“A Site Provider” Tried Stealing My SEO Work As Their Own
Something so amazing happened to me this week that I had to share with you. As you all know I run a search engine optimization company known as SEO for dealers. I have since broadened my services to include e-mail marketing and pay per click marketing so I have renamed the company as
. That however is not why I’m writing today. I have many dealerships as clients most of them have different website providers and it is a constant struggle to have them see me as friend not foe.
There has never been a situation where I’ve taken on a client and ever tried to undermine their website provider. In fact one of the first things I always do is forge a relationship with someone I can trust in someone who can assist me in optimizing my client’s website. This all changed with a single client and a single provider we’ll call "the site provider."
I have been working with this client since early October and he has seen steady improvement every single month. We have a very good relationship and he sends me referrals often. If not for this tight relationship between myself and the dealership I may not have ever known what "the site provider" secretly tried to do. After a rocky start between me and his current website manager things have been smooth for about 60 days. If you’ve ever dealt with a website provider for dealership you know they control nearly everything. It is of course in my best interest to have a great working relationship with him because I need many things executed on the backend that I do not have access to. So basically to sum up the history of this account, all sides have been happy even though there have been times when "the site provider" and I bumped heads in a struggle for control. In my opinion, it is simply because they are charging dealers for search engine optimization but they are not providing any. With the hiring of an outside search engine optimization company there is a very real threat of their lies being exposed and this is exactly what happened in this case. I want to preface the rest of this article by saying I’ve never heard of this happening before and it very well could be an isolated incident the very nature of them trying to claim credit for my services is the sole reason behind this article. Up until this point I have had nothing but good experience dealing with "the site provider" as a vendor I have often found that one of the most helpful when I need changes made.
Because I want to cause any friction between my client and "the site provider" I will of course leave their name out of this, if the situation occurs or someone needs to fact check this story I am sure they will be more than happy on a one-to-one basis to confirm what I’m saying. Obviously it is very dangerous for them to endorse this sort of article and I would never wish that on my clients. This dealership has seen consistent growth each and every month, roughly 20% since I have been on board as their search engine optimization company. In the months immediately before taking over this account they are dealership website had fewer than 50 organic search referrals. For the month of December they are on pace for nearly 300. Is this astronomical growth, no but I should say they are on our lowest package and have planned for more of a long-term sustained growth rather than huge numbers up front. Overall site traffic is moving this growth showing roughly a consistent increase in organic traffic each month I have had this account.
Here’s where all went wrong:
I received a disturbing phone call from my client yesterday late afternoon informing me that his "site provider" representative had called him to complain about me. Sparing you the details the representative was basically upset because I had requested a large amount of work be done to the website and have been very demanding. This is simply how I operate. I find that providing clear deadlines and staying on website providers is the only way to ever get them to do anything in a timely manner. My client of course defended my actions by saying to the representative that’s what he’s paying me for and that he should do whatever I ask. The "site provider" representative then went on to tell my client he is making a mistake by paying me to do search engine optimization for his website because he is already paying "site provider" to do it. Now if you have done business with me or know anything about how I do business you know that I have a very close relationship with all my clients this is the exact reason why.
The "site provider" Rep then went on to say that his website was one of the best performing sites over the past several months and that was a result of the search engine optimization service "the site provider" have been providing. My client went on to ask why hasn’t the site been improving for the last year if it was because of "them" since he had been paying for the package since the beginning. To this question a "site provider" representative of course had no answer. My client then asked what search engine optimization services they were doing for him. To this question the "site provider" representative replied that they had done the link building and keyword research. My client then asked the logical question what links have you built for me. Now here’s where things started to fall apart for "the site provider" since the site was brand-new in October when I took over the account it had zero back links. My client knew this because I told him, he also knew exactly what links I have provided because I provide this information biweekly in my reports. Of course the "site provider"rep could not answer this question and said that he would have to talk to his SEO team. He also said that he will call my client back within five minutes the call never came. He was caught in lie and "site provider" SEO service is nothing but a drain on money and they know dealerships will pay it because they can co-op the cost.
This is my plea to anyone who is paying for any SEO service whether it be from "the site provider" or any website provider. Start getting involved in asking what you’re getting for your money it doesn’t matter if you’re paying $500 or $5000 a month there are too many snake oil salesman and it really is sad when it comes from the GM endorsed company. To top it all off I noticed there team had changed some of the title tags I had set up to include cities well over three hours away from his target market essentially undoing the work I’d done in the first month for this client. When I asked the"site provider" Rep, first and foremost why they were making changes to my work and also why they would target will cities the only response he had for me was that his team had changed the title tag to address some negative trending. This came as an obvious surprise to me because the website has been growing every single month when I asked him to ask his team what negative trend in might be referring to he said he would have to e-mail me back I of course never got an e-mail.
