Tag: seo cost

Fire Your SEO: Here is Why and How

Should You Fire Your SEO?
Should You Fire Your SEO?


Do you think you need a search engine optimizer? Let’s get serious. Your company is not a hobby, and you’re not working to build it only because the work is fun. Companies – smart companies – want to receive profit from their investment of hard work and money. Profit is what companies use to pay the bills.

It would be unwise to throw away your profit on SEO services just because you hope it may work out – someday. Don’t pretend to be shocked if I tell you that’s exactly what a lot of people are doing every day. I see it all the time that companies test the water and shakily hand over their credit card to the next SEO that gave them a good pitch. Other companies have all the skill they need for success, but they fail to use it.

I will give you some good pointers on how to select a good SEO, the basic components of their role, and even why you may (or may not) be able to handle much of it without their help.

Before I continue, I want to note that I do not sell SEO services (but I’m still in recovery). I am just here to share what I know from a lot of well-earned experience. Unless you are ready to pay me a huge salary plus a significant benefits package, don’t worry – I’m not looking at your checkbook.

SEO be damned, I’m going to tell you the truth you may not want to hear. It may sting, but it also may save you a lot of time, money, and frustration. I’m not just out to knock search engine optimizers, either. There are a lot of very talented SEO out there who just don’t want to talk to you because you’re trying to compare apples to airliners. As I tell you this, be mindful that it’s your business on the line, so if you’re getting this wrong, your company is the one that suffers.

SEO is a Double-Edged Sword

Don’t get me wrong about the value of good SEO. If you’ve got a good SEO, by all means, hang on to them. They are probably making you a lot of money. The problem is that statistically, most SEO are not very good at the job. Good ones are few and far between. It takes a lot of knowledge and experience to be really good at SEO. The best ones are also very well connected, and you don’t buy that for a few thousand bucks.

A truly qualified search engine optimizer can make an amazing difference in your business, but search engine optimization is a sword that cuts both ways.

Let’s make no mistakes about this: A legitimate attempt to reach your online audience can multiply your business, but an uncommitted and ill-considered effort can send it the other way … fast, and in more ways than you may realize. Rather than paying an inexperienced SEO who is still learning, you may do better to handle it yourself. It is true that a bad SEO can cost you a lot more than you pay them. Seriously – if you doubt me even a little bit, read about “Google Panda, Google Bowling, and How Bad SEO Can Kill Your Business“. If you’re trying to get by the cheap way, it’s like hunting for the cheapest root canal … it’s likely to hurt.

Do You Really Need Your SEO?

What makes you believe that you need a search engine optimizer? Think about that really hard. If you don’t have the right answer, based on the right strategy, it may be time to fire your SEO.

If your answer is that you have a legitimate business case for it, like most companies do, that’s great. Examine the business need carefully, choose your provider wisely, and make a strong commitment. Be sure that they understand your goals, and that they can provide a realistic forecast based on their work.

You should be prepared to pay them for that forecast, too. Otherwise, you are likely to make some huge strategic marketing errors. If you’ve chosen wisely, it will be worth every dollar you spend for their market research. If you get a good one, don’t expect to get their research for free. I’ll tell you why if you read that link I just gave you.

You should understand that even the best search engine optimizer will fail to bring you optimal results if you “kneecap” them with short budgets, “not enough time”, or other excuses. One of the worst things you can do is to make excuses because you are just too afraid to implement things they recommend based on their solid research. That frankly just pisses them off.

The mathematical confusion of SEO destroys a lot of companies’ efforts. They struggle to grasp that a twenty percent effort will not yield one fourth of the same result as an eighty percent effort.

Understanding the math of SEO, and how it pertains to your specific business needs will matter more than you likely realize. I’m not kidding, and I’m not making this up. I’ll explain more about the math of SEO return on investment in a moment.

On the other hand, if your answer to why you need SEO services is that you’re trying it out because you are hopeful it will eventually have an impact, I have a suggestion: Fire your SEO immediately! Don’t pay them another dollar until you have a better answer. Hope alone does not create profit, and it can lead you down a really bad path. If you’re just “testing the water”, take your money and use it elsewhere in your business. There are sharks in that water!

