Category: Internet

Internet topics with a focus on SEO and social media marketing issues.

6 Reasons We Didn’t Hire a Social Media Consultant

I know you are expecting it to be snarky, so I will try to avoid letting you down. Yeah, you guessed it, I am writing yet another “Mr. Smarty Pants” article on social media. This time it is about some of the very good reasons for not hiring a social media consultant. Without further delay, I want to introduce Mr. John Lunchbucket of Clip Away Paper Clip Company to explain some reasons his company didn’t hire a social media consultant.

Number 1 – Obscure Market Audience

“We sell paper clips. It would be pretty boring to blog, tweet, and Facebook about that, don’t you think? I doubt anybody could make our business more fun or engaging.”

If that is the attitude you take, Mr Lunchbucket, you are right. You should probably carefully avoid social media. Come to think of it, you may do well to stop marketing your business completely. You wouldn’t want to bore people with paper clips such as explained in this video:

Number 2 – We Can Do It In-House

“Jerry in accounting set up our Twitter and Facebook accounts and he sends out some stuff every day. He says that by handling it in-house we can save a lot of money. “

I guess I really do understand this idea. After all, I was thinking about going to dentistry school so I can take care of my kids’ teeth one day.

It is good to spread the work around. It can show off the company’s best assets … the people. However, the sad part is that Jerry didn’t have anything more productive to be doing. Now I know why. While Jerry is busy handling bad marketing efforts, the accountant over at the competition is counting the money Jerry used to account for.

Number 3 – Localized Market

“We only provide products and services in a localized market. The Internet is better suited for companies doing business with a broader geography.”

This is fine if the people in your market area don’t use the Internet, like at the bottom of the ocean! I suppose that the enhanced search engine ranking from those links on other Websites talking about your company would be considered wasteful. Maybe you should save some of that recognition for the competition. When I ask the people at your competitor, can I quote you?

I am glad you have such a good grasp on my job, Mr. Lunchbucket. I hope you don’t go into my line of work like everybody else who “knows” the Internet as well as you.

Number 4 – The Expense

“It has been a tough year, and our budget is shot. We just can’t justify spending money on something that could take months to see a return on our investment.”

You are correct, Mr. Lunchbucket. It has been a really challenging year for a lot of companies. Thanks for pointing this out for me, because I really only like to do business with companies willing to plan for being around in a year or more.

Something to consider is whether it has been hard for your competitor, too. If so, but they get a leg up on you, how much harder will it be next year? If you only market during the best of times, you are doomed to fail. Allow me to share a wise quote with you:

“The man who stops advertising to save money is like the man who stops the clock to save time.” –Thomas Jefferson

Number 5 – It Doesn’t Work!

“We already tried social media and it didn’t work. It was a big waste of time!”

Yep, it sure was a waste of time. It is a good thing you figured that out early. Maybe Jerry in accounting can get back to counting all of that money you are making through your newspaper and phone book advertisements. Good luck in the coming year!

Number 6 – We Ran Out of Reasons

“We ran out of reasons, but we are pretty sure there are others.”

Tell Me About Your “Fantastic Opportunity”

It seems that I am presented with another “fantastic opportunity” nearly every minute of my day. I receive “opportunities” by email, Twitter, Facebook, telephone, fax, Skype, postal mail, and face-to-face. The most popular way these opportunities seem to spread is by way of social media.

Since there are so many people out there sharing their latest “fantastic opportunity”, I figured my readers may want to share theirs. Before you get me wrong and assume that I am only being a smartass, I am sincerely open to hear what you have to say. Sure, your opportunity will probably not interest me in the least, and may not interest most of my readers. All the same, I am offering you this chance to share your “fantastic opportunity”. Somebody may love your idea … who knows? Plus, maybe this will give you some practice in how to present your idea with greater impact. Try to impress me … try something new … give me your best shot! If you have something to share, let me be your sounding board. Add your comments here!

I really am open for opportunity. I seek the positive side of most everything. The biggest problem I find is in the method of presentation. I mean, who really enjoys sifting through a bunch of totally irrelevant opportunities? I am sure that some people do, but I really only look for things that pertain to my interests in some way. For example, if you present an opportunity that will benefit my present business interests as a Web hosting CEO, social media consultant, and book author, I will read it and you will hear from me!

If your opportunity sounds similar to the message below … I am not interested. Maybe somebody is interested, but it is like nails on a chalkboard to me. Of course, my opinion is not the only one here.

“You only have to share this fantastic opportunity with three friends. Yeah, that is right, just three friends who will set you up for life with a huge mansion, fancy cars, fine food, world travel, and a better looking mate than the one you’ve got!”

I am just not an MLM kind of guy, but they are out there and they read my blog. To me, most things that sound like this are opportunities to part with more of my hard-earned money in trade for hope that I can find three friends to build up hype and make the same pitch to. I care about my friends too much for this kind of “opportunity”.

