Who does not need SEO, how to choose an optimizer and check its work

Recently, I have been answering a lot of questions on search engine optimization on Toster. Regularly I see that the developers relate to the “specialists” of my profession, at least wary, and sometimes frankly with dislike. I used to think that these were all the prejudices of programmers, but after talking on the same toaster, I learned where this attitude came from. And I understand you!



Developers are terribly enraged when my "colleagues" optimizers rubbed the customer with some kind of heresy (according to the results of a free audit, for example), and the developer has to write detailed answers to several pages and explain on the fingers why they write something is nonsense.

Adequate programmers understand that it is their responsibility to be responsible for their work, and how all people make mistakes and understand what a supervisor can find and point out to bottlenecks. Usually they are “For” such supervision and professional criticism. But regular school questions and claims that do not come directly from the client, but from a seo theorist or joon or, even worse, a manager from some “super top SEO firm” is a tin. And having communicated with a large number of developers, I realized that this is a common problem for both developers and customers.

For those who are in search of an optimizer and for developers who regularly encounter representatives of my profession, made several selections on how to choose a competent specialist, how to evaluate the quality of work on search engine optimization, and how to understand what the optimizer is rubbing outright game for you. So to say, insider info from the enemy camp.

When do you need SEO

People who don't really need optimization are constantly turning to me.

They call and say something like this: “I have an online store, they started a month ago, we want a lot of sales. Tried context, cm, nothing helped, now all hope for SEO. There is not much budget, you need to do something. ”

In such cases, you don’t need SEO . No budget - no need to do SEO! You need to make money on marketing.

First, determine the main sales channels and pump over those from where you can immediately get customers, such as context. The context is also a thing that requires optimization and tests, and is highly dependent on the specialist setting it up. The same Yandex.Market, Google merchant and other marketplaces need to be configured first and foremost, not SEO!

In order to have a stable business you need several sales channels and yes, SEO can be one of them and can have a high priority, but should not be the main one (I’m talking about commerce and services, not about information resources)

Set up other sales channels before Engage in SEO (if there is no big investment)

SEO is a stupid traffic channel in your business. I am approached by photographers who sell pictures (NOT SERVICES, namely ready-made pictures), they are not advertised anywhere, they don’t even instagram, but they want SEO magic. What for ?! There is very little of your traffic in search engines, you do not need optimization. I understand in extremely rare cases, SEO may actually be necessary for the sale of photos, but this is a super rare exception.

SEO needs to be dealt with in two cases.

The first is that there is a big budget from the start of the project for testing the main sales channels and then it is worthwhile to do the initial internal optimization (without any references or other things).

Secondly , you have already set up several sales channels and you are ready to invest in promising development, here you should think about long-term cooperation in SEO.

You need to make a choice -

• cool specialist for expensive
• luck on a schoolboy

In the first version it will be expensive, but with a 90% probability of quality. Carefully choose a specialist, my criteria for choice would be such (given that I myself SEOshnik and I understand where the divorce, and where something is worthwhile).

I strongly recommend choosing a freelancer with a large presence on the Internet and on professional resources. It can be:

• moderators or oldies forums
• leading blog, telegram channel or their group in social networks practicing SEOs
• who have a website, good at least outwardly, selling
• writing articles on professional resources
• having their own project (in addition to client projects) that they promote
• having accounts on one or several freelance sites

The older accounts in social networks, on freelancing, etc. - the better. Reviews in accounts also matter!

The greater the presence on the Internet - the higher the likelihood that a person is well versed in the subject, as well as the longer the industry - the better.

You can also find a novice SEO who will study on your site. It will be cheap, and it seems to me the probability of efficiency is higher than if you take the middling. But here, of course, it can be very “fun”. I now work with a developer who goes to school and is extremely pleased with him (there are some nuances, but where there are none).

Under the spoiler, the answer to the common question:


And then the answer to the popular question:


It is necessary to decide exactly what you need:

• regular work on the result
• one-time optimization

Of course, you want to have a person in constant access, but sometimes it is just not necessary, but it is enough to conduct internal optimization and not spend money in the air.

In my experience, regular work is only on very large projects and projects that are regularly amended. If you think “how is it, and links !?” who will buy links every month? Links are often simply not needed.

If the promotion is more in Yandex, and you first set up several sales channels and they are profitable, then it will be enough to make high-quality internal optimization and work in depth with UX.

In Yandex, for commerce (shopping services), behavioral factors and internal optimization (including commercial factors ) are important ; links are extremely rarely needed. Therefore, most of the time, shops and service sites with well-developed, profitable online sales channels simply do not need constant project management, have done internal optimization and wait for 3-4 months, in 90% of cases you will already see a cool result. I will not consider special cases as for this I will need to write a separate article.

Accordingly, in 90% of cases there is simply no point in paying the money to the optimizer every month, one-time optimization is enough!

Regular maintenance is necessary for shops with a very large assortment, sites selling services in a highly competitive area and regularly updating large and medium-sized projects.

How to control the work of SEO

1. Hire a supervisor (very many provide this service) You can always order a one-time inspection service, for example, technical tasks written by the optimizer from a serious specialist or even from several.
2. At least a little to enter the topic, find banal checklists, check the work on them and for each item with an error, ask to explain why it is not corrected.
3. Register on the SEO forum and periodically upload your site there with a request to evaluate the optimization. Free version of supervision.
4. Monthly reports are required and, if possible, checked.

I didn’t see more adequate and really working options, but I personally encountered all of the above. Developed with Toaster, as I supported this list.

Mistakes that optimizers often make

• do not check for trivial things, for example, redirects from urlov slashem at the end and from BBB to BBB
• do not know and do not offer to implement microdata
• Do not prescribe meta-keywords for Yandex, because they live in the delusion that it is not needed
• slaughtered on sitemap.xml and generally it is not monitored
• do not give a breakdown of grouped semantics by pages
• Do not check for developers if SEO TZ is done, such as once the developer has said that everything is ready, then everything is ready (it is necessary to check, we are all human)
• forget to work with the witches Yandex
• buy rented and just spam links for Yandex (you can't do that)
• do not buy rented links for Google overseas (this is a very cheap and Google-working tool if you can use it)
• do not take commercial factors into account
• they forget, at least at a minimal level, to work out UX from commercial and behavioral factors. Study at least at the minimum level is necessary.