Reaching a usefully measurable result with search engine optimization does not happen from “testing the water”. There is a bell curve (a gaussian function) at work, and it does not work in favor of minimized efforts.

The Profit is Higher on the Curve!
The Profit is Higher on the Curve!

In case you never heard of The Pareto Principle – a widely used economic principle – it is worth the effort to understand it and apply it to your marketing.

Why to Fire Your SEO: Three Things You Should Know

SEO creates a lot of mixed reactions. If you ask a room full of business people about their experiences with SEO, you are likely to hear everything from extreme delight to extreme dismay. These few points are important to know if you want to avoid the dismay.

SEO is Not High Tech! I know that search engine optimization may sound very tricky and technical – and it is in some ways – but the technology aspects of SEO are only a small part of the “magic” a search engine optimizer actually does. I suggest reading “Search Engine Optimization is Not a Technology Job!” If you wonder if it is just one person’s opinion, be sure to read the comments to see what other professionals had to say.

If your SEO has ever led you to believe that their work is largely a matter of technical things, or that you don’t have the time or intelligence to understand what you are paying them for – Fire Them! No, wait … don’t fire them … incinerate them, because they are like zombies, and you don’t want them coming back to try and eat more of your brains again later.

Good SEO Are Smart Cookies! You should understand that you don’t just pay an SEO for what they do – you pay them for what they know, and for what they research on your behalf. If you want the best SEO results, you will need to hire some very talented and creative people.

Here’s the kicker: If they are smart enough to help you, they are also smart enough to help themselves. You should read further to understand “Why Good SEO Don’t Seek Your Business“. If you get a good one who loves your company as much as you do, get up off your wallet and book them before the competition does.

Otherwise, if you ever question their industry brilliance for a moment – Fire Them! Of course, I can’t condone criminal behavior, but you may want to keep a wooden stake handy. They are “un-dead”, so if you see their blood-sucking fangs – stake ’em!

$5000 is Not Half of $10,000! Maybe you think I just made a mathematical error, but I did not. I want to make a point about the vast difference between measuring efforts versus measuring results.

I already discussed the importance of having the right people handling your SEO versus the wrong ones. So, let’s assume you have the right ones – you are confident of it, and you are confident about your business goals. Let’s climb that bell curve that’s killing your success.

You can scale this to any level you like, but if you think that half of the effort will yield half of the result, you’ll waste money. The bell curve I mentioned has a nasty way of killing company hopes for profit.

Look at the bell curve of your industry’s marketing, and notice where the numbers make a sharp increase. Many companies will go right up to the curve and quit as soon as it gets too scary, but then slide back down because it was not measurable enough. A wise SEO knows that a business should push far enough up the bell curve to get the best results, but short of the point of diminishing returns.

If your SEO tries to take you to the shallow end of the bell curve because they are afraid to tell you what it will really take to make an optimal impact, then they are not doing their job properly. Many SEO dread trying to explain the vast difference between doing something and doing something well. In fact, it’s largely why I made the announcement that I stopped taking clients (it’s worth a read, by the way).

If an SEO is unable to explain the value of your strong commitment to their work, and if you are unwilling to hear it, don’t bother. Whether they realize it, they are doing you a disservice and they are lying to you. Fire Them! You can probably achieve mediocre results all on your own, so you shouldn’t be paying somebody else. Fire the SEO, and consider spending the money on an exorcism and perhaps a lobotomy – for you and for the SEO!

It can take a lot of climbing to reach the profitable part of the bell curve, but there is always a point when it becomes relatively self-sustaining. If you keep struggling just to stay on the shallow end of the curve, fire your SEO!

How to Fire Your SEO

I mentioned the matter of firing your SEO. Beyond the incinerator, the wooden stakes, and shoving them off a high cliff, there are other practical considerations. This is a tricky matter, because they have your passwords! You should change them … all of them. Even if you are the one trying to handle your own SEO like the dentist who went to dental school to fix their kids’ teeth – don’t trust the SEO. Any person who does not grasp the importance of this information should not have access to your company website.

