SamuelBranchjr.com
The Place for Internet Marketing

Lately, I’ve been feeling like a grade schooler punished along with the rest of the class for one student’s bad behavior. With Google’s Pandas, Penguins and other pandemonium-producing updates yet to come, we’re all Bart Simpson being forced to write on the SEO chalkboard, “I will not outsource link building to third-world countries that spam blogs.” Sheesh!

It’s times like that that my mind turns to flights of fancy… If I could make Google do whatever I wanted… Well, I can and so can you — just not for the whole Web. We can control search engine performance inside our workplaces or the United Airlines site so that it can find a flight from Seattle to New York that does not take six connections over two days.

Enterprise SEO Rules, Web SEO Drools

With Web SEO, there’s Google throwing the proverbial wrench into site rankings with algorithm changes that drop results from view like stones falling from the sky causing grown SEO strategists to cry and the black hatters to sharpen their stilettos. With enterprise SEO, the strategist or developer is the one to tune the algorithm to the behavior, culture or whims of the users.

Do you like keyword metadata? With enterprise search optimization, you can make that a significant ranking factor because you are the search god and do not have to compensate for spam content. With enterprise search optimization, the strategist can create a relevant landscape that functions for their workforce, not everyone with a copy of Dreamweaver and an FTP connection.

• Not enough linking between internal documents? Not a problem, manually designate authority pages and create number one results by mapping best bets (or editorialized results) to specific queries.
• Worried about spelling and term variations? Stop. Most of the quality enterprise search engines will let you map terms so the same results come up no matter which spelling variation your clueless colleague used.
• Can’t figure out what keywords to optimize? Just ask the users sitting right next to you and all around you, because they are your coworkers and colleagues.

Be the Hero, Not the Goat

International Data Group (IDG) estimates that the average worker spends 2.5 hours a day looking for information needed to do their job. One Fortune 500 company estimated that improving internal search would contribute $2 million a month in productivity gains. There is money to be made from figuring out how to make search within the workplace work as well as search outside of the workplace. And that, my friends, is raise-worthy.

I will be giving out more details on how to design a perfect enterprise search experience  with enterprise-specific data mining and user-centered design at the Enterprise Search Summit this week in New York City.

They were cute until Google got to 'em

If I say ‘Google Penguin’ to an SEO pro, they shudder. In the SEO world, Google’s Penguin update is the nastiest, scariest update since, I dunno, Florida?

Here’s an explainer for all the marketers who are wondering what the hell just happened to their traffic:

What’s an update?

The engineers at Google constantly tune their search software to provide (hopefully) more accurate results. Most of these tune-ups are pretty small, and go unnoticed by anyone except us hardcore search geeks. They’re like thunderstorms: You don’t name them.

Every now and then, though, Google rolls out a humungous change that throws the search world into a state of meteorological higgledy-piggledy (that’s a lot of Gs). Those are named updates. Panda was one. Penguin’s another.

Google rolled out the Penguin update April 24th. It appears to target artificial link acquisition, or ‘link spam’.

What’s link spam?

Link spam is any attempt to acquire lots of links by buying them, trading them, or building your own ‘link network’. The easiest way to describe link spam to talk money: You can go out and earn money by creating something of value, or providing a valuable service. Or, you can print or steal it.

Link spam is the whole printing/stealing thing: Go to a link broker or service, for example, and for a fee you can acquire anywhere from one to thousands of links with a click. Or, launch one hundred blogs, fill them with stolen content or gibberish, and then link them in a network that funnels authority to your own site. It’s a lot easier than writing amazing content, or doing good PR, or (I dunno) marketing or something.

I’m sounding judgmental, I know. The truth is, I don’t see anything morally wrong with link spam. It’s another marketing tactic that taken too far can really screw things up. But compare it to plagiarism on the Evil Scale it barely moves the needle.

Link spam has always been a bad long-term SEO strategy. Google and Bing have fought it for years, and they catch the site networks and companies that use it all the time.

Penguin, though, took it to a whole new level.

