comparing SEO Archives - Page 3 of 3 by Mark Murnahan

Where Does Marketing Talent Come From?

Is there such a thing as natural ability in marketing? Some talents seem to come from birth, but like developing any talent, it takes time and hard work. Talent comes with a cost.

Marketing Talent Comes With a Cost

There is a hidden cost to marketing talent that is often difficult to realize. Whether you are hiring it out or trying to develop marketing talent for yourself, it has a cost … often a huge cost. So, where does marketing talent really come from, what is the cost to get it, and why are marketing talents not all equal? Allow me to explain.

Talent is Better with Practice

I have been fascinated recently with the 2010 Winter Olympics. The athletes are amazing, and their talent often seems humanly impossible. What makes it possible is a whole lot of passion, determination, and practice. Passion leads to determination and determination leads to practice. Passion and determination do nothing without the follow through of relentless practice. Apolo Ohno even crashed a few times before he went on to become the most decorated USA medalist in Winter Olympic history, but he kept practicing.

Maybe you have a talent that you are passionate about. Think about that talent you developed through passion. Maybe you went to school a long time for it, and maybe you practiced it long enough to get really good at it … best of all is practice. Can somebody else do it as well as you? If they can, they probably practiced more.

Marketing Talent Takes Risk

It was when I heard Bob Costas and the other announcers talking about Olympic athletes having similar DNA to race car drivers and other risk-takers that my ears perked up. I started thinking about the risks people take, how they calculate risks, and really how little most people are willing to risk. With minimal risk, there is minimal reward. Come on, we all know this, and it is true of everything from leaning in for the first kiss to becoming a huge success at something.

Here is a way I can relate to risk. I race cars. In fact, I race cars very well. Driving is something I am passionate about. It is a talent that I have worked on for years, spent thousands of hours practicing, and hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to master. I also teach drivers what they need to know about driving. Imagine that. I get in a car with another driver and teach him or her how to go faster … fast enough to kill us both in an instant! Yes, I’ve got balls courage. I have courage the size of an aircraft carrier, but I have something else. I’ve got talent. The kind of talent that only comes from a whole lot of practice. That practice makes me just a little more immune to risk with each lap.

A common saying at a race track is that there is no such thing as natural ability. Oh, there may be some natural propensity (like good eyes and good reflexes), but the talent comes with practice. Really amazing talent comes with thousands of hours of practice. This goes for Olympic athletes, race car drivers, and yes, even marketers.

Good Marketing Talent Minimizes Your Risk

While knowing that each practice increases immunity to risk, I think about how much risk most people are willing to take in their business. Most businesses try to reduce their exposure to risk at every opportunity. They mop up the Vaseline spill in the doorway, they remove the balloon filled with broken glass hanging high above the atrium, and they buy insurance in case it all goes wrong. Doesn’t it beg the question of how they could logically reduce the risk of failure in their marketing efforts? Yes, I think that makes sense, too.

When you look for marketing talent and you wonder what you are paying for, remember this: Good Marketers Already Took the Risks. That means they already know what does not work, and they have the experience to know how to help you avoid doing the same. Not only that, really good marketing talent comes from the people who not only had a strong propensity to good marketing and passion for the work, but they have put in the countless hours of hard work, research, and practice … like the Olympic athlete or the race car driver.

Expensive Marketing Choices

When you consider developing marketing talent, consider your passion, time, and willingness to take risks. If you are passionate about your marketing but lack the time it takes to learn to skate like Apolo Ohno, drive like Emerson Fittipaldi, or market creatively like Pablo Picasso. Stop and consider the risks you could mitigate by sitting in the stands while the real marketing talent rounds the track for you. Be aware that you are paying them for the talent they developed with passion, determination and practice. You pay them for the risks they took that were a bit too ballsy courageous for your liking or your budget.

Do you want to go fast? You must decide carefully which risks to take, and it can be a lot less risky to hire somebody with marketing talent than to develop your own. After all, are you more likely to hop in a race car to create the show for everybody else or stay home and watch it from the safety of your sofa? Either will have a cost, but one takes a whole lot of time.