If you want to get a better understanding of SEO, there are some basic lessons you should know. It doesn’t come without effort, but if you’re serious enough to read this far, you’re probably serious enough to read these valuable SEO lessons and subscribe for more to come.

Marketing your business should never be left to a roll of the dice, or just getting lucky that you landed the right SEO with the right skills, and who is generous enough to give you success on a minuscule budget with halfway mentality. You should take it very seriously if you expect to see results.

Remember, I’m not telling you this to sell you anything. I’m telling you this because I witness too many people with their heads up a dark place and I don’t want my readers to be among them.

You are not stupid. Don’t act like it with your search engine rankings.

Photo Credit:
Fire Breathing by Luc Viatour via Flickr

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Do You Accept SEO or Social Media Marketing Contracts Under $10,000?

Are Your Marketing Clients Broke?
Are Your Marketing Clients Broke?


I could sit here at my computer all day and tease people who are willing to take on small contracts in the field of SEO and social media marketing, or the clients willing to pay them. Many of those clients are broke, and there are a lot of bad people with an SEO and social media flag waving to attract the last of their money.

Giving them a hard time can be very fun, but it is not really all that productive. After all, there is a huge majority of small businesses who seek somebody to help them, but do not have the needed resources for a grand entrance to the online market. There are also some talented marketing minds who like working with small or short-term contracts. I prefer to help bring them together.

I don’t accept those contracts, but not because I am an arrogant jerk who thinks he knows it all. I don’t arbitrarily look down upon those companies, and I don’t automatically look down upon the people serving them. It is just not my market, and I turn away business every day because of this.

If you accept small projects in SEO and social media marketing, I have some free leads for you. I don’t mean just a bunch of shabby sales leads from people hoping to spend an hour of research online to find a free website that will earn them a squillion dollars. I mean real companies hoping to make an entrance to their market.

This does not mean that I am a bad option, or that I am expensive. I return huge profits for my clients, and I am worth many times my rates. It also does not mean that you are bad, or “cheap”. We all have our market space here, and mine is in long-term and well-funded strategic projects. In fact, you can use me as an example to show your potential clients that you are not just trying to rip them off. It really does cost a lot of money and work to create success. Bigger success takes bigger experience, bigger money, and bigger strategy. Those are the projects I accept.

I believe that we both have a similar challenge of building confidence in customers. I even expressed some troubling truths only a few days ago in a long-winded article about a short-sighted customer who has done business with me for years. Check it out for yourself: “Marketing ROI Factor: Are You a Client or a Customer?”

In reality, the upfront cost of an optimal campaign in SEO or social media is prohibitive for the majority of companies. Sure, if they could pony up the money for a well-researched campaign, they could turn over their investment at a much higher velocity. As it is, they will have a higher opportunity cost by cutting corners, but that is often the only option. It is an option that you may be able to deliver.

Even when the cost is not the biggest hurdle, putting money into an online marketing campaign is a damn scary proposition for many companies. Even when and if they can swing the money, they will dip their toe in to check for sharks before they go swimming. It is frequently not the best option, but it is a popular option. Again, it is an option that you may be able to deliver.

Note: Sharks are my friends, and whales are my clients. The other fish are looking for you. You like fish, right?

People probably ask you a lot of questions about this industry. You will sometimes need a third-party resource to help make your point. I am happy to help you ease their tension, and to help them make better decisions. My blog is always here, and there is a lot of useful information in my archive. I don’t even want a finder’s fee to send paying customers your way, or to help you explain the benefits of SEO or social media marketing to your customers. Not at all, because if you have a small budget to work with, the last thing you need is to spiff me with money.

I love spiffs, but I prefer to pay them rather than receive them. Reference my article earlier this year titled “SEO and Social Media Reward: $5,000 for Introduction“. Yes, I really do prefer to pay you a $5,000 finders fee than for you to pay me a hundred. I am a money-spending madman like that. 😉

The Caveat … Yes, The Fine Print

The first thing to do is add your comment here on this article.

