Here are some more un-professional / amusing responses to clients inquiries when they have put questions to their previous website design company or seo company, these conversations below brought a smile to our face, but also are included to explain away some incorrect knowledge of how website design and SEO works). Some details of search terms and website names have been changed to stop any undue embarrassment.
Site Owner: Whats happening with our rankings now?
Web Company: Google seems to be reading the site well. You are second on Google for [search term 1] and [search term 2] above the [competitors] website. [our comment: ‘reading the site well’ mmm that’s good to know:) At the time of writing the two search terms mentioned ranked below the competitors website]
Site Owner: Since you have completed the website redesign and SEO on our site we dont see any difference with rankings, can you give us an update on our website’s SEO please?
Web Company: You have to wait for Google to work out its various algorithms. It can take about 2 months before it recognises the changes and display them accordingly. [our comment: Google’s Algorithms are worked out and can change daily but you do need to wait for the search bots (googlebot) to revisit your site to pickup changes, it can be 1 day or it can be a few weeks before changes are reflected in your site’s ranking)
Site Owner:Your details on where we were Google wise was not the same as what we saw Google wise from our PC and laptop at home, we were still below [our main competitor]?. should we check again? is there more we can still do?
Web Company: As we have an account with Google our ranking is more accurate that yours [our comment: actually ranking does vary depending on what data center you connect to and if you are signed into Google via your account and if you have web history turned on or off but just having an account with Google doesnt mean rankings are different]
Site Owner:Spent lots of money with you to promote our website but after 3 months nothing has happened, we are actually the same place and have the same visitor numbers.
Web Company: Google has not finished indexing and displaying the site as it should yet. Still a waiting game. Once it has then I can take a look at it again. [our comment: onsite changes should be picked up within 1-2 months maximum and normally positive changes are noticed after a SEO program within 3 months)
Site Owner: Our site snippet (in Google and Bing, Yahoo) is the same despite you changing the title and description during your updates.
Web Company: There is no telling when Google will get round to indexing and displaying a site how you want it to. They have well over a trillion pages to work with every day. Most search engine companies will say 3 months minimum. [our comment: the title and description were not actually changed and pages can be re-indexed daily so its not true to say most search engine companies ‘say’ 3 months)
Site Owner: Really want to be ranking higher than my competitor, can you get us ranking higher than them?
Web Company Shouldn’t be a problem beating that site. Just looked at the coding and it is awful. Just got to wait for Google to do its thing as it does not happen overnight unfortunately.[our comment: coding may be a ranking factor but even if coding standards are a ranking factor it will be a very very minor one)
Site Owner: Why did you say we were ranked higher than our competitor and now we are ranked 8th and they are 2nd?
Web Company: Google may have temporarily put you above [competitor’s site] and then moved you down again once all their algorithms were worked out. [our comment: mmm anything is possible but this sounds like the site owner is dealing with an amateur]
Site Owner: When are we going to see the benefits of your website updates and SEO work? have you done the optimisation?
Web Company: I have done the optimisation, yes. You are on the front page for quite a few keywords. [our comment: all optimisation programs should be completed with a full report of changes made and the site in this example only ranked on the ‘front page’ for their company name, which isnt that impressive! )
Site Owner: Just a quick note how do we get ourselves onto the first page when people are searching [selection of random search terms] not sure if this is something we need to do?
Web Company: I can do this for you it will be £100 per search term. [our comment: we just smiled when we saw that this was what someone said and goes to prove that in every industry there are cowboys, to quote a random figure for an unspecified bit of work is pure speculative chancing! If you want your site promoted property give us a ring and we will tell you in non-technical terms what it takes and what you can reasonably expect]