firm even understands the basics of on-page SEO. There is a lot more to SEO than the on-page basics – but I can all but guarantee that if they don’t take the time to do the basics, they likely know little or nothing about any of the many other aspects of SEO either. There are no super secret, proprietary or magic tactics that any one company has exclusive access to that can guarantee top rankings in the search engines. There are, however, questionable tactics – such as participating in link farms and purchasing links – that can be used to manipulate the search engines’ algorithms. Those tactics will ultimately result in a domain being banned from the search engines altogether. Many a small business website has suffered that fate due to the negligence and malicious intent of SEO charlatans. Don’t let that happen to you.

If the success of your small business depends upon potential customers finding your site in the search results, nothing is more important than finding a reputable company or individual to optimize your site. The tactics and strategies employed by your SEO can do more harm than good if Google’s Webmaster Guidelines are being violated. And SEO audit can help you to identify these issues before your site is penalized. Even if there is no risk of a ban, simply understanding where your existing site falls short and incorporating SEO best practices can help your site perform better in the organic search results and bring a lot more visitors to your small business website – often resulting in higher sales and greater profits.

Can SEO Audits Help Small Business Websites? is a post from: SEOAly - offering affordable small business website design, SEO Audit and Keyword Research services.

Yet, the marketing materials for these companies inevitably include within their bullet point lists of “features and benefits” submitting your website “to hundreds of search engines…”.  My life these days revolves around search marketing and I don’t know that I could FIND hundreds of search engines.  Nor have I ever submitted any of the sites I’ve built to any search engine – ever.  Yet they have all been indexed and rank well for a variety of terms.

Monthly Automatic Submissions

There is no bigger waste of money than subscription to a service whose primary “feature” is monthly search engine submissions.  Once a site is in the index, it’s in the index – period.  Unless you do something to violate the engine’s webmaster guidelines or terms of service, you’re in. That’s it. Game over.

Resubmitting to search engines month after month is as stupid as calling the phone company every month to tell them not to turn off your phone.  Not only that, if those “monthly search engine submissions” are done with automated software it can actually HURT your website’s ranking in the search engines.  Let’s face it, there is no question that if the company offers “automatic monthly submissions” in the first place, you can bet that they’re automated submissions.

Being Listed In ALL Search Engines MUST Be Good, Right?

Even if I could find hundreds of search engines, who cares?  It’s clear and completely verifiable that more than 97% of searches are done through Google, Yahoo!, MSN (now Bing), Ask.com and AOL – yes, some people out there still search using AOL, though I can’t begin to fathom why…considering the results are pulled from Google’s database anyway.  Why the hell would I care if my website is listed in “Billy Bob’s Search The Web”?  Exactly…I wouldn’t, and neither should you.

Not to mention that even if you happen to find one of the lesser known search engines, you’ll also likely find a small graphic that states “powered by Google” or “enhanced by Google” – you’ll even find that using AOL search, as I eluded to earlier.  That means the information they provide is taken directly from Google’s database, so you may as well be using Google in the first place.

Doesn’t Every “Search Marketing” Company Do Submissions?

There is no question that touting search engine submissions as a feature or benefit of any search marketing service is ignorant, at best…and fraudulent, intentionally misleading, and malicious, at worst.  Those companies and individuals that offer search engine submissions as a primary feature of their “promotional package” prey on the public’s ignorance of how search engines work – and profit heavily from doing so.

Submitting a URL to the search engines is old school SEO.  Anyone who claims otherwise is either completely ignorant when it comes to the world of search marketing today and/or is attempting to make a potential client feel as though without their “services” the website has no hope of ever being found within the search results for their target terms.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  Submissions mean nothing to the search engines – and haven’t for some time now.  These days, submitting a URL to search engines is like sitting in the nose-bleed section of a 50,000 seat concert venue, jumping up & down screaming, “Ooh, ooh…pick me, pick me…” and actually expecting the artist to pick you out of the crowd and invite you on stage.

Submissions are pointless, stupid and futile.  Any company that touts it as a major feature is a scam.  Period.  Run, don’t walk, away from any company whose “sales pitch” begins or includes “submission to hundreds of search engines…”.  THE END!

Search Engine Submissions Are A SCAM is a post from: SEOAly - offering affordable small business website design, SEO Audit and Keyword Research services.