Of course, I don’t just want every cockroach in the Twinkies dumpster to hold out their hand for a free crumb. I want to hear from people who actually have a quality value proposition. The big catch is that for each person with their hand out, I will be watching. Yes, I will be looking at you, and judging you. I intend to provide a small degree of vetting. If I like what I find, I may put a spotlight on you in a follow-up article.

Because we are talking about people who looked to me for help, I am not about to mess up my reputation by referring them to somebody who will rip them off. I will watch my server logs to see how much and how long you have read my work. If you have been reading, and if you have subscribed, it is far more likely that we share similar principles. I will also notice if you have been a blog troll or lurker. If you are a non-communicating type of person, start communicating, and stop hiding in the shadows if you want my referral business.

Very Important: I will notice whether you are honest with your comment, and with your communications elsewhere on the Internet.

I welcome you to add your comments to explain your value. Feel free to spam all you like. If you seem spammy to me, I have a delete button for that. I tend to react pretty abruptly to people who annoy me. For example, don’t even think about commenting with your favorite keywords in place of a name. I am looking for people … real people with real names … who want more business.

The upside of my offer is that if you are legitimate, I would like to help my readers with appropriate options, and for us to possibly work together for mutual benefit. I am serious when I say that I want quality people to refer small project business to. If you are good and honorable, we may work together a lot in the future.

I have assembled a phenomenal team for producing massive success, but there never seems to be enough marketing talent to trust with the smaller projects.

I would also ask that in the event that you are ever over your head, that you consult me. You may find that you have enough resource to help that whale of a client after all.

Other Cost-Related Articles
Although it may seem hard to turn away a client only because of their budget, there are minimums I simply don’t work below. For more thought-provoking articles on the cost of SEO and social media marketing, and perhaps help with explaining cost to your clients, I offer the links as follows:

Photo Credit:
Broken Piggy Bank by Images_of_Money via Flickr

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Internet is a Body and Your Website is an Organ Transplant

Marketing Scientist Goes Mad
Marketing Scientist Goes Mad


I have an uncommon analogy for you to consider today. I sometimes feel a bit like a mad scientist slinking into my secret laboratory, just a little bit like Dr. Frankenstein. It seems especially real on days when I sit at this computer for sixteen hours, nap for three hours, and then return with my crazy mad scientist hairdo and coffee breath. Creepy? Perhaps, but it is always fun to exclaim “It’s Alive!” after it all comes together just right.

I realize that some people are squeamish about biology, but don’t worry, we are just imagining this for a few minutes. Think of it like a science fiction movie scene.

Try to picture the Internet as a sci-fi creature with living tissue, nerves, and blood vessels growing every day. It is alive and growing, and it has defense mechanisms just like most organic life forms. If you introduce a foreign object, it will either accept it, or it will reject it.

Now try to picture a surgical introduction of an organ transplant of a man-made synthetic tissue. Your website, along with the rest of your online branding assets, make up that donor organ. In the beginning, it is laid on the surface of the huge Internet organism, and surgically connected by way of new social networking efforts and a micro-web of hyperlinks to and from other websites. This is the toughest time for the transplant, and requires a lot of nurturing.

The donor organ is nourished with the textual content of the website, but it cannot live on its own for very long. It will need to connect with and become a part of the larger organism. The surgical team (web developers, SEO, owners, management, and etcetera) will need to work diligently if the donor organ is to be accepted to live and grow as a healthy addition to that larger organism.

Like any organ transplant, if the organ is not well-matched, it will not grow, and it will be rejected. To improve its odds of acceptance, the website medical staff needs to introduce antibodies to the larger Internet organism, and connect the nerves (the people) carefully. Think of the antibodies as the useful things the website has to offer, and the nerves as the people. The delivery method is social media and appropriate business networking with existing parts of the larger organism. You know, instead of hypodermic needles and pills.

The useful “antibodies” help to keep the nerves (the people), and other defenses of the large creature soothed, and even bring it to embrace the new donor organ (website). It is critically important that the surgical team connects the right nerves in the right places in order to make it a healthy transplant.

Why the Organ Transplant Analogy?

