It all started with an email.  The email was addressed to me from my father.  He sent me a listing on Craigslist about a person who needed some basic SEO help.  I normally don’t cruise Craigslist, but this email peaked my interest as to what else may be out there.  There wasn’t too much of anything else, except I  came across this listing: http://milwaukee.craigslist.org/sls/1592964195.html For those who don’t want to read it or it gets removed, here it is in all its glory:

We are a brick and mortar 11 year old web design company located in Oconomowoc, WI, and build hundreds of websites every year here in WI. For the last few years we have been developing our own SEO (search engine optimization) system. We have developed a way to get ANY business on the FIRST PAGE of Google (ORGANICALLY) for ANY SEARCH TERM within 11-14 days and for a FRACTION of what other SEO companies charge. When we show a company what we do, they literally sign themselves up for our program.

So, we have finally decided to launch our program and are looking for 2-3 sharp people to train to sell our program. We expect the people we chose to earn somewhere around $300 – $600 / day….starting within the very first week. Now although this is a commission job, we are willing to offer the right person(s) a salary after 30 days of proving yourself. (although you’ll tell us to stuff it because that would be taking a pay cut) But we will offer it anyway.

The right person(s) will have some sales in their background, a good knowledge of the internet, good phone and speaking skills and a positive attitude.

If you are interested in learning more, please send your resume’ with job history and we will call you to schedule an in person interview here in our Oconomowoc office. Once you see what we’re doing and how fast it works…..you won’t sleep thinking about all the money you’ll be making.

This is all inside sales here in our office. Our office and dress code is RELAXED CASUAL, and the work hours are 8am – 5pm.

We look forward to speaking with you.

I am sure that you are as annoyed as I am after reading that.  This is a posting for a Sales Position at that company and they are making some outrageous claims.  Those claims are all centered around this sentence:

We have developed a way to get ANY business on the FIRST PAGE of Google (ORGANICALLY) for ANY SEARCH TERM within 11-14 days and for a FRACTION of what other SEO companies charge.

They haven’t developed shit, Period!  Because if they did, why would it be at a Fraction of what other SEO companies charge.  It doesn’t make any logical sense.  Really, lets think about it.  If you knew how to get ANY Keyword on Page 1 with in 11-14 days, would charge pennies for it.  I don’t think so.  I would charge whatever I wanted because I could command the price its worth.

I just wished they included the actual company in their ad or an example of just how awesome there system is.  While I am at it.  I came across this ad on Craigslist as well http://janesville.craigslist.org/cps/1601277441.html.

This guy, Matt as he calls himself, doesn’t seem too bad at first, except for guaranteeing Page 1 results.  This, as we know, is a red flag to anybody worth their salt in the SEO field.  The reason I say not too bad is because he actually appears to give you the exact places where he does his link building.

However, if we do a little bit more digging, we see that things start to fall apart.  All you have to do is go to his website (just click on the ad because I am not linking straight to him) and go to his results page.  But before that, can you believe that this Matt guy has his whole site in Flash and he calls himself some sort of SEO expert.  As for the results, they are just not that spectacular.

Why is that? Well, even though he removes the keyword from the search box, we can deduce what his search query was based on the words in bold in the results.  The first one seems to be for Chicago Lawn Care or Lawn Care Chicago.  I could go into all of the keyword research to see if this is a difficult keyword, but Mat has already done that by calling out the number of results.  I repeat, he called out the number of results as his evidence for victory.  People please, don’t do that.  It is not a measure for how difficult or competitive the keyword is.

I know that there are all levels of quality service in every profession out there, but when it hits this close to home it hurts just a little bit more.  Not only does the company I work for have to compete against these Snake Oil Salesmen, local companies and their employees will be hurt by them.  I guess that it is no surprise they don’t say what their company name is in the ad, but I wish it did so I could call their bullshit out to their face!

</rant>

Additionally I am currently ranked #1 for the keyword “Janesville SEO” in Yahoo as well.  This really goes to show that even with a brand new site with no history, the domain name is incredibly important.  However, to keep things in perspective, “Janesville SEO” is not a difficult keyword to obtain.  There is next nothing when it comes to real competition and on top of it all, there is hardly any search traffic for it.  But the good news to that is, if it does start to pick up from nothing, maybe its more brand awareness on my part.  Only time will tell.

Since I have been doing this Search Engine Optimization thing for quite some time now, I was amazed that this was the most direct way to get indexed.  I say this because I installed Google Analytics, signed up with Google Webmaster Tools, and submitted an XML Google friendly Site Map and there was no indexation by Google.  These are a lot of signals that I provided to Google and yet they did not pick up on them.  So let that be a lesson, if you want to be indexed quickly, submit your site directly to Google. Another interesting fact is that one of the fields that you are able to fill out when submitting your is labeled “comments”.  This indicates to me that someone, a real human and not a bot is actually looking over your submission.  Can you imagine how many submissions they get a day or even a week.   I can only imagine what that job would be like.

Linkbuilding Slowly Begins

The other thing I did was sign up and submit my site to Blog Catalog.  I thought this would be a great initial start in building good backlinks to this site.  This was easy and free to do, which is great.  So if anybody is out there is starting a blog, I would recommend this site and others similar to it to build good backlinks.  Another great benefit for this can be seen in the search engine results page for the search of  “Janesville SEO”.  I currently rank 1, 2, and technically 3.  I say this because my listing on Blog Catalog is in the 3rd spot.

Ranking Results Are In

So in a short while I have obtained the top 3 spots for 1 main keyword I am focusing my rankings on.  The other keyword of choice at the moment is “Janesville Search Engine Optimization”  I am not doing as well there, yet!  Currently I am number 10 (Blog Catalog) and number 15 for janesvilleseo.com.  I am sure within a short period of time I will obtain top rankings for these keywords.  The best thing I have in my favor is my domain name.  Keep that in mind if you have a local service and are in need of a new website/domain.  Get one with the key + city if you can.

What Have I Done Thus Far

I have covered all of the basics:

• Signing up for a Google Analytics account
• Submitting the site to Google Webmasters Tools
• Submitting a XML sitemap to Google through Webmaster Tools

What Are The Next Steps

If we keep the two major tenants of SEO in mind, Content and Links, then those have to be the next steps.  As we speak I am continuing to add content to this site.  In the coming weeks and months I hope to not only document my journey to top rankings for the keywords Janesville SEO and Janesville Search Engine Optimization, but also write about other search marketing news and tactics and try to to apply them on a local level here in Janesville, WI.

In terms of building links, I will start with blog directories and local directories.  This tends to be a great starting point for new websites.  By adding to local and topical directories it not only tells Google and the other search engines what you are about, but it can help speed up the process of getting indexed.

I will keep you all posted as to when I get indexed within Google, as well as, Yahoo and Bing.  My guess is that Google will be first and within the next couple of days with Yahoo and Bing to follow shortly.