SEO is nothing without substance
I have been mulling over something over the last few days. I have been contracted to do some SEO work which was nicely paid, but I turned it down.
I didnt turn it down because it was too much of a challenge, or because the client demanded too much, I have managed to do more for most of my customers in the past and the competition in the niche wasnt too high, so why did I turn it down?
The customers product simply had no substance to it. I in many ways come from the old school of marketing. Start with a good product, demonstrate that there is a market for said product, identify the market correctly that you wish to target, THEN set about spreading the word to the potential clients. If the product has no substance it simply wont achieve sales that would render any SEO work useless. Now I could have just taken the money and produced the results, so why didnt I?
Well, that particular client might do a five figure sum on this product, but I dont want to be part of this failure story. If the client heeds my advice and redesigns the core of the product it could do well, and then I would be interested in working with it, but not as it stands. No SEO or SEM (or any other client looking for marketing advice) is going to want to lose money in the long run. If I am part of this current debacle, I bet that customer would not be a repeat user of my services. If he chooses to go ahead with another SEO’er and my predictions turn out to be true, w ell in 6 months, or in two years, that customer might come back to me with a better idea. And that one I will be interested in working on!
Its all down to an ethical approach to marketing I guess. If you have serious doubts as to whether a product will ever turn a profit, is it correct to work on the marketing of it? In my opinion no it is not. Perhaps 5 years ago when I had to look for work it would have been a different story, but for now, those projects are simply not worth the phone call in 3 months when the customer says that funds have dried up and he is broke/gone out of business.
SEO is like any other marketing exercise, if its not a good idea or has no substance, dont bother. Its up to you as an expert in marketing to identify products that just wont work, and do yourself a favour, DONT work on them!
Anyway, its off for my calimocho again,
MM