This concept came to mind as a prospective client asked me to help her launch a new surgical center website and social media campaign. She did not seem to grasp all that really goes into developing a successful online presence, just as I don’t fully understand how to perform surgery. She mostly just wanted to believe that a good website with a little search engine optimization fairy dust and social media chattiness was all it took. That is kind of like if I assumed surgery just takes some sharp knives and clean towels.

Things such as targeted marketing using customer modeling based on demographics, psychographics, and propensity analysis held no importance to her. She didn’t understand or want to accept those concepts in the beginning, just as I don’t understand why they can’t easily replace my blackened smoky lungs with a new pair.

While visiting with her, I decided that I needed an analogy, so I used the example of the online marketing work I do for myself. That is easy, because I never have to worry about treading on a client’s non-disclosure agreement (and most of my clients require them). It also shows that I have faith in what I was telling her … after all, I performed the same surgery on myself.

So, I explained that there are over 157,000 links pointing to my blog articles, according to Google Webmaster Tools, and that indicates a healthy transplant.

Google Webmaster Tools Links Screenshot
Google Webmaster Tools Links Screenshot

They each add up to connect my blog to the rest of the Internet organism. They are like the nerves and the blood vessels that have adopted my blog as a part of the larger organ which is the Internet. Now my blog helps to nourish the larger organ, and the Internet nourishes my blog as an accepted donor organ.

Then she was concerned about how much it would cost to do it the right way, but without any apparent concern about the cost of doing it the wrong way. Of course, everybody wants to know the cost, but as I’ve explained before, simply asking “How Much Does SEO Cost?” is the wrong question … for many reasons.

The cost of good marketing is kind of like paying taxes. If somebody asks me about taxes, I will tell them I’d prefer to pay a billion per year in taxes, because that means I earned a lot more than that! Similarly, if you spend a lot of money on marketing … the right marketing … it pays you many times whatever you pay for it.

She eventually steered away from her cost concerns, and she began to recognize that she was doing this to increase profit … and not to waste profit. Then she was concerned about how long it would take. Of course, we all want things fast … especially when it comes to money. The more important and seemingly obvious consideration is not only in how long it takes, but whether you implement the skill, the time, and the effort to make it possible at all. If you are doing it well, the time frame is shortened accordingly.

The conversation was very familiar. She was terrified of making good business decisions. I don’t blame her for that. It is a challenging process, and the world of online marketing has tried to overlook good business principles of “pay now, play later“.

Do Surgeons Have All the Answers?

I told her that I could create the tissue in my lab, surgically implant the tissue into the Internet body, help her with the antibodies, and nourish its growth. Then, in her wisdom, she decided that she just wanted me to create the tissue, but that she would handle the surgery and the after-surgery care.

This was because she thought it would save her some money. Yes, the surgeon decided to be a marketer … or to assign it to somebody she could pay the least possible amount of money to. The truth that she does not want to face is that she would be wiser to create a novice website but hire a great surgeon. The even more astonishing truth is that she would be a lot better to count on professionals to carry out the surgery from beginning to end, just the way her patients do.

Can you believe that even somebody so intelligent as a skilled surgeon does not understand the much higher value in allowing the professionals to do the work they are trained to do? Seriously, when people are so absurd to believe that they should add another profession to their resume to save a few bucks, just imagine the dollars they leave behind with their even more expensive and time consuming trial and error learning.

I have written my ideas on this topic, but it still leaves me to wonder why everybody wants to become an SEO and social media expert.

In summary: The next time you, or a loved one goes into surgery, be sure to ask the doctor if she does her own marketing. If so, she is probably not the smartest surgeon.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

11 Humorous Answers to Dumb Google Searches

Google Search: How to Spell Duh
Google Search: How to Spell Duh

You may wonder how I will make this turn out to be both useful and humorous, but have a little faith, my Google searching friend. This is a list of my answers to some the dumbest Google searches I recently found in my server logs. Before I cut straight to my list of absurdities, allow me just a moment to set the stage.

I love SEO. There, I said it! I really do love my work, although it is usually much more fun to do it than to explain it to people. I am the first to suspect that, as I have often said, “When I Go to Hell, They Will Have Me Selling SEO“. Yes, fun to do it, but tortuous to explain it.

