Criticism: TOP 100 SEO not that great at all

Konrad Wolfenstein

4 years ago

It's a hot potato and yet the question has been on my mind for a long time: How much of the SEO offers from search engine optimizers and agencies is really good SEO? How can I quickly find out who knows their craft using simple means? I used to be one of the first search engine optimizers with my SEO.AG domain (which I still have) (2001/02).

TOP 100 SEO not so top – Image: Rawpixel.com|Shutterstock.com

SEO is important, but I have not followed SEO as a business model for a long time because my focus has developed into the field of international business development. SEO is only one of many factors and then get my partners on board if necessary. Admittedly, SEO is an ungrateful job. The expectations of customers are great. Sometimes it seemed to me that you should conquer the world for a pocket money. The “lucrative” offers were best: on a successful basis. Sure, there is a painstaking work to build the SEO world for third parties and then you should trust that you will be rewarded accordingly. I can also understand the other side. And because SEO is a very intensive business that only works on a great basis of trust and patience, I was able to develop further into the area of my current activity through new contacts.

It started earlier than suddenly almost every print agency that had just gone more badly than online, then also offered search engine optimization in large letters. And because SEO is an opaque market, where you could calculate the numbers with many tricks, everything has gathered under the SEO sun and consequently the knights that were atmosphere. In the meantime it is almost inflationary with SEO. Some still make a secret science out of it, with others this is already all-inclusive in the different standard, premium, gold and what else packages. Others have the turn out how to pimp numbers so that they were “great”. Great but in the literal sense from incredible to adventurous.

So I am outside and can say with a clear conscience that I do not make a network here or even operate SEO bashing. But quite often I get “great” SEO offers from home and abroad, and if you take a closer look, you can quickly see how much hot air is actually behind it. The question is: If I get all these “great” offers, who gets this spam and can also differentiate between who is really good and who doesn't?

Because some SEO is not the core “competence” (which you mostly know yourself), SEO is used as a running board to incorporate the actual different packages and promote as important. Sales are the actual business.

Even with high-class references, we don't save money. However, it is usually never clear exactly what was done. Who did the actual work. As a rule, the company's internal IT or the responsible marketing department has already done a good job. Did some things right. But then you get external SEO support because you want it to be even better and presto the entire service is listed as an SEO reference with external support. Already experienced everything.

Admittedly, it is also difficult to implement the desired SEO measures with the customer. The greater the company, the greater the internal politics and adversity to get such necessities through. It is also grueling to box through every small point through tens of meetings and discussions. That some people say: “Hey, what do I tear my leg out of here, then I just make business as usual. If they are satisfied with it, ok! I have the nerve effort paid ”. I can understand, but is difficult for the passion to SEO in the long run.

But not everyone is like that. This affects the customer and it also affects SEO. Those who mean well have to find each other and that's not that easy.

On the one hand, they rattle particularly loudly where the SEO performance is questionable and on the other hand, customers cannot find the right SEO for themselves because they tend to operate quietly and inconspicuously. SEO is a lot of craft, analysis, research and observation.

The question for me now was how someone who doesn't understand the SEO market can distinguish the good from the bad? There has to be a way, apart from the marketing showbiz and the reference show-offs, to at least find clues to examine the SEO service in question or the SEO agency in question more critically.

SEO is important, but it’s intensive work – Image: Rawpixel.com|Shutterstock.com

I proceeded in a similar way to my solar installer project and put two key points in the room that can be verified from the outside:

HTTPS protocol
Page Speed

The HTTPS protocol is the front part that is required in the URL when we access a website: https:// xpert.digital

When we type the domain address of the website in the browser, the http:// or https:// protocol is automatically added first, depending on which protocol is stored as the default in the browser. Nowadays it should be the HTTPS protocol.

Suitable for:

Over 30% of solar installers have not yet arrived in the digital age

Since the switch from HTTP to HTTPS protocol does not involve any major effort for IT, for me the evaluation described above was an indication of whether someone is preparing for digitalization or not. If the old protocol was still present, the conclusion was that no digital transformation was taking place here. As I said, this may not apply to everyone, but it is an indication and, as a whole, is sufficient as an assessment.