What did Penguin do?

It’s hard to know for certain, since Google doesn’t reveal details. But a few things are clear:

• Penguin actively penalizes sites that Google believes engaged in link spam. This is new. Until now, Google generally took away ill-gotten link authority and penalized sites that were selling links. The big G rarely punished sites for acquiring spam links.
• Penalized sites generally plunge out of the top ten for their own brand names, as well as any other meaningful terms.
• Links that are part of artificial link networks will trigger a penalty. Check out this great SEOMOZ article to learn how to detect link networks.
• If a huge percentage of your links use the same, commodity-related anchor text, you’re in trouble. So, if you sell toilet paper, and 75% of the links pointing at your site have the link text ‘toilet paper’, Google will get suspicious. Don’t act surprised. I’ve been warning about this for a couple of years.
• If a huge percentage of your links come from blog comments, forums or site footers (all common places for spammy links), again, Google gets suspicious.
• Google sent out warnings to some, but not all, Penguin-targeted sites.

Penguin focused on offsite factors. Panda, the update that came before, focused more on site quality and onsite factors.

How do I know if I’ve been Penguinized?

If your search traffic suddenly dropped after April 24th, and you got a warning from Google about unnatural links pointing at your site, and you no longer rank in the top 10 for your own brand name, you probably got a Penguin penalty.

Otherwise, though, let your conscience be your guide. If you know you’ve got a lot of link spam pointing at your site, clean it up. Even if you didn’t get penalized under Penguin, chances are you’re due. Fix it before you get hammered.

And, fix it a little bit at a time. Go out and get higher-quality links while removing the spammy ones. Read the SEOMOZ article for info on how to remove spammy links.

Most sites I’ve seen got hit by a combination of factors: Penguin (offsite) plus Panda (onsite) or a screw-up around a site re-launch or similar.

I say this because it’s important that, in the initial Penguin Panic, you still pay attention to SEO best practices: Visibility, authority, relevance. Make sure all three are in good shape.

Other places to go look

If you think you’ve been hit by Penguin, and can’t/won’t hire someone, do some reading. These articles are a great place to start:

• Unnatural link warnings and blog networks, SEOMOZ
• Two weeks in, Google talks penguin update, ways to recover and negative SEO
• Another step to reward high-quality sites. A bit vague, but the post that started it all.
• Panda and Penguin go Sledding. Good for a chuckle when you’re ready to firebomb your own web site.
• Google Panda 3.6 Hit on April 27th

Facebook has just announced that they will be launching an ‘App Center’ to enable their users to find social web, desktop and mobile apps.

The stated reason behind the launch of this app center is to help users to find “the best apps” that their friends enjoy using.

Facebook will sell social applications through the App Center. It is obviously a very smart move as it will allow their over 900 million users to buy the apps through Facebook.

The Facebook App Center. Image courtesy of Facebook

Developers are also being encouraged to create new paid-for apps solely for Facebook. Those who develop apps solely for Facebook will have to share 30% of the price with Facebook.

Facebook engineer Aaron Brady says, “For the over 900 million people that use Facebook, the App Center will become the new, central place to find great apps like Draw Something, Pinterest, Spotify, Battle Pirates, Viddy, and Bubble Witch Saga,”

An app detail page will describe to users how a particular app is unique and let them install it before going to it. Facebook will employ parameters such as user ratings and engagement, to decide whether or not a particular app will be listed in the App Center. A new app ratings metric in Insights, will be installed to help developers to monitor their users’ feedback.

Apps will have a star rating based on Facebook’s social graph similar to Apple’s App Store. Apps that have a high rating will be prominently displayed on the App Center, while apps with poor ratings will not be listed.

The App Center will be rolled out to users over the next few weeks. The launch of the App Center by Facebook just before their IPO seems like a smart move, allowing them to show investors that even though mobile is a risky area for them, they are proactively working on ways to earn money from the medium.

Google+ has just launched their service ‘Hangouts On Air’ for all users.

