A strong prospect calls your Search Engine Marketing agency and as a Business Development Executive, you take the call. The client asks you what the difference is between SEM and SEO. He also enquires what the most important on-page elements of an SEO campaign are. After you have answered, the prospect responds that of the four agencies with whom he has conversed today, every single one, has responded differently to this question.
Strike #1: If there is no accepted standard definition from which the client can develop an understanding of the terminology used in the conversation, this creates confusion and hurts industry credibility. It is like going to four dentists and being given four different solutions to numbing a tooth ache. You will ultimately not know whom to trust and will question each recommendation.
The client agrees to go ahead with the SEO proposal that your company has presented. You begin implementing the work and four months later, you get a call from the angry client because he had interpreted that monthly SEO included comprehensive link building and article creation, but you’ve only added a few links.
Strike #2: Unless both you and the client are clear on the definitions and parameters of the contract, this affects the validity of the contract and creates miscommunication & confusion.
The client refuses to make any further monthly payments until all the definitions of service have been clearly outlined.
Strike #3: This is detrimental to the trust that you have built with the client and creates a hurdle in the relationship. It creates a disequilibrium in the expectations the client had of your service offering.
You define each of the terms and clearly outline the definitions in your contract, but the client believes that these are not representative of what was agreed to during discussions and as the client had understood the contract. The client decides that he does not wish to do business with you any further and unless you refund all their money, a lawsuit will be filed against you for misleading conduct.
Strike #4: Now you have a problem, but do not wish to refund money for work that you believe was delivered. If you take it to court, the Law in your state will determine whether your contract is valid. Are there any legal loopholes? Could a court find that you as the Professional should have known better and through your actions, you inadvertently misled the client?
Without any standards to guide the courts, the courts only have the Law to decide who is in the wrong. With no guiding principles or ‘generally accepted standards’ in the SEO industry, the client may well have a strong case for being misled and cheated.
No Standards – And You’re Out
The SEO industry, like every other professional industry, from lawyers to doctors, requires standards to protect the public.
Doctors do not take the Hippocratic Oath for their own benefit, but rather to practice and prescribe to the best of their ability for the good of their patients.
In the same manner, SEO specialists should be required to adhere to certain principles that protect the client and decrease their likelihood of being cheated or misled.
Every single SEO agency may claim that they strive to keep the good of the client as the highest priority…. Yet, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Without responsibly practicing in the SEO profession, with official principles guiding the field, the cowboy industry where ‘everything goes’ will not mature.
As Ian McAnerin so aptly put it in his blog:
Standards? We don’t need no stinkin’ standards. But the public does. The SEO community needs to deal with the fact that they and the search engines are not the only ones involved in this issue. That’s part of the process of becoming mature: becoming aware of the needs of others. Joining the larger community. Practicing responsible behavior. Caring.
I think it’s time we grew up and took responsibility for our own profession, before someone does it for us.
