Recently I attended a networking event with fellow marketers. When I mentioned that I did Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), the owner of a large Melbourne Advertising Agency snorted at me and said SEO was simple. I agreed but I also said that I thought SEO was complex.
To which the owner replied BS, you are are talking to me now. You aren’t spinning some story to your clients now. I kept my mouth shut and decided to check out his website when I returned home.
Here is an overview on the SEO of his website:
- The website had Page Titles. Tick.
- The page titles were not optimized for search and used broad keywords. Untick.
- The home page had no meta description. This means the search engine guesses what copy should appear in the search results. It would have been better to use one of their copywriters to write some great copy that encourages people to click through to the site. Untick.
- The website doesn’t rank in the search engines for any keyword related to marketing, advertising or branding. Untick.
- The main keywords the website ranked for was for his clients. So if you were search through Google and typed in his clients name, the advertising agency website would appear in the search results. Untick.
- The URLs were not keyword rich. In fact there was a mismatch between the page title, the URL and the content on the page. Untick.
- The website only had half a dozen backlinks. Untick.
- Fortunately one of the backlinks was from a high Page Rank domain. Tick.
Yeah SEO is simple!
My aim is not criticise this guy. I have utmost respect for what he has achieved with his agency and he has done a fantastic job with many of his clients. However, his core specialty is advertising not digital marketing (even though his business card says otherwise).
Many Agencies Don’t Know
Many full service advertising agencies (and web design companies) say that they do search engine optimization aren’t necessarily good at it or understand it very well. Sure anyone can go to the Google keyword tool and look at what keywords people are searching for. It doesn’t mean a thing though if you don’t know how to interpret the data correctly or if you have no understanding of how competitive the market is and what it will take to appear on the prized first page of Google.
This situation is quite common.
I had a similar experience with three other Full Service Advertising Agencies. One of the Advertising Agencies that I worked with did the website for a prominent food brand. Their idea of generating keywords for SEO was to brainstorm them. This was several years ago before I knew any better.
I think we brainstormed a list of 100 keywords (many of which were not relevant for the content on the site). This is the approach many people take. Optimising their site becomes a hit and miss approach with no solid research to back it up.
Yeah SEO is simple. I think we should leave Advertising Agencies to stick with what they are good at – making ads and working harder to ensure that provide a solid return on investment for their clients.