P.S. Here is what it looks like when I drive. I will leave out the failures it took to get there.

Backlink search on Yahoo! for awebguy.com

Backlinks are massively important to SEO because they reflect a consensus that your Website is either great, or it is not. Most people know that it is important to have a lot of links pointing back to their site, and some even know why … but few really understand how. I will draw this out for you and explain just why most SEO really stink at backlinks. Unless you settle in for a good read, right now, you will miss a huge lesson in SEO that you should know before you spend another cent. Get comfortable, because this is information that will benefit your business.

Most SEO Are Clueless About Backlinks

Most SEO fail at link building, and there are a few good reasons. Yes, I said most, and I mean it. Most SEO are failing at this one singular most measurable task that will make the difference in everything from customers finding your Website, to your Website conversion. The troubling thing to note is that they will often not tell you about it, and worse yet, they don’t even have a clue why they are so awful at it.

First, I will explain the couple of terms I use here and how they work for you, since I know everybody is not totally into SEO the way I am. SEO stands for search engine optimization (interchangeable with search engine optimizer, like me).

SEO is a whole lot more than just making sure you are at the top of the list when people search for what you offer. It goes much deeper, and it has a whole lot to do with another important and misunderstood term. Conversion! Oh, you’ve heard the term, right? In my most simple way of explaining conversion, it means converting searchers into clickers, clickers into buyers, and buyers into raving fans who will take your business to a totally different playing field. Conversion does not mean you conned another sucker into buying your stuff! Conversion could be said to mean that you are converting your business from an “also-ran” to the lead in the race.

Link building, as I am discussing it here, does not mean asking your cousin Sally to add a link to your site about insurance from her site about landscaping. When I say link building, I mean valuable, sustainable proof that you are serious about your business and that other people recognize this fact.

SEO Often Lie About Backlinks!

Now for backlinks; a backlink is what you have when somebody links to your site. It seems simple, right? Every joker who sends you an email offering to sell you backlinks for $49 knows that term. It means a squillion people will come flocking to your Website and enter their credit card number to snatch up your massively important stuff before you change your mind and raise the price. Yeah? Well … NO! This is the way a lot of SEO will explain it, but then, people lie … even on the Internet. By the way, why are they emailing, and why do their Websites never have more than a couple backlinks? I actually think it is not always just a mean-spirited lie, but more because they see this huge market and they are desperate to grab their piece but not willing to learn before they sell it to you. They are trying to earn as they learn, and the customer is often a victim.

Build Backlinks With Talent and Trust

When you have quality backlinks it tells Google and other search engines that others place a trust in you and they like your site. It is a democratic process. It is often faked, just like any other democratic process, but what sets you apart is that you are up for re-election today, tomorrow, and every day. Your business cannot afford to mess this up, and a bad fake in this democratic process can get you banned from search engines and waste a whole lot of your money. The biggest portion of the cost is the money you didn’t earn because you were wasting time with what did not work and your competition got the business.

If you take a creative and well-considered approach to your business and your Website, backlinks are simple. I never asked anybody to link to this site … not even once. I did not have to. I provide information that people want and can use to their benefit. People link here because they trust the content and they believe that others can benefit from it, too. This is the mentality it takes to build backlinks that matter. This is the kind of backlink that is relevant to those people looking for you, and a whole lot more likely to give you that conversion you are seeking. It is the kind of backlink that the SEO who sees you as a meal ticket will never create, because their mind simply does not work that way.

Trust and familiarity can build a whole lot of backlinks. Branding takes time and it takes purpose. When you do it right, you build great relationships. Here is an article that explains the difference that trusting relationships make in SEO and social media marketing: “How the Big Dogs Get Paid”. Have a little faith. I would not link to it if I didn’t think it would benefit you.

How SEO Sucker People: A Simple Explanation!

