My Meeting with a Big SEO Company

An SEO agency reached out to me, offering to help improve my online presence.

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is what helps websites increase their visibility on Google searches.

“What the heck,” I thought. “Let’s see what they have to say.” This could be educational, both for me and my subscribers.

For me, an SEO expert, it was an opportunity to compare my knowledge and skills with a big company.

For context, I have helped magicians climb the Google rankings for their sites for years. My own school assembly site was (and is) highly ranked across the United States, too.

But maybe I'd pick up a few strategies along the way.

For my subscribers, it’s a peek under the hood of what a big SEO agency does to convince clients to sign up.

Last Friday’s meeting was abruptly rescheduled to yesterday, with no apology or explanation.

I logged onto the Zoom call yesterday and met with the rep. He was polite and professional, yet offered no apology for the meeting change.

I never mentioned my SEO expertise, just coming in like a regular Joe, to see what he had to say.

Then he got down to business, analyzing my site. He said some things I agreed with and some things I disagreed with. And offered some thoughts which showed he didn’t dive deep enough into my market.

I’ll start with what I agreed with him on. He said my site had a lot of great content, with my meta titles/descriptions for each page set up correctly.

He mentioned that having a well-written blog was essential to a good SEO strategy. He also said Google prioritizes backlinks.

Both of these major points I knew.

He raised concerns over my site speed due to the number of images on my site. To me, this was a bit of a red flag. All he had to do was plug my site URL into Page Speed Insights (an online tool) to check my site’s performance. You can check yours, too, for free.

He never checked mine, which would have been really easy. My site performs really well. Like, almost perfect in the four major metrics that Page Speed Insights measures.

He mentioned how important images are, which I agree with. By rewriting your site's image alt tags, you can include keywords, giving more SEO “juice” to Google.

He told me some of my web pages and articles were too long. That I found bizarre. My SEO training and research have always said that length didn’t matter…but that a well-written longer blog article often outperforms an equally well-written shorter article.

As far as the webpages themselves, 300 words are generally agreed to be the minimum, but there was no real limit. The answer is to tell the customer enough to accurately paint a picture about the product or service you’re selling.

Then he started comparing me to other similar companies online. This is where he lost me a bit.

He compared my numbers, including backlinks, to Academic Entertainment, an online agency specializing in school assemblies.

They represent dozens (hundreds?) performers across the country. They are very big, with a large staff.

My site’s numbers are not as good as theirs. But I don’t work the entire country. And I don’t offer as many services. I don’t want to be as big as Academic Entertainment. I literally couldn’t handle it.

By not taking the time to understand the difference between a one-person operation like mine and a big national company, he dropped the ball, at least in my eyes.

But backlinks are important. My site lost a lot of backlinks when I transferred my site to a new server and rebuilt the site from the ground up.

I knew this was a risk when I did it, but I had to. My old company was slowly running my site into the ground. There were times when my site was offline completely because the company was constantly changing servers, and my site always went down completely.

I had to bite their heads off just to get them to fix it each time.

Back to the SEO guy. This was the part of the conversation I had been looking forward to the most. Just how was the company going to get me all of these wonderful backlinks?

After all, anybody who knows anything about SEO knows that only ethical backlinks are valued by Google. And only those that are in sync with your site.

In my case, he said they’d do outreach to link my site with some of their partner sites they work with. In SEO-speak, that typically means link farms. Websites whose sole purpose was to add links to other sites.

He also mentioned getting paid backlinks. That’s a HUGE no-no in Google’s eyes. Paying for backlinks is a quick way to get blacklisted.

When I tried pinning him down, he mentioned that since I worked in schools, they might reach out to state educational organizations through the government.

I can’t imagine that would work. I can’t imagine the Department of Education agreeing to link back to my little ol’ school assembly site!

He also mentioned a couple of good platforms that I know of, which are ethical and a good place to write articles and post under your own account. That was good stuff, and I agreed that it was valuable.

Then he showed me an example of another client’s monthly SEO package with this company. It mentioned up to 12,000 words generated in online content – article submissions, blog posts for the client’s website, etc.

12,000 words? That’s massive.

It’s another red flag. How were they going to generate that kind of output? I had a suspicion. Now I just had to confirm it.

I searched for the company online and read their reviews. Some were glowing, some were bad, like one-star bad.

In some of these reviews, my suspicions were confirmed: The company outsourced a lot of its content (blog article) creation to folks in India.

I love the global economy. I really do.

I work quite often with a gifted graphic designer from Sri Lanka.

I’ve hired him hundreds of times over the last 15 years. He’s really good. And we’ve gotten to know each other a lot. He knows how I think and what I look for.

So I’m not against overseas help. But 12,000 words in articles a month tells me those folks in India are not likely to really understand me, my business, and my goals. And that will reflect in the content they generate for me.

Case in point: I’m often approached by online blog creators. They want to contribute articles to my site in exchange for a backlink to their site.

Most of the time, I turn them down. Their article ideas are on subjects like starting a savings account early for your child. Yes, it’s about kids and parents. On a surface level, this makes sense to a blogger.

After all, my site mentions parents and kids. And parents want their kids to save money. Makes total sense, right?

But nothing on my site deals with anything like that. I don’t offer services in savings accounts or anything like that in my assemblies. So the article serves no value.

There are no keywords they could ethically and naturally weave into that article that would eventually lead a reader to go from that article to my school assembly services…which is the entire point of each article on my site.

I suspect the SEO company would make similar high-level mistakes.

So, I learned a lot in my interaction with this company. I learned that at the core, the services I offer to my clients are the same as those of the big SEO companies.

The difference? When you work with me, you work with ME. I don’t pass your account off to an assistant or a worker who doesn’t understand your business like I do.

And I don’t suggest or offer unethical SEO ‘hacks,’ like paying for links.

I’m one of you. I’m a performer. And I’ve worked (and continue to work) in the main niches available to magicians today.

Most importantly, when you work with me, you will know exactly everything I will do to help your website rank higher. No guesses. No vague answers. Just clear strategies, everything approved by you.

Have questions? Shoot me a reply. I’m finishing up a couple of website projects soon and will have openings in my schedule to take on another client or two.

Have a great week!

--Cris

 
1. Grab my FREE report for professional working magicians.

It’s called “The 2-Word Secret to Eliminate Your Competition & Become Your Area’s Busiest Magician.” This report reveals a strategy that almost NO magicians are using (and the ones who are don’t use it correctly). Get your free copy HERE.

2. Get my website video training for under $20:

 
In this 2-hour video training, I’ll reveal exactly what your website needs if you want to succeed as a professional entertainer in the 21st century. Get all the details HERE.

 
3. Get a complete business-building plan handed to you on a silver platter.

 
Not sure how to move your magic business forward? I’ll analyze your complete magic business (website, market, competition, and more) and give you a complete game plan for getting your performing business to the next level. Find out how HERE.

 
4. Work with me privately.

 
Need help in multiple areas? I can help you with your website, direct mail, email, or other marketing strategies. I also offer consulting services for crafting magic routines or even entire shows. Want to find out more? Shoot me an email at cris@theprofessionalmagicianclubpro.com.

5. Check out my extensive line of magic routines and marketing products

I have several professional routines, marketing courses, books, and other resources to boost your shows and make booking shows easier and more profitable. Check out my line of products HERE.

To find out more how I can help you book more shows at higher fees, click the button below to see my list of services.

© Copyright Cris Johnson, Inc.