I am asking for your enlightenment. This may sound just a little bit snarky but with all of this opportunity, maybe I am the guy who just doesn’t quite “get it” yet. If you have a message that needs to be shared, I want to give you an opportunity to share it right here on my blog. This is your chance to reach others, and in a way that it is invited. Add your comments here!

Then maybe if you reach enough people, you can send me one fewer email or one fewer tweet about how much money people are making with your latest fantastic opportunity.

Once you have your presentation polished and ready to go, talk to me about targeting the message to the right recipients.

Cyber Bullying, Death Threats, and Other Cyber Crimes

I was prompted to write this after filing a complaint with the FBI for death threats I received here on this very blog. You may not receive death threats, but surely you have encountered people who became less-than-civilized and abusive online. For most of us, I suspect that it really shocks us how somebody can get so upset over what may seem insignificant to us.

I guess I never realized how scandalous and heated the topics of my writing can be. Apparently this humorous article that I wrote last February really got somebody’s emotions all stirred up. I cannot say a lot about the details or post the comments yet, but perhaps I will in due time.

One thing I can say is that the abuser claimed that the article “didn’t spark my interest in the least”, which I know is a lie because they spent an hour and fifty three minutes writing and re-writing their comments. That sounds like more than a “spark”, but rather a raging inferno. So how in the heck can a simple article on writing good copy inspire so much anger that the reader threatens to kill me? I will allow your guesses in the comments for this blog post. No death threats, please!

Why do some people say things online that they would never say to your face? Do I have an answer for this, yes and no. I know a good share about the Internet. After all, I have earned my living based on providing Internet services for well over a decade. As CEO of one of the top wholesale providers of Internet access and Web hosting, I have just about seen it all. I am the guy people come to with a subpoena for server logs and other evidence to prove the crime or track the criminal. I have helped to put people in jail for child pornography, terroristic threats, fraud, and other crimes. I have worked with law enforcement on many occasions, and it has often given me a huge eye-opener to the human condition.

Perceived Anonymity

The psychology of perceived anonymity is strange. It shocks me, but it is pretty common that the abuser actually believes that they are anonymous. With this feeling of being anonymous, I suppose a bully really lets out what they are all about deep-down. They can really let their misery show when they think there is no price to pay for their anger and hate. In many instances where the crime is small, their identity is never researched and revealed, but of course this is not always the case.

Hateful Bullying

It seems that a lot of people do not consider how things they write may affect other people. Some people seem to enjoy causing hurt or frustration to others. I believe this is often the person who feels very insignificant and small. The only way they can be heard and get the attention they need is to be mean. I think we have all known a bully at some point in life. Maybe you knew him or her as a child on the playground. The sad thing for this tormented soul is that they never grew up, but you did.

Bullies often go overboard just to emphasize their frustration. I have witnessed many mean-spirited comments that are quite certainly overstated. I have a good friend who is a meteorologist. It seems the weatherman is easy to blame when the weather does not go as hoped. This guy gets all kinds of hateful complaints, and not for his work or his presentation, but for the weather. Yes, he gets angry complaints for the weather that “he caused”!

I have had hate mail, mean blog articles written about me, and more than a couple of harassing comments on social networking Websites. You can say that it is simply a matter of numbers, and that if you reach enough people there are surely some who will be mean. It is true that the more people you reach, the more you will find hate. However, as social media use is more widely adopted, it is much easier to spread that hate to an even larger number of people.

Put Out Their Fire

If you encounter bullying, I ask that you remember what it is the bully seeks. They often want attention. If you give it to them, you allow them to bolster their pride to carry on. If you ignore them and snuff out their flame, you will often save yourself and those around you a lot of negativity.

Negativity spreads quickly. Consider this in how you interact with others online.

When it goes too far and it becomes criminal, it is time to contact The Internet Crime Complaint Center, your local FBI office, or other authority of proper jurisdiction.

Contingency SEO Contracts

I recently wrote about SEO Hourly Rates, and I received a lot of attention to the topic of SEO pricing methods. Now I would like to address one of the other popular SEO pricing methods, contingency SEO.

Contingency contracts have long been used by attorneys when a client either wishes to mitigate their investment risk in legal fees or cannot afford to pay for all of the legal cost upfront. Contingency contracts can also be leveraged properly for your search engine optimization (SEO). When the risk and the reward is equitably shared between the SEO professional and the client, a contingency SEO contract often makes sense. After all, it is easy to see why a professional will often do their best work when their income is dependent on winning. 

Contingency SEO: The Client Perspective

Most companies understand paying a reasonable percentage of their profit to a sales representative, and contingency SEO is not so different in some ways. When the sales representative provides you with business, you provide them with remuneration.

Viewing your SEO provider as another sales representative is a simplified look at contingency SEO, but it is also important to give consideration to legal matters and preserving your company reputation. Ideally, you and the SEO company will have a unified long-term goal of success. Like sales reps, there are good and bad search engine optimizers, so it is important to have a similar approach to that of hiring a new sales representative, or more appropriately, taking on a new business partner.

