Thread: SEO Is Like The Stock Market

I have a potential client that accepted our proposal which specifically states that we cannot guarantee search engine rankings over any given time frame. All that we can do is point to past success in rankings and traffic for competitive keywords.

Now that this agent has the contract in hand, they want to add wording that states certain benchmark rankings will be met by certain dates. To me, that is the same as guaranteed rankings.

Then I got to thinking that SEO is a lot like playing the stock market. It would be ridiculous for you to go to your broker and ask him to guarantee a 15% return on investment over the next 12 months. After all, the broker has no control over company operations for the stocks that you buy. All that they can do is use their knowledge and experience to best determine which stocks have the greatest potential.

The same thing can be said for SEO. Whoever is performing your web site SEO has no control over the search engines. They cannot make a search engine bot visit your site or include your pages in the SE's latest index. They have no input on the ranking algorithm. All that an SEO can do is use their knowledge and experience to determine which on-page and off-page site characteristics have the greatest potential to increase your search engine rankings.

Golf Guy, this is so true. When I see SEO ads "promising first page listings within 3 weeks" (or something like that), I wonder why people fall for that hype. But I guess that they want to believe it - just like people want to think they can "lose 30 lbs. in 30 days". So many people want to believe in the easy way to achieve their goals and never think about how realistic it is - or is not!

People are always so surprised when they hear that the Emperor is not wearing any clothes. I am frequently the one who points that out.......

I look at seo like one big portfiolio. You cannot pinpoint certain phrases too much and then get stuck on those. It is a hit and miss game but what matters is overall power. If you are doing things right, your traffic will increase and you will get keyphrases related to your site's content. Very often you will drop here and there and at the same time really move up for the bigger keyterms. IMO I would put my effort not into tracking terms too much unless there is some contract involved. What matters is overall traffic and how it converts into leads/sales.

Originally Posted by SiteTutor

What matters is overall traffic and how it converts into leads/sales.

As a real estate SEO, I see things a little differently. For example, I can SEO a site to bring in tons of traffic for major and minor keywords, and I can use my knowledge to design a site that does a great job of collecting information on prospects.

But if the agent does not take the time to work these prospects - even after they are given the tools and knowledge to accomplish this task - then these prospects will never develop into leads and sales.

Then there are some agents that know how to work prospect lists, but because of lack of real estate knowledge or poor sales skills they cannot turn these prospects into leads and sales.

We always tell clients that we can bring volume, targeted traffic to the web site and provide you with the knowledge and tools to work these prospects. But only the knowledge, ambition, and sales skills of the agent will ever turn these visitors into buyer clients.

In stock trading, it