As somebody always on the lookout for new and interesting clients one of the lines I hear time and time again is “we already have a SEO company and we are quite happy with them”. Is everybody ranking number 1 all of a sudden?
I see companies ranking on page 3 for their main keywords who are quite happy with the service they are getting. My advice to them is that whatever service they might be paying for is the wrong one.
Another strange issue is the potential client who has hundreds of pages, all with the same title tag, and is more than happy with his SEO provider. Apparently the SEO is managed by a UK company but all the manual work is outsourced to other countries. Clearly this company is doing nothing more than directory submission (I checked their backlinks) and hasn’t had the decency to do a site audit in the 6 months they have been on the case. My advice is to get out of the contract ASAP.
The way most good SEO companies work on a contract basis is to do lots of work up front at a loss and then make the money back by doing less work towards the end of the contract. Spreading out 12 months of work over 12 months isn’t going to help a client who wants results ASAP. Of course some things need work throughout the campaign but not everything.
The problem with SEO is that nice people with reputable businesses don’t automatically have the ability to get your business to the top of Google. Just because you get on with the company you hired doesn’t mean you can’t sack them when you remain on page 8 after 6 months.
If your SEO isn’t performing then it might be time to break up with them.
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Yeah i agree with you Patrick. Why on earth a company can justify spending XX amount of $$$ per month on an SEO company who are making little, or no progress is beyond me. I mean if you paid a company to have your company logo printed on the back windows of their truck, and they put their logo on the inside of the cab where nobody could see it, would they be happy with that? I rest my case.
The company I currently work for has learnt this lesson the hard way. In the short term results were good and the company website gained a few positions in the SE’s but then it all stalled and then finally dropped away. Luckily we are no longer with that SEO company, who were charging us in excess of £1000 a month for little or no work.
We are now with a new SEO firm who have a much better understanding of our needs and to give them an incentive for continual improvement, rather than paying them a set fee each month the price is based on measurable results. In this instance the price paid is a percentage of all sales driven by organic search results and referrals. I think this is an excellent way to do business in SEO as there is an incentive for both the service provider and the client to do well.
I’d like to see other SEO companies take up this challenge, results based pricing. I think it would benefit all involved, as I am a firm believer that if you can’t deliver the goods you don’t deserve the cash.
As someone that does both paid and natural search, I sometimes am asked to look at other SEO companies performance. The ones that I’ve liked are the ones that state plainly what they are getting paid to do. Site analysis and optimization, Link submission, article creation, social media optimization etc.
There are others that charge a “monthly fee” plus a percentage commission, without explaining 100% what they are doing… and that feels unprofessional to me.
I’ve also accepted percentage of profit for specific companies. However, I don’t do that unless I have control over the copywriting, as well as oversight on the sales side of the operation. I don’t want to waste my time on driving traffic if the company doesn’t know how to convert those leads to sales.
I am with John Blackmore on this point, we are an SEM player and predicate our business on business results based pricing. The key element ie that which the client pays against, is set by the customer, i really can’t see any other way that the SEM/SEO provider services can be alligned with the clients web channels/old fashioned business objectives. Too often do I see that clients are bamboozled by their SEO/SEM provider and baffled with techobabble into fixed priced long term deals with no contractually agreed deliverables.
Hey Martin,
I guess we’ll get some action on the opinions here
You are definitely right that the SEO / SEM firm has to have their objectives aligned with the “old fashioned business objectives”.
But I have a question for you…How do you suggest that SEO and SEM firms get paid, so that they are happy as well? Why should I (SEO/SEM Firm) trust that you know what to do with my traffic - and will make me money?