Dragons are Diamond Geezers for Delivering Traffic to I-COM client

Hi, this IS Diamond Geezer as seen on Dragons' Den July 28th 2008.

What follows is a generic response which I hope brings clarity to a few issues raised in like articles and blogs.
Note to reader: to be read in a light-hearted, playful, jocular manner

Loving your work.......please be sure that you know, WE KNOW we have SEO issues at this time.

But first an appeal - come on guys: just because we have consistently failed to identify good SEO consultants DOES NOT make us bad people or dodgy dealers. What exactly has an SEO problem got to do with quality of product or service we sell and provide? Our walls are dripping with DTI awards for excellence, staff training awards, website design awards, jewellery design awards and our customer testimonials sparkle. Sadly no SEO award - the only service we buy in. I'm confused, surely as we have paid for all this work over the years, your industry has so far failed us: not the reverse. So having a pop at our pathetic SEO is a touch cannibalistic ;-).

Can I also point out that Dragons' Den wasn’t live, a minor point that seems to have been missed by some less polite and accusing SEO people on various blogs. It was recorded months ago and as I stated very clearly on screen, the positions quoted were ‘yesterday’ I.E the day before recording. Please do remember that we are DIAMOND experts not SEO experts and we do spend and it seems, waste, a lot of money within your industry in our quest that our SEO matches our quality of product and service. That means of course that if you have any criticisms about the SEO work on our site then please don't forget it was done by one of your gang and in return we promise not to slag-off your jewellery ;-).

Here's where we are.....
In position terms we did well last year [2007] and were holding top 5 positions by Christmas on important search words and phrases. Early into the New Year [2008] we started to tumble and by the time of the recording of Dragon’s Den were slipping onto second and third pages as is now well documented in the on screen reply to Dragon Peter Jones during the program. However as at the 30th July 2008, although we are holding positions on search engines other than Google, we have temporarily dropped off the Google radar, we’re being soft filtered. We now know that this was down to inappropriate actions by our last and now ex-SEO contractor and is being rectified by our current SEO experts. Even we accept that it will take some time to reverse, so now is not the time to judge their work. Dare I say........... 'Watch-this-Space'?

I would like to share one small point of commercialism, a competitor with TWO sites that dominated the top Google positions through 2007 [no longer] turned over 1/3rd of the business that we did. Its not all about SEO and I hope our growth says a lot about the quality of our jewellery, service and brand reputation. I know, I know 'just think what will happen when our SEO problem is resolved'.

Hey here's an idea, walk don't talk, why not show us your skills and expertise and risk make some money. We invite you to contact us professionally and tender, however it’s probably not a good idea to start your pitch by insulting or berating a potential client or their website with liberal use of Anglo Saxon, as sadly, so many of your brethren have via email.

And finally please remember the Dragons wanted in, I turned them down, they respected that the business was doing well and going places, INSPITE OF RUBBISH SEO. Your saw 13 minutes of pure TV which followed a set formula which begins with entrepreneur crucifixion. I had a very full on, fun but hard, 2 hour 10 minute business meeting surrounded by cameras and production crew. Search engine positions represented just a few minutes of that total time and therefore proportionately, did rather well in the edit and the broadcast. So sorry to disappoint guys but the 97 seconds you see the Dragons talking about SEO in the edited broadcast was the only reference to SEO for the entire 2 hours 10 minutes I was in the Den and if you really think they offered the cash - which let's not forget they did, because of search end position , then you are sadly mistaken, why would they? If we can attain the level of growth we have had with poor SEO what's our worth when that problem is resolved? Now, given that we have a mail box full of claims from real and self-appointed experts form your industry who tell us that our current SEO problems are very simply corrected, I ask you: Am I too concerned about our current SEO failings?

I’m not sure what you’re up to with this post Clive, but I would have thought your SEO company would have advised against posting it all over the web. As you know you also sent this to me by email last week and I replied to you directly. ...but for the benefit of readers here and since you’ve chosen to make your debate public what follows is the content of my reply:
-------------------------------------------
Hi Clive,

Nice to hear from you, it’s been amazing the furore your appearance has caused it just goes to show the power of television. I think you made the right decision on the night, the Dragon’s often take advantage of people desperate to drive their business forwards and it was good to see you being strong. I hope you’ve since been able to sort out your funding.

I’m sorry that some of the members of the search industry have been rude to you, that’s certainly not our approach to business, and hopefully you didn’t find any of our comments or posts offensive, but we do know there are some cowboys out there. We’ve had clients that have left us on the promise of cheaper and better results only to come back to us when something shady their new SEO specialists has done results in a drop in listings.

I also fully take on board your comments about the importance of conversion, this is one of the reasons we’ve built our business to provide a full range of web services. When our clients’ sites achieve listings and still don’t convert we’re able to provide design and build advice and expertise to help the business move forward.

I’m a bit intrigued by your invitation to tender, if you’ve just appointed a new SEO firm surely you’ll be giving them sometime to address the issues on your site. I also have a slight issue of conflict with an existing client (ZS Diamonds) that I’d have to clear, we do have a process for managing this using different teams within our business but Ivd want to speak to them before committing to work for you.

We do already have the number one listing for “diamond engagement ring” and the number 5 listing for “diamonds” so we know how to get results in the sector.

If you’re serious about looking at SEO alternatives please feel free to give me a ring and we can talk through how we might take things forward.

Mike Blackburn
Operations Director
0870 143 3172
07789 984025

I've noticed how they blame 'SEOs' for their problem yet they still have all their content hidden on the homepage. This another suggestion from an SEO?

Thanks for your comment Jake, it's nice to see people still picking this up so long after it was posted.I think the Diamondgeezer site is a new one it's definitely changed since we wrote this blog.Your post poses quite an interesting question as whilst the text is not easy to find, it is on the page via a little read more button at the bottom right. It's quite a cunning strategy, the question is whether it's black hat or not and if Google spotted it would they look negatively on it?