I realize this post they seem like a rant but it really isn’t and I know this post might seem as a backdoor way to sell my service but it isn’t. As somebody who has his roots in the car industry shameful business acts like this still affect take me on a personal level. It’s bad enough "the site provider" tried to convince one of my clients not only that the work I’d done for him was work they had done but then to try and say that they should stop spending money with me was over the line. They even went as far as to tell my client to remove the link on his homepage that said my company did his Internet Marketing. In my opinion "the site provider" doesn’t want anyone to know that they weren’t doing it they didn’t want somebody else to figure out what my client did three months ago and that is to get real search engine results you need a real search engine optimization company.
If you have any questions about your current search engine optimization company and you want to know what you’re getting for your money please feel free to e-mail me or call anytime this isn’t a plea for new clients although of course we will take them, this is me against those who give search engine optimization a bad name. If you’ve any question at all what you’re getting for your search engine optimization I would be happy to diagnose and dissect any work your current provider may or may not have done.
Jeremy Hambly
Indie Results
support@indieresults.com
Real Results With Internet Marketing Is What We Do!
December 30th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Well Jeremy,
I can pretty much describe the same experiences with them and another “big name” vendor. Not to mention every consultant I come in contact with shares the same tales of woe with the large vendors.
A lot of snake oil at that level exist and thrives because dealers for the most part are not educated. That is changing at an alarming rate because now dealers are having to learn a new vocabulary if they are to survive.
It is unfortunate that most will be appalled by your post but as most know I don’t mind taking the gloves either so I and the silent minority will APPLAUD your efforts.
The big vendors need to be as wary as the big three. Times are changing and they need to make changes or get out of the way.
December 30th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
One of the glaring issues with large automotive platform providers, is how can they provide SEO services to dealers in the same PMA. This is another issue that rides along with your concerns about the quality of SEO services offered by “big-box” companies.
The largest automotive web platform providers often provide websites for competing dealers in the same PMA. I’m not sure how they can offer competitive SEO services that may compete with their own clients. I encourage dealers to separate web platform providers and SEO providers to avoid this potential conflict.
In my Automotive SEO practice, I only take on one car dealer manufacturer per State so that there is no conflict in SEO optimization. So if I take one a Honda dealer in Phoenix like Bell Honda I will not take on another Honda dealer in Arizona.
I know my opinion may be perceived as predjudiced, but full-time Automotive SEO consultants will beat the pants off of integrated SEO services provided by “big-box” web providers under normal circumstances.
December 31st, 2008 at 12:02 am
Jeremy,
Good for you in speaking up about the type of treatment; dealers - take notice. Demand more from your vendors.
Keep taking the high road…I’m sure you’re a believer in Karma.
Cheers to Jared for creating this type of forum as well…
Eric
December 31st, 2008 at 1:57 am
Readers: On the extremely rare occasion (I believe this to be 2nd time in history) I find myself as a publisher or site owner needing to edit a post so the greater good of the community is met.
When we set out to create DrivingSales we wanted a place for dealers to connect and share best practices so that we could shorten the learning curve for everyone and increase innovation in the industry. The little community I created in 2003 has grown from my dealer academy class of 30 dealers to included thousands of industry professionals from all backgrounds. At its core the objective of the community is the same: to connect dealers with people and information they need to maximize their success. This article certainly provides very valuable information to dealers and we appreciate the stance of the author and his willingness to impart of his knowledge. Thank you Jeremy.
Our blog community is designed to provide dealers with vendor neutral information focused on practice and principle, not companies. We ask that vendors don’t overly self promote themselves, and we ask that they dont “put down or insult” competitors by name. This way the focus of the content stays on knowledge and practice, not what one company thinks of another. We feel this is best for our dealers who we serve first and foremost. Our Vendor Rating system is designed to allow dealers to rate and review their vendors and provides a much more accurate representation of what vendors provide the best results than a single blog post could. We encourage dealers to leave very frank and honest feedback for their vendors in the vendor rating system.
It is for this reason I ask that you excuse my edit of this otherwise great post. I simply edited the vendor name and inserted “the site provider” in blue font where the edit was made so the user can clearly see the changes. It is important to note DrivingSales does not have a commercial agreement with the vendor that was named, we just feel its important to keep the blog content focused on practice and principle, not specific vendors.