This service had been launched in beta last September, for a few users, but is now being rolled out for all users. Now, users will be able to broadcast their own hangout sessions in real-time. The broadcast will be available to users all over the world.

Google+ Hangouts On Air

To activate this service the user will have to select the “Enable Hangouts On Air” button. By enabling this function, the user will be able to broadcast his hangout via his or her Google+ stream, on a website or even directly on a YouTube channel.

This is a chance for ordinary users to go on air before a global audience. While hangouts are generally accessible on iPhones as well as Android phones, the ‘Hangouts on Air’ feature is so far available only on desktops.

Among the programmes that will be aired via this service in the future are a Hangout hosted by Cadbury UK on 11th May as well as one hosted by Jamie Oliver on Food Revolution Day, which takes place on 19th May.

It may take a little time for all users to have access to this feature as Google has just started rolling it out for general use.

Amid allegations of censoring content on the social network, Facebook has clarified that their spam filters might prevent certain text from being posted and this could easily be misconstrued as a form of censorship – and be turned into a storm in a teacup by some bloggers.

Robert Scoble, a popular tech blogger and Facebook user, recently found that a comment he wanted to post on the social networking site seemed to be censored. Scoble tried to comment on a post by someone he didn’t know personally. Instead of seeing the comment below the original post, he received a message informing him that his comment could not be posted as it was “irrelevant or inappropriate”. This seemed surprising as the comment was related to the original post and Scoble claims it was in no way unfit for publication.

Facebook comment censorship or bruised egos?

Facebook’s error message was misinterpreted by Scoble to imply that the social network had taken upon itself the task of analysing and censoring comments. In spite of this being quite contrary to Facebook’s stated policies, Scoble couldn’t perceive that his comments could ever be perceived as spam, so he automatically assumed that Facebook was censoring his text.

It is known that users have the right to inform Facebook about inappropriate messages and comments by flagging them. Facebook then takes the necessary action to block such posts. If it is found that a particular user’s messages are repeatedly inappropriate, that user can be blocked from the site altogether. However, this particular post did not fall into that category.

On enquiry it was found that it was not so much the blocking of the comment, but the wording of the message that created confusion. Facebook has clarified that the comment was blocked due to some features in their algorithm, which is used to block spammers. They are in the process of trying to find out what exactly in the controversial comment caused the spam blocker to get triggered.

The official statement from Facebook on this issue is, “To protect the millions of people who connect and share on Facebook every day, we have automated systems that work in the background to maintain a trusted environment and protect our users from bad actors who often use links to spread spam and malware. These systems are so effective that most people who use Facebook will never encounter spam. They’re not perfect, though, and in rare instances they make mistakes. This comment was mistakenly blocked as spammy, and we have already started to make adjustments to our classifier. We look forward to learning from rare cases such as these to make sure we don’t repeat the same mistake in the future.”

Facebook has just announced that they will be launching an ‘App Center’ to enable their users to find social web, desktop and mobile apps.

The stated reason behind the launch of this app center is to help users to find “the best apps” that their friends enjoy using.

Facebook will sell social applications through the App Center. It is obviously a very smart move as it will allow their over 900 million users to buy the apps through Facebook.

The Facebook App Center. Image courtesy of Facebook

Developers are also being encouraged to create new paid-for apps solely for Facebook. Those who develop apps solely for Facebook will have to share 30% of the price with Facebook.

Facebook engineer Aaron Brady says, “For the over 900 million people that use Facebook, the App Center will become the new, central place to find great apps like Draw Something, Pinterest, Spotify, Battle Pirates, Viddy, and Bubble Witch Saga,”

An app detail page will describe to users how a particular app is unique and let them install it before going to it. Facebook will employ parameters such as user ratings and engagement, to decide whether or not a particular app will be listed in the App Center. A new app ratings metric in Insights, will be installed to help developers to monitor their users’ feedback.

Apps will have a star rating based on Facebook’s social graph similar to Apple’s App Store. Apps that have a high rating will be prominently displayed on the App Center, while apps with poor ratings will not be listed.

