Disclaimer: The author of this post has a company that competes directly with OrangeSoda, so beware of competitive bias.
Update: Since posting this, it has come to my attention that there is no “About OrangeSoda” paragraph at the end of the press release, although there is one for REMAX, which might indicate that this press release wasn’t even issued by OrangeSoda, but perhaps by REMAX, which affects some of the comments I’ve made below about OrangeSoda.
Any SEO professional knows that it’s easy to get a company ranking well in Google for that company’s name, especially if that company’s name is present in the URL the company uses for its website. For example, if I have a company named Purple Monkey Dishwasher and I own the URL PurpleMonkeyDishwasher.com, then it’s going to be a snap to get the #1 spot in Google when people search for “purple monkey dishwasher”. But what if Purple Monkey Dishwasher is a bike shop located in Tampa, Florida? What good does it do me to rank well for “purple monkey dishwasher” in that case? The only benefit I get is that people who already know who I am will be able to find me. But they’re going to find me anyway if they’re looking for me. The problem is I’m not going to get any new customers.
That’s more or less what is being trumpeted as search engine optimization success in this press release from Utah-based SEO firm OrangeSoda, only the company is REMAX of New Jersey. As stated in the release “When people search Google or another search engine for homes for sale in new jersey, or on our brand name, they’ll see RE/MAX New Jersey at the top of the list. Thanks to our partnership with OrangeSoda we’re seeing top results on many real estate keywords,” said Jeanie Farrell of RE/MAX New Jersey.
Now there’s the thousand-dollar question; is the REMAX site really showing up in the top results for “many real estate keywords” or just the company name? According to the Google Keyword Tool the top five real estate/homes for sale related keywords with accompanying search volumes are:
new jersey real estate – 368,000
new jersey homes – 201,000
new jersey homes for sale – 110,000
new jersey homes sale – 110,000
homes in new jersey – 22,200
By comparison searches for “remax new jersey” total approximately 2,900 per month.
The New Jersey REMAX website doesn’t show up in the top 10 search results for any of these keywords, and doesn’t show up in the top 100 search results for the fifth. To be fair, the site is showing up in the 10-20 results for the first four keyword searches. While not exactly “top results” you could make the argument that the site is “on it’s way” to the top, assuming the current rankings are an improvement over what they were before REMAX New Jersey started working with OrangeSoda. Or I suppose you could even make the argument that those are “top rankings” if by “top rankings” you mean anything within the first 20 results.
What really matters, of course, is whether New Jersey REMAX is getting more business as a result of this campaign than they would otherwise. Judged from that perspective, it could be that coming up in the top results for searches for “REMAX” could be generating a net gain, and that being in the top 20 results for keywords that are heavily searched also generates results good enough to justify the expense of OrangeSoda’s SEO services.
Why bother posting about this at all? Primarily because I think it’s misleading. The release puts forth the idea that OrangeSoda is doing great things for REMAX New Jersey by getting them ranking well for searches for their company name, which isn’t much of a challenge, nor is it likely to generate much in the way of real improvement to the client’s revenues. Ranking for the other terms listed above is likely to provide real value
for the client, but rankings that aren’t in the top 10 aren’t exactly newsworthy.
The bottom line is that if you’re a client looking to hire an SEO company, make sure you’re getting a true positive return on your investment, based on a clear comparison of what results you would be getting without the SEO firm vs. with them.
Josh,
Sending you an email with some additional background
.
Alex McArthur
VP of Search
OrangeSoda.com
I didn’t mention it in the post but I was also curious how long it would take to get a response from someone over there. A couple hours isn’t bad at all
This is a great article and brings up 2 points that I’ve recently covered at http://www.PurpleWidget.com as well. This site exists to back up your point of ranking high doesn’t matter unless it’s a keyword with any search volume at all.
They do not know seo, plain and simple. They could not put anyone on the phone with me or my partner (who worked at prime visibilty) that could discuss anything material to a true campaign strategy or tactics. They randomly picked the sterm “custom written papers” for our college help website, which is a term we could care less about. We are already #1 in google for college help service lol. Anyway, sales driven techies with no knowledge of seo. Avoid at all costs. The re/max thing is INDICATIVE of their biz model – showing results for people that do not understand the “results” lack of any real value – yay – you’re #1 for someone already searching for you lol
I’ve found it so hard to compare different SEO companies and what they will do for you. Many often give you names of other companies that are tops for their terms, but there is no way of verifying whether they are actually their clients.
Thanks for the very helpful information about SEO.Any SEO professional knows that it’s easy to get a company ranking well in Google for that company’s name, especially if that company’s name is present in the URL the company uses for its website…………..it is really true orangeades idea of SEO.
I was thinking the EXACT same thing. Their title tag is “online marketing with fiz.” Sorry but no one is searching for that. They use traditional marketing to advertise their online marketing service. Kinda hypocritical if you ask me. But then again, no one is asking me.
I see a lot of negativity toward Orange Soda on here, but can someone point to a trusted company the does good natural SEO?
It is very hard to find an SEO professional who knows what they’re doing. I think when a lot of people start heading down this road they don’t even understand the need to rank well for different key term searches. I don’t think they even know what they’re throwing money at. The above example of ranking high for your own companies name sounds foolish. Ya people will find you easily if they already know about your company but the greatest value of the organic rankings is the new business that it drives in. Some people just don’t get this I guess.
There are lots of quality SEO companies that you can reach out to if you aren’t happy with your current SEO team. OrangeSoda fills a niche for SMB, for better or worse they are tailored to smaller businesses that are better off paying someone to do 40 hours of work a year than spending 100 hours a year themselves. If that isn’t what you are looking for you’d be better to reach out to a company like SEO.com that offers packages of larger sizes with more direct attention.
practice what you preach. that’s the baseline value a company should have. os doesn’t
I was lucky enough to find a domain name that made a great company name as well. The domain name was a huge deal for me because I want to make online marketing my primary sales platform. TexasSeasonings.com was available and has strong branding power as I named the company “Texas Seasonings Co”. By looking at the domain or company name it is pretty self explanatory what we are all about. I don’t think many people will be searching for the exact phrase “texas seasonings” but I do want to try and capture a lot of traffic with the both root words so I’m hoping to be a nice bump on the ranks for this. By having the words in your domain, you shouldn’t just look at the bump in the ranks you’ll get but I think by having the words in the domain you look like the clear choice and will get more people to click into the site.
When you look for an SEO expert – what you need to do is spend some quality time with the SEO engineer who will be working on your website. Quality time would be at least an hour minimum to have him/her show you some actual results. Since Google is the world’s top search engine, make sure you see some real time Google analytics. Google Analytics do not lie and make sure you get to see what kind of traffic the SEO expert is bringing to the websites being showcased.
The Woodlands does have some good SEO experts. You just need to do a little homework and interviews to find the right person. Most web designers in The Woodlands claim to do SEO because they do not want to risk losing any business. SEO is also popular because it’s how a business will succeed. Many people are trying to tap into that market with little to no experience in the field.
Just like with anything, all you need to do is a little research.
This is very interesting topic. I am not an SEO expert however i believe that if you need a help of an SEO expert you should also know what are the steps or action they have done for your site to rank at least an outline of it, for you to see if their doing a good job or worsen your case.
@Joshua,
Don’t you think that was an extra ordinary case .Not every one will that much luck and in some industry their keyword is really competitive