One of the reasons I love SEO so much is the great humor and insights to the human mind that it offers. This is also one of the reasons you may sometimes find me to be condescending and uppity, because there are truly some dumb people out there. Yes, saying that makes me a jerk, but actually more of a “PECKER” (Reference: “New SEO Acronym to Replace SEO by 2012“).

It takes all types to make a species, but wow … just “Wow!” I am a fan of people, but sometimes I have to feel just a little tinge of embarrassment for the floaters in our genetic pool.

The term “SEO”, for the uninitiated, is an acronym for “search engine optimization”, and as a practitioner in the field, it means that I can generally rank at the top of the list for damn near anything I choose. That is why companies pay me to provide this service for them. Yeah, can you believe it? Being ranked at the top of search results is actually worth paying for. That is totally crazy, I know!

Don’t hate me for it, because it comes with a touch of insanity, and a good dose of time. Like well over a decade of practice and studying SEO to know what works.

A good amount of this particular achievement comes down to having a squillion website links pointing to my blog from other websites, and having just a touch of Murnahan wit and charm. OK, you can call it “BS”, or whatever you like, but let’s face it, some websites will rank well in search engines, and some will never be indexed for popular searches. This one ranks particularly well, which comes with a great potential for humor.

I previously wrote about the downside of being obsessed with statistics and over-monitoring of user data, but it is also very important to know how people are finding a website. It tells us what we need to know, and how to make things even better. When you dig really deep, it can sometimes make hot coffee shoot uncontrollably from your nose as you laugh. This is especially the case when you try to picture what in the world those people were actually hoping to find in their online search.

NOTE: Although I am a huge proponent of targeting a market based on specific propensity of readers to become a customer or to refer business. Targeting is why I write things to attract specific searches from specific people. For example, I wrote about NASCAR start and park teams to reach the racing community, while offering good marketing thoughts.

With the good comes the bad, and sometimes it all goes wonky. If you rank well for the useful search terms, always it comes with unexpected absurdities. Although some of these may not seem so humorous on the surface, if you squint and look closely, there is something just a bit funny going on here.

Each of these searches have come in many variations of the search, and each is an actual verbatim quote taken from the top 5,000 searches in my website analytics within the past 30 days (typographical errors and all).

  • Dumb Google Search One: “icecream for sore bum“

    OK, I hate to drop this little peach so early, but this one does set a certain tone. This is an actual search that has been repeated in many various forms, including some that were probably typed urgently like “what;s good for hemorrhoids” (Twitter, of course!). It leads users to an article that asks “Is Twitter Good for SEO?“. The article may actually be useful, but I didn’t write this one for bums. If your butt hurts, I really don’t have a lot for you, but dozens of people seem to think that ice cream may help.

  • Dumb Google Search Two: “can your testicals reconnect them selves“

    I can forgive this fella for misspelling testicles, and for not realizing that “themselves” is actually just one word. This came from a Korean speaking individual in Burke, Virginia, USA. What I picture is a really frustrated little Korean guy sitting cross-legged at his computer screaming at his lover and murmuring “You betteh be right woman, oh I keow you!”

    I actually took a screen capture of this one when it happened. My guess is that he did not want to call 9-1-1, just in case he actually ended up killing somebody. I hope that poor guy is alright! I also hope he does not come for my testicles for wasting his precious moment with my article titled “SEO, Social Media, and Marketing Balls“. In my defense, I did not use the word “testicles” in the article, even once, and there was no medical advice.

  • Dumb Google Search Three: “best hookers“

    I suppose I kind of asked for this one when I titled an article “Hookers Write the Best Blogs“. What I didn’t realize at the time was just how many people would be performing Google image searches for pictures of hookers. I searched it one time, just to see what they were seeing. A few transsexual hookers and other creepy images later, I washed my eyes out with Listerine and vowed to never do that again!

  • Dumb Google Search Four: “buy termites online“

    Who knew that termites were so in-demand? I see a lot of variations for the query of where to buy termites. Although I am sure a number of these are people seeking to study termites in their laboratory, it makes me wonder how many angry ex-husbands are dumping these voracious little monsters around the foundations of their former homes. For those looking for termites, I offer this article titled “Things You Cannot Sell Online“. Termites are not one of those things, and it is highly unlikely that what you sell is on the list, too!