The App Center will be rolled out to users over the next few weeks. The launch of the App Center by Facebook just before their IPO seems like a smart move, allowing them to show investors that even though mobile is a risky area for them, they are proactively working on ways to earn money from the medium.

Google+ has just launched their service ‘Hangouts On Air’ for all users.

This service had been launched in beta last September, for a few users, but is now being rolled out for all users. Now, users will be able to broadcast their own hangout sessions in real-time. The broadcast will be available to users all over the world.

Google+ Hangouts On Air

To activate this service the user will have to select the “Enable Hangouts On Air” button. By enabling this function, the user will be able to broadcast his hangout via his or her Google+ stream, on a website or even directly on a YouTube channel.

This is a chance for ordinary users to go on air before a global audience. While hangouts are generally accessible on iPhones as well as Android phones, the ‘Hangouts on Air’ feature is so far available only on desktops.

Among the programmes that will be aired via this service in the future are a Hangout hosted by Cadbury UK on 11th May as well as one hosted by Jamie Oliver on Food Revolution Day, which takes place on 19th May.

It may take a little time for all users to have access to this feature as Google has just started rolling it out for general use.

Amid allegations of censoring content on the social network, Facebook has clarified that their spam filters might prevent certain text from being posted and this could easily be misconstrued as a form of censorship – and be turned into a storm in a teacup by some bloggers.

Robert Scoble, a popular tech blogger and Facebook user, recently found that a comment he wanted to post on the social networking site seemed to be censored. Scoble tried to comment on a post by someone he didn’t know personally. Instead of seeing the comment below the original post, he received a message informing him that his comment could not be posted as it was “irrelevant or inappropriate”. This seemed surprising as the comment was related to the original post and Scoble claims it was in no way unfit for publication.

Facebook comment censorship or bruised egos?

Facebook’s error message was misinterpreted by Scoble to imply that the social network had taken upon itself the task of analysing and censoring comments. In spite of this being quite contrary to Facebook’s stated policies, Scoble couldn’t perceive that his comments could ever be perceived as spam, so he automatically assumed that Facebook was censoring his text.

It is known that users have the right to inform Facebook about inappropriate messages and comments by flagging them. Facebook then takes the necessary action to block such posts. If it is found that a particular user’s messages are repeatedly inappropriate, that user can be blocked from the site altogether. However, this particular post did not fall into that category.

On enquiry it was found that it was not so much the blocking of the comment, but the wording of the message that created confusion. Facebook has clarified that the comment was blocked due to some features in their algorithm, which is used to block spammers. They are in the process of trying to find out what exactly in the controversial comment caused the spam blocker to get triggered.

The official statement from Facebook on this issue is, “To protect the millions of people who connect and share on Facebook every day, we have automated systems that work in the background to maintain a trusted environment and protect our users from bad actors who often use links to spread spam and malware. These systems are so effective that most people who use Facebook will never encounter spam. They’re not perfect, though, and in rare instances they make mistakes. This comment was mistakenly blocked as spammy, and we have already started to make adjustments to our classifier. We look forward to learning from rare cases such as these to make sure we don’t repeat the same mistake in the future.”

A few years ago I stepped into a role as an information architect and user experience designer at a Portland ad agency. Coming from a background in search marketing, this was quite a bit of a change for me. The first thing I noticed was that SEO & UX should really be a more integrated system in the designing of a site. The second thing I noticed was that SEO really gets a bad rap from the UX and design community.

This was really an invaluable experience for me, as I was able to look at both my former job and my current job in a different light. I got to be removed from my instincts as an SEO, while simultaneously questioning the foundations of UX.

