Dangers of industry specific web designers & content providers
One of our clients came to us for a redesign of their website, unfortunately their site had more than the usual issues to correct.
They had purchased the business and the website had previously been setup by a company that sells websites and content packages to their specific industry.
The problem was… the same content/articles were on all of their clients’ websites.
This is a huge problem with SEO.
It creates duplicate content and duplicate content is penalized by the search engine.
Despite what their sales pitch may lead you to believe, these duplicate posts are actually hurting the rank of their clients.
In order to be an authority on a topic, the content needs to be original.
It needs to set you apart from your competition… not be exactly the same.
We usually see this happen the most on real estate agent websites, but this particular client is a flooring website.
Much like the real estate website providers, this niche market website builder is putting the same blog articles on every one of their clients’ websites… even the same picture.
I get it… the sales pitch is good!
“We build websites in your industry” … “We know your industry” etc, etc.
But when you’re looking to them for SEO and they’re giving all of their clients identical content… seems a bit like a grey area.
Or is it?
My guess is that by giving all of their clients identical content, it’s the only way to avoid a conflict of interest.
Sound about right? Or am I just paying lip service to legal ease?
Let me ask you this, if a company like this, that works with a specific industry, is providing SEO for more than one client in the same area, how is it possible to promise they’re working to achieve higher rank for one or the other without a conflict of interest?
If they’re using the exact same techniques on both websites than there isn’t a conflict of interest but it doesn’t help their SEO at all.
It actually penalizes it for having duplicate content.
Best advice is don’t believe the hype.
Truly examine their list of examples and portfolio before subscribing for expensive monthly services.
Or best yet… if there’s a number to call, ask them what they have in place to prevent duplicate content and see if you like their answer.
Thank you for reading & if you found this post useful or informative, please feel free to share.