Since proper SEO work requires a sizeable investment of time, you should be prepared to provide the SEO an upfront payment so that you are, indeed, sharing the cost equitably. Securing a contract with a quality SEO company would be too simple if not for an upfront cost. Clearly, all of your competitors would have done it by now if it was that easy.

Contingency SEO: The SEO Perspective

If I only had a nickel for every opportunity to provide my work upfront and receive a percentage of the profits, I would not offer hourly pricing for SEO services. Like the example of an attorney working for contingency, the SEO provider must be comfortable with the arrangement, and see good potential for gain. The SEO must consider the marketability of the product or service, how to measure the SEO results (gross profit, net profit, market share gain, etcetera), and accountability. There are a lot more ways for the SEO company to come out cheated in the end, so clear contracts and trust become important factors.

Because of the risks for the SEO professional, some ways that contingency SEO can be accounted for include full access to the client’s records, Website scripting to account for the traffic and report it to the SEO, or a separate Website owned by the SEO to measure the traffic and send it to the client. There are many other methods of accountability, but this is simply to say that accountability is often one of the greatest concerns for the SEO professional.

The Contingency SEO Contract

When approached with the opportunity for a proper and equitable SEO contingency contract, I take it very seriously, and I expect my client to do the same. After all, we should be in it together for mutual benefit. Just to be sure both parties understand the relationship, it is very important to spell it out in a contract. A well defined contract for contingency SEO will require much consideration of both parties’ interests, and will take some work for the contracting SEO provider. The client should expect to pay for this time, and for a careful review of the existing Website assets or liabilities. Without a thorough review and assessment of the client’s needs, expectations, and current market position, the SEO professional and client will not have all of the necessary facts to work with. The client should be reminded that if they are engaging the SEO, it is like calling the attorney of choice. It is best to call a great attorney rather than just the first one willing to take on your project. Similarly, the upfront retainer cost to review the case, as well as the depth of the assessment will vary.

Contingency SEO Bloodsuckers

Attorneys have often been referred to as bloodsuckers, and it may be the contingency contract that has caused their reputation. Attorneys are persecuted for receiving huge amounts of money for what looks like an easy job. To their credit, we must remember that there is always a reason the client asks for them to take the case on contingency. The risk is shared, and so must be the reward. Like the attorney, if the contingency SEO does not meet the expectations, neither party benefits. That means the professional has spent their time on the client’s behalf, with the only reward being lost time. The responsibility of maintaining a marketable product or service offering lies outside of the SEO professional’s control. This exposure to potential loss on the part of the SEO must be carefully considered.

SEO and Web Development Hourly Rates

Hourly rates for SEO (search engine optimization) and Web development are confusing. As a Web developer and SEO, I am very often asked to produce a Website development quote, without the client giving all of the facts. The most important thing to remember is that there is no apples-to-apples comparison.

Website Development Hourly Rates

When you compare the hourly rates of two different Website developers or SEOs, you are really only looking at a fraction of the picture. If “Web Developer A” charges $85 per hour, and “Web Developer B” charges $150 per hour, which one is a better deal? There is a missing variable in how much and how well either of them can produce the results. If “Web Developer B” has a decade of experience and can finish the same task in half of the time, “Web Developer A’s” hourly rate just became $170 per hour ($85*2).

Another strong factor is that although there are standards for Web programming, there are many “correct” ways to produce a project, and usually the “correctness” will come in different degrees. This requires a question of how correct you want it. Two Web developers will likely never produce the exact same results. Thus, the comparison of hourly rates is already flawed.

SEO Hourly Rates

When it comes to SEO, many of the tasks are even less defined than Web development. Determining the best SEO between “SEO A” and “SEO B” it is like comparing two brains, which stumps even the most brilliant Neurosurgeons. There are many skills that we share, but there are also many varying opinions on the best practices. There is only one number one position in each search engine for a given keyword or keyword phrase. That is the goal of the SEO, but the methods used to get there often vary greatly between SEOs.

Reduce Hourly Rate Confusion

Perhaps the most challenging and confusing thing about shopping for Website development or SEO is how much a Website should cost. As I have strongly suggested before, it is best to set a budget. Here is a clip from another of my blog posts:

“Hiding your expected budget is like going to a realtor and saying that you want to buy a house and hiding your budget. If they do not know your budget, they can show you homes all day but you will both be spinning your wheels and never get anywhere.”

When a Web developer or SEO provides a proposal based on only a portion of the client’s objectives, they will always be wrong. I can appreciate the notion of “shopping around”, but to shop without a budget serves nobody at all, and may land you with “Web Developer A” who can potentially cost you more. When it comes to shopping for SEO services, the largest cost is often in the cost of lost opportunities.

Getting the Right Cost Quote

I have produced quotes to shoppers who simply refused to give me the whole picture, only to have them compliment me greatly but say that they believe I am “out of their league”. The fact is that I write quotes ranging from a few thousand dollars on up to many tens of thousands of dollars. It is always based on the information I am given. No two companies place the same importance on Internet marketing, thus, their needs and expectations of both performance and cost will always be different. Without clarifying the needs and expectations for both parties, nobody wins.