DarrenBarefoot.com

Have you shown him example searches?

Off the top of my head, Urban Vancouver is currently #3 for ’shoe store vancouver’. Boris Mann is #1 for ‘vancouver technology consulting’. If you count the two Boing Boing links directly to you, you’re the first 4 results for ‘ups shirt’. You’re #10 for ‘geoffrey beene shirts’ (though I would have predicted higher).

He’s right that as long as he pays money, he gets search ranking. As soon as he turns off the tap, so too goes his ranking. You, Boris, and Urban Vancouver spent close to $0 on SEO and we’ve had ranking as long as we can remember. Not theory, actual results.

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I agree with Richard. Show him some real world examples where blogger’s results rank higher than others.

Get the bloggers to talk about and link to your product and you’ll get the search engine juice. Just make sure that your product is good so that the bloggers don’t say too many bad things about it.

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Oh, and also tell him that if he does go with the dubious SEO, you’ll never link to his site, ever!

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It’s always great to deal with clients who are swayed by the threat of bad karma. (”Nils, have you seen ‘My Name Is Earl’? Then you know what could happen to you.”)

But not everyone particularly cares about Doing The Right Thing. So with this client, I’d be tempted to set out the two paths he could take.

Option A: You go with the SEO. From here on in, your life is a war with Google, Yahoo and the search engines — because they’ll be doing their best to punish you for using unscrupulous tactics. (Chances are good the SEO won’t share all of those tactics with you, either, so you’ll have no idea what crap your name is being associated with.)

Now you’re in an endless cycle. Your SEO finds a loophole to exploit, and your ranking rises; the search engines plug it and punish the wrong-doers, and your ranking falls drastically. The net impact may leave you no further ahead — and, as soon as you stop paying the SEO, much further behind — than if you’d done nothing at all.

Option B: You tear up the cheque to the SEO. Instead, you invest that money in generating useful content on your web site and, if there’s any cash left over, promoting it. Your search engine ranking rises, and people start coming to your site.

But unlike the results with the SEO, they’re going to find a constant stream of interesting, useful content. Which means they’ll come back — maybe even participate in the conversation through comments — and you’ve opened a dialogue with potential customers. They’ll link to you from their own blogs and web sites, and your search rankings will rise again.

You’ve created a virtuous circle of traffic, centering on a core of lively, engaging content. Better yet, your site can become the home of a thriving community — and your brand becomes part of the conversation.

Best of all, you will beat out the SEO-goosed web sites on Google every day of the week.

It’s your call. Once the dust clears, what would you rather have to show for your investment? A temporary blip, dirty hands and nothing else, or lasting success, a bigger, better online presence and a deep well of goodwill with your potential customers?

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To go along with the other “actual examples of results” — I’m the #2 search for “arwen”. This, after three of the most successful movies ever, featuring a pseudo-lead character of that name. (Sure enough, every other ranking in the top ten is “the other Arwen”.)

This, even though arwen.org leads directly to a redirect page that takes you to the main page. :)

8 years of having the same address helps, though….

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Fear usually works for me. Tell him if he does get banned due to link farming, he may never get back into Google. Basically the web kiss of death. Not worth the risk.

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