Big Company, Big Losses – Bad SEO
I recently met with executives of a large company. I was asked to a do an analysis on one of their current web sites just to see if I might be able to offer some suggestions for them. I was astounded by my findings.
By doing a simple right click, view source I discovered the overuse of keywords. Usually, I begin designing
search engine optimization
with the focus on 12-15 keywords. They had closer to 30 keywords on their index page. Out of these 30 keywords and phrases, they had used the same word repeatedly in over 26 of the phrases. Wow.
I ran multiple reports on their web site for keyword density, incoming links and their current rankings for their top 10 keywords. Then to make things interesting, I ran the same reports for their competition. While their density was barely visible (3 times on their major keywords), their competition was doing their work and had a respectful amount of density for 4 of their keywords right on the home page. Either their SEO person knows how to do it right, or they got lucky. The competition also ran away with the incoming links. With over 4000 links and unfortunately the company I did the analysis for had a tremendously low number. Reading the reports from all the associated tools I used kept returning these types of scenarios, so as it was, I had plenty of suggestions to offer.
Printing out about 30 pages of the
search engine optimization
analysis with handwritten notes of things I would change might not be the best approach for landing a new client. Yea, there were many changes and my goal was to inform them of the mistakes made by the
SEO company
they contracted. Not trying to talk down the other guys, I presented them with a detailed report of the changes that NEEDED to be made. I even suggested that they present the analysis to their SEO person and let them make the final decision. In my opinion, making the changes will increase traffic to their site.
Why a large company could be represented on this level was beyond me, but their money wasn’t well spent. As I handed them the printed report, their eyes gazed upon all the changes I had suggested. Did I offend them? Was it something they already knew? I wasn’t stressing about the assumptions they may get from reading the report. I was merely trying to offer my suggestions. Explaining each part of the report in detail made them more comfortable and aware of the situation that their web site was currently in, how to make the needed changes, and where their site should be in the near future. They understood the facts and said they would have their “SEO people” implement the changes immediately.
While I was glad to help them, I am still amazed that there are corporate companies that have flawed SEO. Have you run into this situation yourself while doing SEO for a large company? Don’t list any company names, but just tell me what you were up against. Comment below.