What I learned in the end was that SEO & UX must work together in order for a site to be successful:

• The myths about SEO & UX are false – it’s not impossible to coexist, and neither hinders the other.
• Poor UX will lead to poor SEO. Plain and simple, and the reverse is also true
• SEO should live within and be a part of the user experience

Myth: SEO & UX are like Oil & Water

SEO Myths

Myth 1: All SEOs focus on is traffic, ranking, revenue, and web presence

Well sure, to a degree. SEO is highly focused on generating traffic for your website. SEO helps you rank well, generate revenue and be visible on search engine results pages (SERPs). None of these things are that terrible. In fact, they are good things for websites that advertise online.

However, this isn’t the only focus for SEO. SEO is also concerned with quality content, page load times, and other tasks that affect the user experience (UX).

Myth 2: SEO is just getting links any way you can

This is true, back in 2009 maybe. After 2011’s Panda updates, a site’s sheer number of links isn’t nearly as important as it once was. Today, SEO focuses on superb content in order to obtain quality links over quantity links. Finding 1,000 links on poor quality sites isn’t going to cut it in a post-Panda world.

UX Myths

Myth 1: Everything is about what’s on the site

User experience is definitely focused on your user’s interactions, feelings, and opinions about your website. That being said, keeping your user engaged all depends on why and how they found your site. UX is involved in this process through site designs catered to many users. The site’s content can then be based on the criteria the user used to get to the site and what the user was looking for on the site.

Myth 2: UX is so focused on the on-site experience that it ignores that the first step for many users is a search engine

This isn’t entirely true, but it’s definitely been the case in the past. A lot of UX can be based on best practices, industry standards, and common sense, but UX shouldn’t end there. From creating a landing page tailored to users’ search queries, to conducting user testing – there should be more to your website’s UX project than just the design and layout of your pages.

Examples of Poor UX

Amazon – Busy sites can confuse your user

Tons of actions

• Drop down shopping list on the left
• Promos for the Kindle Fire
• Spring’s Most Wanted
• Camera & Photo shop
• On page ad
• Deal of the Day

Amazon has long been a staple of how to do things right, but of late, they’ve become the opposite example of user experience. Amazon has become a product seller itself with the Kindle line of products, and there lies the problem. Because of this shift in philosophy, Amazon’s site has started to push their products first and foremost. However, they still try to be the online one stop shopping experience for everything and everyone. This creates a very busy homepage, full of roadblocks preventing quality user interaction with your site.

On this page, there are a lot of actions that the user is shown, from the drop down shopping list on the left, to the promos for the Kindle Fire, Spring’s Most Wanted, the Camera & Photo shop, the on page ad, the Deal of the Day, and the various other options that await the user.

All of these are roadblocks to user interaction with your site.

Marc Ecko – Flash, full image sites, and too much interaction

Problematic Interactions

• Site that is difficult to use
• Difficult to see
• Offers no real direction
• Way too much interaction for a user to really take in
• Site doesn’t retain visitors
  • Some users don’t have Flash, some users get overwhelmed, etc.

While the example here isn’t the worst for the site’s demographic, it’s a good example of a site that is difficult to use, difficult to see, offers no action path, and way features way too much interaction for a user to really take in. The site ends up being more like a collage of imagery and interactions which never really draws a user in.

Many sites opt for the big visuals, to really draw their users’ eyes. However, more often than not, these sites don’t retain visitors for multiple reasons – some users don’t have Flash, some users get overwhelmed, etc.

Examples of Good UX

Groupon – Clean & Clear

Groupon is killing it right now, and it’s not just because of everyday amazing deals. They have made smart, eloquent copy a high priority for their daily listings, and designed a simple, clean, and clear website and interface.

Make it easy for users to interact with your site, through an easy-to-use navigation, an obvious reminder to where the user is on the site (current page is highlighted in the top navigation), and a clear call to action.

The proper use of white space, imagery, and buttons goes a long way towards getting users to interact with your site the way you want them to.

Hubspan – Options without the Confusion

In the world of B2B, sometimes you cater to multiple user types. It’s not easy to figure out what a new customer, current customer, or potential partner want to see first when they visit your site.

In this example, all 3 are catered to without experiencing alienation in the design.

SEO within UX

So how can you make SEO and UX work together?