How does this happen that SEO sucker people out of their money? It is another blog post all together, but it is too commonly because the nature of need, greed, and fear tells people that they should seek the lowest cost in their business. They are out to make money without spending money. They want what sounds great, but for the lowest upfront expenditure. The first SEO to claim that they can do all that those other guys do for a fraction of the cost gets the money. What you should consider is that old saying that you get what you pay for. I would add that sometimes you don’t even get that.

If you are needy, greedy, and scared, do not cry to me or the other SEO who take the job of marketing your business seriously. Until you can get over the anxiety for grabbing fast money from the Internet, you are probably not ready for SEO performed correctly. If you take your business seriously and consider the importance of doing it right, the backlinks will come effortlessly.

Summary of SEO Backlinks

This little observation of backlinks explains a lot of reasons that when somebody asks me (as they often do) “What is your hourly rate for SEO?” I explain that they are asking the wrong question. The cost of SEO does not boil down to hourly rates for SEO or even how much money you wave goodbye to upfront. It comes down to how you look at your business and whether you only plan for tomorrow or plan to take your business to the head of the race. If you want to know my hourly rates, just Google it. If you want some free SEO lessons, go ahead and Google SEO lessons and find out if those backlinks I write about really matter.

If you want it done well, stop and think about these things and bring your lunch money. Doing SEO well does not mean doing it cheap. Real SEO means that you are in business and that you can swim with the sharks, and not that you are just willing to test the water.

How to Sell SEO (and Compare SEO)

How to sell SEO is a challenging topic for SEO agencies, freelancers, and in-house corporate SEO alike. In each case, they must have the right answers for why their job is important, why they are the right choice, and why they need more of the company’s budget. In order to sell SEO, they must have a plan that beats all of the other squillion SEO experts, and they must convey the plan properly. This can also help the person seeking to hire or compare SEO services.

Here is a bit of thought on how to sell SEO effectively, and I hope it will help you. I also hope you will participate in the discussion by adding your comments.

The SEO Client

Let us first look at the SEO client. What are they searching for, and how will you deliver what they want and need? Do they want to find out what you know so they can use it to shop it around with other SEO agencies or implement it in-house? Why are they contacting you? You need to know this!

What is the SEO client searching for? They contacted you, right? I assume that they contacted you because any SEO worth their Google should have clients contacting them, often (another blog post). The SEO client knows this, too, and it should make sense to them when you ask why they contacted you. The fact that they came to you makes them a whole lot hotter lead than if you contacted them. After all, the fact that they found you is exactly the thing they want you to do for them. In my case, if they have filled out a form on one of my sites, I know what link or search has led them there, what else they have clicked on, how long they spent there, and how many times they have come back.

This gives me some great data, but then I consider an instance where the Chief Technology Officer, Marketing VP, and the whole marketing staff was totally on board with my SEO plan for their surgical supply company, but the CEO would not present it to the board because he had already made a $150,000 mistake with the last Internet marketing decision he made. He was afraid for his job, and ashamed of his last mistake. This makes it important to dig deeper into what human elements and fear factors you must overcome to get the job done. You cannot overlook these factors, such as the last joker who came in and made your industry look bad.

It is easy to toss out a few amazing claims and sprinkle their eyes with SEO dust, but let’s look at something much greater. The human factor of offering a service for sale is important, even if you are selling a nuclear reactor. If the client cannot work with you or you cannot work with them, this will clearly not work. Both the SEO client and SEO provider should be diligent in their choices, and this requires a lot of trust from both parties.

The facts and figures are hugely important to any marketing campaign, but all the numbers in the world will not satisfy a client who does not see what is in it for them, or understand your vision for their success. This is vital, and if you are selling facts and figures without how that translates into your client’s needs, goals, and comfort level, you will not sell SEO for very long.

