Why I get Frustrated with giving Free SEO Advice

If you give away something of value for free is its perceived value nothing?

I often get asked for advice on someone’s website. Mostly from people I don’t even know. Most of the time, if I take the time to give a decent suggestion or two, I’m left with a feeling of frustration. It’s like when my five-year-old son is jumping on the furniture, and I tell him not to do it, and five minutes later, he’s jumping on the furniture again. That kind of frustration.

And, it’s not always that the person I’m advising isn’t listening or understanding, sometimes they successfully impliment my advice. It’s that I’m taking time out of my day to help them, and rarely even get as much as a “thanks”, no follow up to let me know how it worked out for them, no nothing. But, usually the advice falls on dead ears, because most of what I suggest takes time and effort.

I’ve been going to the SEO Meetup, which is held monthly in Arlington (a suburb of Boston) ever since I met Brian at Pubcon in Boston last year.  Every month he invites someone to join the group, to have their website be the focus of a brainstorming session on how to market it better.  Last month, I left the meeting perfectly frustrated.

Here’s one example.  One of the websites reviewed was called Foodler.   It’s a really neat service, which allows people to order takeout from the web.  They have a good number of restaurants in their inventory, including some that I’ve eaten in.  The owner of the site rightly wanted to know how to expand the reach of his marketing.  I do think he really needs to gain traction, because this is an idea that someone could easily encroach upon.

I mentioned to him that I thought he’d get a lot of benefit if he got some of the popular local bloggers to mention his site.  Perhaps giving them a free dinner would help getting them familiar with the service.  I’m not the one who coined the word ‘Sneezers‘ but  I think that local-focused bloggers are clearly in that group, and having them adopt his service would pay huge dividends.

I was stunned with the reply.  He asked “where do I find popular bloggers?”  I stumbled on that, I wasn’t expecting it.  Someone mentioned the Universal Hub, which is exactly the kind of blog I meant.   Next, I mentioned that I had posted a link to the blogs I read in the Meetup’s forum.  His response to that was something like “how do I know the blogs you read are the important ones?”

Luckily, the conversation turned away from blogs at that point.  I’m probably too easily frustrated.  Asking me how to find popular blogs is kind of like asking me how to walk.

So, should I, and others in similar situations stop giving out free advice?  No, not really.  I’ve been on the receiving end of good advice far too often to say something as short-sighted as that.

Should I get better at deciding who to give free advice to?  Yea, I’ve been working on that.  A couple years back, I had a problem with people constantly asking me to help code their website.   Because I’m a Sitepoint Advisor, people assume I’m a top-level coder.  I’m not.

Should Brian stop inviting people to our SEO Meetup to get free advice on their website?  Maybe.  Not once have I heard back from any of the people who were lucky enough to have the group giving them free advice on their website marketing.  Not one.  But I do think he should expect more of them.  Perhaps the next one needs to buy us dinner and drinks.  Instead of sitting at Panera with a cup of coffee and bowl of soup, the next one treats the group to dinner at John Harvard’s.

And a bit of advice for the people lucky enough to make it to Jeremy Schoemaker’s Meetup.  Be good to him.  Make him want to do it again with you next month.