Focus the design using principles of SEO

• Create content for the user and the search engines
• Push for H1 & H2 tags
• Work to improve link equity, menu functionality, and menu names
• Create clear navigation labels
• Use focused product descriptions and names

Personas & User Paths

Personas should be based on the online activities the user is going to take. They shouldn’t follow the old standard persona formula based on demographics, personality, or gender unless those characteristics are inherently important to the website.

User paths through the website should then be created for each persona in order to best suit that user’s needs. Hubspan’s site in the example above was able to cater to 3 different personas by designing different user paths for each.

Creating different experiences for different users opens up different keywords, content, and links for SEO.

Action Items

Calls to action have long been staples of web design and conversion optimization. They are also very important for SEO & UX. Buttons or links with calls to action like “Buy now,” “download,” or “learn more” should lead the user to content and page elements designed for SEO.

Additionally, these can be combined with product names or offers to create highly optimized calls to action, like the one seen below:

Order [product name] Today!

Search Engines Taking Cues from UX

In addition to the importance of SEO & UX working together for the greater good of your website, Google has been slowly shifting focus away from links and keywords for the last few years. While these are still the main ranking factors, they have found some new areas of focus that provide a more full view of a site’s quality.

What’s included in “quality?”

• Page speed
• Ease of navigation
• Internal link structure
• No duplicate content
• Relevant and descriptive content
• Page layout

What Your Website Should Be

Useable

Employ a clean and clear design, with little interference in terms of excess imagery, erroneous functionality, or filler content.

Understandable

Action items and user paths help you develop a site that makes sense. The user needs to understand how to reach their goals when visiting a site. When you build a site around information silos, action items, and user paths, you build a site that is designed for the functionality of the user.

Conversion oriented

Developing personas and using calls to action are a clear way to tell your users what you’d like them to do. Don’t be afraid to tell the user to buy, download, or sign up for something. On the internet, we all respond to calls to action much more directly than in our day to day lives.

Ranking well

There’s no point in having a great site that can’t be found. Content & keyword research will always be the cornerstone of your website’s online presence. Despite Google’s decreasing importance placed on links, links are still important as well. Work to find quality links and your site will rank well.

Generating revenue/conversions

Be sure your site is capitalizing on all the work you’ve put into it. That means focusing on conversion optimization through SEO and UX.

Following these guidelines will be a major first step in the process of developing your site or redesigning a site that needs to focus more on user experience. Similarly, in light of Google’s new focus on quality sites, user experience, and page speed, maybe it’s time you look at the UX from an SEO’s perspective. You’d be surprised what a difference this activity can have on your site.

I’ve written other posts about hiring SEO firms: How to hire good ones. How to hire bad ones. But an update’s in order:

Questionnaire for an SEO agency

Start each agency you interview with 10 points. Add or subtract as indicated.

