What SEO Consultants Want You To Believe?

As someone who has been in the consulting world for quite a while, I am well familiar with the idea of making a big deal out of straight forward solutions. Now, I am not condoning consultants who exaggerate the complexity of the work that they are doing for their clients, but this is a fact. SEO consultants and agencies are no exception to this rule. I have personally talked to companies that are awarded for their SEO expertise by Forrester or Jupiter. Without exception, companies use fancy words to impress CEOs of their potential clients. For instance, instead of saying keyword research, they say “keyword discovery, analysis, expansion, and transformation (KDAET).” KDAET sounds more impressive than keyword research on the paper, so why not use it? At least that’s the attitude that some of these so called expert SEO agencies have. The funny thing about consultants is that they claim to know more than they actually do.

I have personally worked with consultants that come up with SEO solutions without really knowing what they are talking. Some others make big deal of things such as META tags. Search engines are putting less emphasis on META tags these days, but these consultants don’t want you to know that. They want to claim your increase in traffic was because of what they have suggested and not anything else that you may have done on the side. I would suggest to anyone who is looking to hire an SEO consultant or agency to do an SEO project to not be too impressed by big words and “big buck” acronyms. Just do your homework, and keep an open mind. If you act desperate, there is a good chance that these clients will find a way to confuse you. After all, consultants are good at selling stuff!