Thanks everyone for participating! Keep up the good work.
December 31st, 2008 at 7:20 am
Proper SEO is a mix of “on page” and “off page” efforts. So I can understand why a website provider would say things they are doing improve the SEO since they have the biggest impact on the “on page” and architecture changes to the site that can impact SEO.
That said, I’m sure your side of the story is right and they are trying to steal your credit.
Thanks,
Matt Watson
VinSolutions
December 31st, 2008 at 8:51 am
Hello all, yes I see they edited it…thats ok….I can understand why they might want to do that. I stand by my post, it is 100% fact.
December 31st, 2008 at 8:54 am
Hey I am glad to be a par of History! Thanks for at least leaving my post up if even edited. People need to know about this.
December 31st, 2008 at 11:50 am
Jeremy-
The experience you had is such an important reminder for dealers. With dealerships leaning so heavily on vendors, and the trend picking up more and more, it is so important for dealers to
a) make sure these vendors have all the necessary open doors and are able to access the tools they need to product results.
b) Keep a close tab on who is doing what and what results everyone is presenting. Imagine if the dealer wasnt looking at the reports, and he made a switch away from your service. He would have lost months of work, then (months later) realizing the mistake corrected the action yet still have to wait a few months to regain the lost ground. A mistake in selecting the wrong partner, for not watching the reports, could have cost the dealer easily 6 months of results! Ouch.
Good thing you guys were on it.
December 31st, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Jeremy,
Unfortunately this is not uncommon. As a dealer web developer we had two companies “pretend” to be resellers of our product with the true intent of gaining inside information, and one of them even shafted us with a bill by trying to cancel a contract early. One of them are in collections and both of them participate in this forum.
We have found designs or graphics stolen as recently as this year, as well as source code and intellectual property theft.
It’s sad to see web developers fighting against the gravity of search and manipulating dealers to believe that their solution works, is automatic, or can be set on autopilot.
There are only so many dealers that can be #1 for a particular phrase in a particular market, and when a developer optimizes 38 sites to win “Honda Dealer in Texas”, there can only be one winner, so it makes me wonder how they decide who they spend more time on? Could it be that the bigger dealer groups get more attention? I’d like to know if there’s any stories anyone can share about that.
Smaller companies often do not have to serve more than “one god” so to speak and can realistically state that they are working hard for the one dealer. Larger companies, I challenge you to let us know how you optimize for “Chevy Dealer New York” when you have 10,20, or 30 Chevy dealers in New York. Which one gets the highest ranking and how to you explain to the others why they are not ranking when it is part of the bill you send them every month? It seems like a SEO conflict of interest.
In the SEO arena alone there is enough snake oil without fighting against web developers. We actually made our content management system and modified it so that other SEO companies can go edit tags, titles, keywords, descriptions, etc and allow them to create additional pages, text, upload images, etc. Sometimes the dealer wants to use an outside source and although we offer that service as well, we are just fine with letting another company take that business if it helps the dealer. (In some cases it completely backfires when an SEO company has no clue and completely screws up the SEO work, but that’s another story we can discuss offline)
We wrote an article about Snake OIL SEO companies here if you want to read further: http://automotiveseoblog.com/2008/11/11/automotive-internet-marketing-is-the-new-snake-oil/
Back to web developers, there are companies also making claims of automatic SEO for used cars as well, and also charge a dealer a few hundred bucks extra for SEO. The dealers very often think that they “bought” SEO from their provider and really have no clue how much can really be done with it when the proper focus is aimed at specific phrases.
Jeremy, if you want to talk further email me at ms@puredealer.com as there are some other things we may want to discuss related to this topic that are not fit for displaying publicly without mentioning names.
December 31st, 2008 at 12:28 pm
“Smaller companies often do not have to serve more than “one god” so to speak and can realistically state that they are working hard for the one dealer. Larger companies, I challenge you to let us know how you optimize for “Chevy Dealer New York” when you have 10,20, or 30 Chevy dealers in New York. Which one gets the highest ranking and how to you explain to the others why they are not ranking when it is part of the bill you send them every month? It seems like a SEO conflict of interest.”
I do agree there is some conflict but the fact of the matter is in reality to use your example I would break it down to their actual market. Breaking it down to Brooklyn, Manhattan, and so on SEO can still be granular. It just takes a little more work. There is no way one dealership honestly targets the entire city, and if they do they are just spraying and praying.