  • Dumb Google Search Five: “blog trolls“

    I wonder what they want with a blog troll. Yeah, I am sure that some people are just looking for a picture of a blog troll, but nobody I know has actually ever seen one. They sneak around in the shadows of the Internet. Here is what I had to say about them: A Few Words About Blog Trolls and Lurkers.

  • Dumb Google Search Six: “cheap sutures“

    This one is really dumb for a couple reasons. Sutures are those things they use to stitch people up after surgery. They generally come at an extremely high cost to we consumers. I guess maybe there is not enough markup in the medical field, so they have to find their sutures cheap so they can earn an extra four dollars on a $40,000 surgery.

    The other reason this one cracks me up is that I was once contracted to place a client at the top of searches for cheap sutures. They still owe me many tens of thousands of dollars, but then, that is why I now hold five of the top ten search results for their company name, “Suture Express“, along with their coveted “cheap sutures” and the names of each of their executives. Oops! 😉

  • Dumb Google Search Seven: “what happens if i set up a facebook page and dont use it?“

    This one should be simple. What else could a person logically expect would happen? Your computer will be infected with a virus that causes it to explode into a squillion pieces. I would not suggest this, especially with a laptop, but if it happens to you, just Google me when you need those testicles reconnected.

    In case you need to know more about Facebook or their computer-exploding virus, here is more information on the topic.

  • Dumb Google Search Eight: “SEO meta tags“

    This one is actually a very popular search, and it blows my mind. I mean, seriously, just look at the source code on any one of my blog’s pages if you need a mental re-adjustment on the topic of SEO tips. I would like to give you a quote from the article these search patrons find:

    “As long as there are people who ask “do meta tags help with SEO” there will be plenty of people to con them out of their money.”

    I hope you are not searching for information about meta tags. If so, you really should stick around and read some more.

  • Dumb Google Search Nine: “what to do when your too good at your job“

    My answer would perhaps be to quit the job and seek something better. Please just don’t make it a writing career until you at least learn the difference between your and you’re. Sure, maybe this is no big deal, but if “your too good at your job”, you’re probably going to need a better resume writer.

    This search landed the user on an article titled “Are You Too Good at Your Job?“, but what I think they really needed was to learn about Cousin Prolly in the article titled “Grammatical Reasons They’re Taking Their Business Over There”

    Another idea for being too good at your job is to give it all up and become an SEO and social media expert. That seems to be mighty damn popular (in searches, too)!

  • Dumb Google Search Ten: “things people find“

    My first thought here is “huh?” I am not so sure why, but a lot of searches just don’t make any sense to me at all. Apparently a limited few people are trying to find things people find. What they actually find is an article titled “Crazy Things People Search For” which addresses the ways people use search engines. It kind of goes well with this piece, so you may enjoy it.

  • Dumb Google Search Eleven: “how much does seo cost“

    This one actually comes with a whole lot of related searches that are equally as ridiculous. Some of those are social media rates, seo hourly rate, how much does it cost for SEO, social media marketing cost, how much will a social media strategy cost, and literally thousands more.

    What these searchers are obviously completely terrified and confused about is that there is a vast difference from one SEO to another. Asking the cost without knowing what to expect or understanding that it is not about cost, but rather increased profit, is about as wasteful and dumb as any question ever asked.

    Have you seen the Grand Canyon? I would like to submit that the difference in good SEO and bad SEO makes that thing look like a crack in a sidewalk.

My Dumb Summary of Dumb Google Searches

I guess eleven is enough for now. I gave you a whole lot of truly useful links dispersed throughout this article. In fact, probably enough that if you sit there and read them all at once, it will make your bum hurt. So, please bookmark this page, get yourself some ice cream to sit in, come back, and take some time checking them out.

Also, please add your comments and tell me how you arrived here. If you are that poor Korean fella represented in this image, I’d love to know how things turned out.