Shopping and Comparing SEO

I have been selling SEO for over a decade, and I do not even bother counting how many SEO contact me to try and know what I know, or to gather ideas on how to sell SEO. Prospective SEO clients and SEO agencies alike will do this. If you are one of the SEO who has been in the business for a while, you have probably given many proposals or other valuable information to somebody who has no plan of ever doing business with you. SEO espionage is pretty rampant, and you will not stop it. I remember some early lessons in selling when I would go out and present myself as a customer in order to find out what salespeople were doing right and wrong, and using the information to do my job better. In the case of SEO, it is often the reason an SEO will hold information close to the vest and avoid discussing details of a plan and their SEO pricing model. It is a hard hurdle to leap, but if you are doing the job well, they will need a whole lot more than a copy of your contract or your plan … they will need you to get the job done!

If you are going to sell SEO effectively, you will need to weed this out and spend your time wisely, which brings me to the next point on confidence.

SEO Arrogance Confused with Confidence:

Have you ever talked about SEO or Web development with somebody who knows more than you? Yeah, I remember those days. When I was new at this, I recall thinking that I would never be able to absorb all that information and store it up here in my little head. That was not only in another decade for me, it was in another century altogether, and this is 2010. I do know a whole lot more than 99.999 percent of people about my job. That should be expected. I mean, how crazy would it be if you went to the dentist and learned something about search engine optimization from the dental hygienist? If it was me, I would jump up out of the chair before the drilling begins!

The hardship here is to convey confidence without being a jerk. I am not sure I have this mastered, but I try to remember the human elements I mentioned above. Sadly, some of the smartest and most talented people in the SEO industry will have a hard time talking about their work without either seeming like they are talking down to the client or just shooting straight over their head. The conversation is also often damaged by the fear of SEO espionage and that they are just being used for free information. Withholding information can make you seem sneaky and sinister, or it can make you seem as if you do not know what you are doing. Drawing the line on what you give away can be tricky, and it will be different each time.

Feeling out the client’s knowledge on the topic and tailoring your focus to their understanding is a challenge. A little fact-finding up front can help a lot.

Ask Many Questions … and Listen to the Answers!

One of the hardest things for somebody trying to sell SEO is to give their answers without really having a clear picture of the questions their prospective client has. If you are an SEO, you know the job, and you know that it does not matter whether they are selling fishing lures or race cars … the job of SEO has many of the same basic principles. The client may not know this, and what they need to know is that you have the creativity, experience, and ambition to help them.

I cannot drive this home for you enough. It is one of the biggest mistakes I have ever made, and that anybody selling SEO or anything else makes. You cannot serve the client to the best of your abilities without knowing specifically what they need, want, and expect from you.

The best way to answer those questions is to ask questions. This seems basic, but just consider how many times you are backed down because a client simply does not want to answer the questions you must ask in order to give them the best plan for their company. When this is the case, it is often best to hang up the phone, walk out of the room, or otherwise let the client know that you cannot help them until they allow you to help them. Veterinarians struggle to find the answers from patients who cannot speak, but these are human beings, and they can give you the answers. In order to give them the best results, they must!

Sure, you can do the research and you can improve their position in search engines, but if it does not speak to their expectations and goals, you will be foolish to continue. Much of this can be improved with an engagement letter and a fee for anything over “X” level of discussion. If the client is more comfortable, whip out your non-disclosure agreement for their security.

Whether you are selling SEO or buying the service, you must drop the inherent cynicism to do business. This requires confidence, which comes from asking questions and getting accurate answers. This is beneficial to both parties. If I ask a client for their server logs before I enter a performance-based contingency SEO contract, I will have an answer or I will walk away. If I ask for a clear picture of their existing marketing efforts and results, I want it for comparison and their view of their target. If I ask for their budget, I expect an answer. I do not ask for their budget without a reason, and that reason is that if I have a $5000 SEO budget, I will have a totally different plan than if I have a $50,000 SEO budget. Each of these has a totally different focus and set of criteria. Each client will answer my questions as differently as people walking into an emergency room. How I treat them depends on honesty and trust.

Just as an attorney will not defend you in a murder case without hearing your alibi, the SEO with best intentions will not take on a client without hearing their case.

So there you have just a few factors in how to sell SEO. This could obviously become a novel, so I will continue this in other articles. In the meantime, I want your input. Give me your comments and let’s discuss this.

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.