Are webmasters/business marketing people clueless about the potential pitfalls in SEO

[Bernard]

In this thread:

http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/forum/showthread.php?t=506

the question was raised whether a majority or minority of webmasters and/or business marketing people understand the potential pitfalls of SEO.

If you are a professional in the industry, what is your impression based upon your first contact with potential clients?

[seobook]

I think most people who contact you (you as in me) are somewhat skeptical off the start.

certainly it is part of the job of anyone who claims to be a legitimate professional SEO to let people know that sometimes things can go wrong and that things have costs and risks.

I would not even work for a person who was ignorant to fact that things can at any minute fall apart.

I think one thing that makes SEO better is trying to learn what your business partner is trying to do and ask them if (and maybe help them to find) better ways exist to do what they are trying to do.

longterm there is far more money in idea shaping than SEO because it has more of a natural tendancy to help ideas spread and helps prevent the pitfalls that may otherwise commonly appear a few times a year.

[Bernard]

Yes Aaron, I understand your comments, but this question is angling for a different idea.

In hind sight, it probably would have made more sense to split the poll or design two polls - one to quantify potential clients that you solicit and one to quantify potential clients that contact you.

I imagine based upon my own limited experience that most of my acquaintances do not know what I am talking about when I broach the subject of SEO. If they do not know what it is, how could they be aware of potential pitfalls (fraud, bans, etc.)?

I would also guess that people who initiate contact probably have a better grasp than folks who are solicited.

Furthermore, I would postulate that a greater majority of business folk are not yet soliciting SEO services.

[Daria_Goetsch]

I imagine based upon my own limited experience that most of my acquaintances do not know what I am talking about when I broach the subject of SEO. If they do not know what it is, how could they be aware of potential pitfalls (fraud, bans, etc.)?

Most of our prospective clients do not have a good understanding of SEO. We have worked with some bigger companies along the way who have some minimal SEO knowledge. At times this is worse than no knowledge at all, since those companies believe they know enough to tell the SEO what they should be doing, or do not implement suggestions made by the SEO. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

[Marcia]

The majority seem to know without a doubt their need for SEO, but there's been no evidence that too many know anything about the pitfalls.

[Incubator]

Alot of clients we engage in SEM know that they want to be listed as high as possible in the major engines and that should be a direct line to traffic.

After a bit of knowledge sharing they see that this is only possible over a period of time and common sense
And yes, i agree a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing especially when you have to de-educate

Cheers

Wc

[qwerty]

Most of the people who contact me simply want to see their site above that of their competitors on a SERP. They don't know how that's accomplished, or whether there could be any risks involved.

And I know this is off-topic, but I also find it odd that when I ask them what their goals are for the site, they go back to the desire to rank well. Almost none of them say they want to increase profits, or expand their client base.