1. Ask yourself: How did this firm get in touch with you?
   1. They cold-called or e-mailed you.
      No. -1
   2. They answered your ad.
      Sorry, but good SEOs don’t spend their days scouring the internet want ads. Ads are good for comic relief, not smart hiring. -5
   3. You found them.
      Good. That’s a good start. +1
2. Can you give me some references?
   1. No.
      Well, duh. Don’t hire them. -1
   2. Yes, but can we wait until we’re closer to signing a deal?
      Excellent! They’re nice to their clients and don’t want to bug them. +1
   3. Sure (immediately sends you 20 references, all suspiciously located on the same block of downtown Somewhereville).
      Research carefully. These may be friends, not clients. +0
3. What kind of work will you do on my site?
   1. None! We don’t have to touch your site.
      Show them the door. They’re clueless. -1
   2. We’ll need to check your site for technical issues, and we’ll have recommendations around title tags and content.
      Not bad! +0
   3. We’ll need to check your site for technical issues, make recommendations around existing content, and start a content strategy.
      Kiss them. Try not to weep for joy. And for God’s sake, hire them. +1
4. What kind of reporting do you provide?
   1. Rankings.
      Ask them how life’s going in 1999. And don’t hire them. -999
   2. Site traffic from organic search, conversions from organic search and some health metrics. And yes, we track rankings as a diagnostic.
      Good. +1
   3. Everything from answer b, plus time on site, visit quality, and stuff like keyword diversity.
      Awesome. +2
5. Do you guarantee results?
   1. Yes! We’ll get you number one ranking on the Googles!
      Don’t even show them the door. They can undoubtedly teleport back to their office. They’re full of crap. -99999
   2. No. I’d love to, but no one can do that, because the algorithms change all the time.
      Good. They’re honest, or smart enough to pretend they’re honest. Either way, +1
   3. No. Answer b, plus it’s not totally up to us. We’re your partner in this, but we need your help.
      They rock. +2
6. Can I pay you by the link?
   1. Sure! $10/link.
      Does it seem OK to you that they could get 900 godawful, penalty-generating links and charge you for them? Fail. -5
   2. You can, but I’ll charge you based on link quality as determined by…
      Ehhhh, OK. At least they’re trying. Still seems awfully hard to measure, since organically-acquired links may not appear for weeks or months. Which either means they have a link network (bad), or they’re really naive. +0
   3. Sorry, no, and here’s why (reasonable explanation).
      Solid. +1
7. Will you optimize my meta tags?
   1. Yes, keyword and description meta tags.
      GONG. The keywords meta tag is worthless. The description tag doesn’t impact rankings, although it’s worth optimizing for clickthru. Still, they lose a point. -1
   2. Nope, that’s silly.
      A little simplistic, but at least they read occasionally. +0
   3. We’ll remove the keywords tag, and refine the description tag for better clickthru.
      Sweet. +1
8. Will you put keywords in my URLs?
   1. Definitely! Keyword-rich URLs are the ticket to a high ranking!
      Mor. Ons. -1
   2. We can. It can help with clickthru. But barring an exact-match domain, it may not help much with rankings.
      Give them a hug and tell them it’s from Ian. +1
9. Do you need my server log files?
   1. Uh, what’s that?
      Never hire a doctor that can’t take your temperature. Don’t hire an SEO who can’t analyze a log file. -5
   2. I may need it if there are problems.
      A good answer. +1
   3. Yes, we want to check for crawl issues right away.
      Sniff. My hero. +2
10. Can I see a sample recommendations report you give to clients?
    1. I’m sorry, it’s part of our sekrit process.
       OK. Enjoy that. Without me. -1
    2. Yes (and they give you something totally general, or totally incomprehensible.
       If they can’t explain it, they can’t do it. -1
    3. Yes (and they give you something that makes sense).
       Niiice. Hire them. +2
11. How do you build links?
    1. We use our Link Optimizer Replication Energization System to get you thousands of links every month!
       Buh-bye now! -10
    2. We only do 100% pure, white-hat, content-based link acquisition.
       Perfectly good. +1
    3. We do a mix of stuff: Content marketing, social media curation, legitimate directory submission and some nice, useful commenting.
       They get an A! +2
12. Can you contact someone at Google for me?
    1. Sure! We have a former Google employee working with us, actually.
       Congrats, you hired Google’s ex-chef. Which has nothing to do with SEO. -10
    2. We can try through a re-inclusion request. Or I can whine until Matt Cutts answers.
       Not a good idea, but honest. +0
    3. That’s really only a last resort if you’re in deep poo poo.
       I like them. +1

Scoring

21+: Nice! They’re a keeper.
15-20: Solid. Go for it unless you have a 21+.
10-14: OK, but keep an eye on them.
0-10: Any port in a storm…?
<0: Save yourself the money and buy a cheeseburger instead.

It’s your call

This is, of course, a partial list. And it’s (partly) tongue-in-cheek. Bottom line: You have to use common sense. Behind every SEO disaster is a firm or consultant that should have screamed ‘fraud’ to any non-SEO type. Use your brain: SEO is marketing, which means it takes time, and it’s hard work. Hire accordingly.