When it comes to SEO providers, I actually found 2 that still use the old HTTP protocol. I also crossed them out of the list for further review.

In addition, I checked the respective websites several times over 3 months. This should also be sufficient, especially in the event of a temporary technical error.

The next difficult task was to include who in the further evaluation. Nowadays almost everyone who is online or digital offers what does search engine optimization mean.

To do this, I looked through some SEO provider lists and listing services. Anyone who registers or has themselves listed here has a certain right to be called an SEO expert. I left out others and I think that a total of 1653 SEO providers are representative enough for my small project. It's not like I have an endless amount of time and only do this on the side. As a fan of numbers and statistics, I believe that they should be reliable facts and that they must be sufficient for me. Ultimately, I need the certainty that I have a good SEO in front of me, even myself.

Let's go back to the conditions:

Repeated checking of the website for the two conditions described below in order to rule out temporary technical problems. The tests were carried out from November 2020 to January 2021. Randomly selected 10 times in each month. The test was automated and programmed by myself.
Check for HTTPS protocol. Anyone who falls below 80% of the exams is excluded from the statistics. In fact, only two were at 0%. I checked again manually to see whether I had made a mistake, especially since from the outside they were visually well-positioned SEO booths. This is how you can be wrong.

Check the page speed factor!

What’s this about page speed?

I actually had a case that I had to have a discussion with the IT of a customer who thought that Google Page Speed is of no importance for Google ranking. It was “great” to ground, you knew more than Google myself. Actually, I just wanted the IT to take measures to accelerate the website a bit because it is very busy (from the English Lame = Lahm). What should you say about it? Every diplomacy and indirect help is difficult if you block so frontally.

As early as 2010, Google used page speed as a signal for Google ranking in search results. In 2018, Google expanded this ranking factor to include mobile searches.

In 2020, page speed became part of the page experience rating (user-friendliness) .

It says, among other things:

Optimize user-friendliness

Information about tools you can use to measure and report speed values can be found here . These tools can be used to measure the LCP, FID and CLS values.
whether your site is mobile-friendly with the mobile optimization test

From March 2021, only the mobile version of websites will be indexed and probably from May the new ranking signals “Core Web Vitals” will flow into Google Placement for the website: Core Web Vital: Google's benchmark for page experience

In summary and simply put, this is Google Page Speed. There are also fluctuations in the page speed ratings. In my three-month analysis, I always took the highest value at the end.

Then you can check for yourself here on Google: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?hl=de

Mobile Page Speed from Xpert.Digital (02/12/2021) – Image: @Google

I check my Xpert.digital regularly and am very well positioned in relation to the market, especially in the area of mobile. Even Google "only" has a page speed of 57.

This alone shows whether a website is responsive, i.e. mobile-friendly, or not. Websites that are not mobile-friendly end up in the red zone for technical reasons.

My Xpert.Digital is certainly not SEO perfect. I'm working on it as best I can and as long as I have time. I'm not an agency. I am a highly connected one-man show who works as an in-house solution from a management perspective. In order to do the right thing, I have to be able to tinker with and understand things myself in order to be able to collaborate, discuss, coordinate and make decisions with the company's external service providers and employees.

Now, let's get to the evaluations of the 1653 SEO providers mentioned above:

A total 16 out of 1,653 were in the green zone with a page speed of over 90.

182 were in the brown range between 50 and 89.

1,455 of 1653 were in the red zone below 49. These are 88 %.

This means that 88% of the SEO providers analyzed have not managed to optimize their own website in the mobile version for Google searches in a way that meets the SEO standards described above, which will change dramatically this year.

Finally:

No, I will not provide any information about which SEO providers were in the evaluation and how they performed.
Above I have shown some ways in which you can determine this yourself.
I ask you to keep in mind that SEO is an intensive business that cannot be run seriously with a monthly budget of 200 euros. Companies should therefore reconsider their budget planning and not neglect it. Depending on the size of the company and its SEO status, good SEO starts in the four-digit range.
Certainly, SEO is not just page speed. It is one of several factors. This includes content development, backlinking, on-page optimization and much more. But page speed is one of the most important and is a measurement that can be assessed transparently and clearly from the outside.
No, I still do not offer SEO myself.

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