If you are not that Korean guy, be sure you subscribe, because I’ve got a whole lot more where this came from!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Social Media Marketing Pricing Like Cab Rides by the Pothole

Social Media Pricing by the Pothole
Social Media Pricing by the Pothole


I find that a lot of people are curious about breaking down marketing services like social media and search engine optimization to an hourly rate. I know this, because a lot of people search the Internet for pricing information and find me.

Silly me, I don’t have a standard rate sheet, but I will tell you why. I don’t know how much it will cost to perform SEO or social media marketing until I know what a company wants and needs from the services.

I understand the concern of marketing cost. After all, the reason for a company to spend money on marketing is to achieve a higher profit. This means the cost of marketing will be a factor. However, it is too common that the only set of numbers a client will clearly understand is the outgoing money, while they ignore the more important numbers such as accurate projections, goals, and increased profit.

The cost of marketing is not the same for any two projects, because the associated tasks are as different as the company itself. More importantly, marketing is something which spans the life of a company, and not just a set of tasks that are finished in a set number of hours. If you shop for marketing by seeking to buy a set of tasks, then you are essentially dictating a job, rather than letting the professional do the work they are trained to perform.

Reasons Marketing Cost Varies, and Menu Pricing Fails

Menu style pricing works great for some marketers, but it can create a huge disaster for the client. I don’t have time to list all the reasons the cost of marketing can vary widely, and you don’t have the time to read that list. I’ll give you a few points to consider.

Some companies will have well-formed projections of their market potential, and some will have already done the research to know how many people they must reach to achieve their goals. Some will have a targeted marketing strategy already prepared, and most will need help improving it. Some will have already performed A/B testing to determine their optimal conversion rate. Some will have creative ideas for their marketing, and even have talented people to help implement it.

Some companies have all of these things in place, but this is often not the case. Instead, I find that they come to me asking me to do whatever it is I do, without really even knowing what needs to be done. Then, without understanding the tasks, or reasons for them, they want a shortcut answer to “How much does it cost?“

The question of how much it will cost, without a clear idea of what is needed, or what will actually improve your return on investment is an easy way to waste money and time doing the wrong things. It is like shopping for a dentist by seeking the cheapest price for a filling while what you really need is a root canal. Worse yet, it is like telling the dentist how to perform the filling, and asking for a discount because you used less Novocaine. With that kind of thinking, should there really be any wonder why most marketing fails?

Dictating Social Media Tasks is Like Telling Your Cab Driver to Swerve for Giraffes
Dictating Social Media Tasks is Like Telling Your Cab Driver to Swerve for Giraffes

Would You Buy a Cab Ride Priced by the Pothole?

It makes me wonder how many companies pay their building lease by the hour. What if they booked flights by the mile? Would you pay extra to fly around a storm? Would you tell the pilot which way to fly, or would you rely on the professional?

Some things just don’t sensibly calculate in the terms we think they should, or wish they would. It is not always because somebody is trying to hide an obscene profit. Many times, it is because the cost would be outrageously high to account for each item granularly. Imagine trying to account for a cab ride that includes a charge for every time the cab hits a pothole and gets a little closer to needing a new set of tires or shocks. Should stopping for traffic signals cost more to account for the brake wear, or should we burn more gas and take the longer route to avoid them?

The challenge for a lot of people to realize is that the cost of any product or service will be built into the price. The cab driver will need to receive more money for his job than what it cost him, so he sets his pricing and maintains his car to optimize his earnings. If you asked him to itemize each thing, you would have to pay him for that extra time he is doing accounting instead of driving his cab. If your driver lets you blindfold him and direct him how to drive, you are both foolish.

My point here is to express how easy it is to make mistakes when shopping for and comparing services in an unfamiliar industry. In the industry of online marketing, if you pay for somebody to account for every hour, you will likely pay a lot more for the extra accounting.

Then again, I guess I shouldn’t complain if somebody wants to pay me for the hours I lie in bed at night staring at the ceiling as I ponder how I can make them more successful tomorrow than yesterday.

Related Articles:

Photo Credits:
Costa Rican Pot Hole! by Arturo Sotillo via Flickr
Cone & Pot hole by oknidius via Flickr

Podcast: Play in new window | Download