Seth has a large pre-existing audience and is well versed on promoting himself online, so 20% was my estimate for improvement on his blog. If you took a client who has much less technical competency (someone starting a blog for the first time and only partially knowledgeable on web 2.0 topics) like many (maybe most) small business owners the gains could be MUCH larger than 20%. So the proportion of traffic increase really has to do with the individual client.

I really do run into many clients (especially in the small business sector) that have serious problems in their approach to how they market themselves online. Gains in these areas can be much higher then 20%. Of course some of these concepts fall outside a narrow definition of SEO (which is why I avoid using that term when describing myself). I also run into people doing something deadly (and not realizing it) to their SEO strategy, which when fixed can also result in larger gains as well.

I want to repost part of my response to another comment of yours on this post (since it’s been very popular lately)

Mike, I’m glad you joined the conversation. I was a bit over critical in my posts regarding your response to my Seth Godin post, but this is a blog and I think it’s good to post with passion even at the expense of sometimes going overboard.

Nice to see you commenting and still here. It seems people have been enjoying this exchange, but the blogosphere did have some entries critical of me ( and my father ) for not encouraging more conversation, so welcome to the conversation Mike glad to have you commenting. I’d love it if Seth followed up too, but I may have burned that bridge, although I don’t hold anything against him, I own and highly recommend “All Marketers are Liars.”

Peace, friends!

Solomon, you honor me with your angst. Thanks for the tips too.

I fully understood that you were using Seth’s name to make a point and market your abilities. I suggested your tone was pompous, which it appears is your modus operandi. That’s fine with me. If you got it flaunt it.

I also fully understood that your point was that SEO is equally as important as good content, I think Seth commented the same thing, but declined your offer of assistance due to his desire to “just write”

We do guarantee results and we do perform, every time: we can only be held accountable for results when our advice is followed in full, because the client will not rank otherwise.

The goal of my blog is NOT to get the maximum traffic nor is it to teach blogging by example. It’s just my blog, that’s all. What I have to lose (sp) is that I’d start focusing on something I don’t want to focus on. I know there are a hundred things I could do to make my blog ‘better’, but my simple goal is to have it as a place where I can write. Sorry.

My offer is to everyone, although the traffic gains and what I would claim would change depending on the particular site and if they agreed to all my changes. For example you can’t rank a brand new site for “cars”, unless it is absolutely remarkable and more importantly, extremely viral. If we don’t perform, we give the clients their money back, but that never happens. If a client is spamming or low quality, they’re not taking our advice in which case there is no guarantee.

I’m interested in ranking quality sites and working with companies and individuals to improve their online presence and better target new customers. Many people treat me like a spammer, because of ill notions they pick up from reading posts in marketing blogs like yours. I read your blog daily and I did read the Reed post. Although you may have written positively about SEO in the past your last two blog posts say nothing about it’s massive importance and positive effect for businesses, instead it diminishes what I do (incorrectly) which is bad advice, especially for small businesses.

Please take my challenge, I’ll increase your organic traffic as well as providing additional traffic from other sources. The gains will be substantial. You know what, I’ll SEO your site for free if you’ll tell the world the results. What do you have to loose?

I love your marketing books, but you obviously know almost nothing about our area of expertise: BTW, it is my opinion that whenever you take someone’s money and agree to do something for them, especially on a credit card – which is 90% of our business – you have guaranteed to do it whether you say so or not.
I am surprised that such an educated man would not do his homework before making such sweeping, incorrect statements about something he obviously knows so little about.
It would blow your mind what our service would do to your traffic! You are a scientific guy: lets do an experiment! You can write about the results!

As I’ve written before, SEO done by the right people for the right reasons is a great idea. My riffs are addressed to folks like Reed (see my previous post about their spams to me). If they had a corporate strategy of great site first, SEO second, then I think it’s quite likely they’d be succeeding today. As for your kind offer, I hope you’re offering it to everyone, not just me!

There are plenty of sites on the web from people capable of both creating great content and exercising poor judgment in how they frame that content. Seth’s is one of them.