Monday, September 27, 2010

Seven signs your SEO agency is living in the past

Posted 23 September 2010 12:26pm by Kelvin Newman with 10 comments

The whole world of digital marketing is maturing but it’s still hugely dynamic, particularly in the world of search marketing. 

This makes it an exciting time to be involved in the sector but does mean more and more agencies and practitioners are being left behind, clinging to what used to work and sticking with habits even if they aren’t doing anyone any favours. 

But how can you spot one of these search marketing laggards, who have fallen so far behind? 

Only send you ranking reports

Analytics used to be expensive, inaccurate and scary. That used to be a justification for measuring your search performance by merely looking at whether you rankings were increasing.

That excuse doesn’t cut it anymore. This is made even more significant an oversight with the changes in how Google deliver its results. If everyone’s results are personalised what do you gain from knowing a ranking? Does the value of sixth place on a term change if a map or series of videos are triggered above it?

KPIs aren’t around performance

Different websites have different marks of success, however every site should be measuring goals.

Conversions must be a part of how search is reported, and bonus points if there’s an appreciation of branded searches role or an appreciation of multiple touch-points and traffic sources in a conversion.

Aren’t asking to work with you PR team

PR and link building will have different goals but there’s a lot of similarity in the approach and type of people they’ll be trying to contact. Collaboration between your SEO agency and PR people is a pre-requisite for any successful natural search campaign.

They haven’t talked about microformats

They sounds hugely geeky and for a number of years had no real commercial implications but with Rich Snippets and Google pulling data from microformats, like price and review ratings, directly through to search results pages, it can have a huge impact on the click-through rate to website.

It’s not applicable for every type of website or business but they should be exploring the options.

They don’t want to put content on your site

If I’d got a quid for every time I’d heard the phrase “content is king” from a search marketer I’d have enough cash to sort a hostile takeover of Google. Even though everyone says it, not everyone follows through.

A good search campaign will require you to be regularly adding new compelling content to your site. That doesn’t have to be a blog, but that’s normally one of the best methods.

There hasn’t been a discussion about social media

The biggest challenge around social media is it’s truly multi-disciplinary and requires input and commitment from all over a business.

Forward thinking search marketers will have realised they have a part to pay in that collaborative process and therefore be talking to you about how they can use social techniques as part of their search marketing brief.

They talk about keyword density

I’m sure at some point keyword density was a useful metric, one that helped people get their head around the fact you need to appreciate the terms people use, and work them sensibly and frequently into your content. But density of the keywords is a far too simplistic a method to estimate what is a hugely complicated process carried out by all the engines.
    
How Google understands keywords is far more complex than just density; recently SEOmoz, one of the most respected search websites, has recently been exploring just how sophisticated Google’s systems around keyword presence must be.

They’ve carried out analysis around Latent Dirichlet Allocation (or LDA to it’s friends) which is a brain-achingly complicated model which Google may or not be using, they've barely scratched the surface of the issue and it is already so complicated people with Maths degrees struggle to grasp it. So the simple equation of number of keyword mentions divided by total words on the page is worthless.

Learn more...

Our SEO Agencies Buyer’s Guide focuses on the UK search engine optimisation (SEO) marketplace and contains detailed information about the trends and issues affecting this particular sector of digital marketing, as well as advice about how to find the right agency. The report contains extensive insight from the front-line of the natural search industry, in addition to profiles of 31 leading agencies. 

Kelvin Newman is SiteVisibility's Creative Director and is the editor of the UK's most listened to Marketing Podcast. He also spends his time at conferences, tweeting too much and working on top secret research and development projects.

Excellent article. Every small business owner who hires SEO services to generate sales leads should definitively read this article.

Lead Generation Companies

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Professional SEO Services are Forming a Critical Relationship for Success

All too often a CEO gets asked a question about the company's web page and responds, "I don't know, our web person takes care of that". At least he hopes he does, that is. The internet has become such a major factor in being competitive in global commerce that no responsible CEO can avoid knowing how to maximize their investment in their website. The technology is impressive but is still understandable in most instances.

Decision making now must include how to maintain a web presence that constantly probes for new customers, works to attract their attention, and lures them with information and features they will find nowhere else. This is the domain of professionals who can invest the time, effort and experience in researching which markets to pursue, what the audience expects, what will attract and hold their attention, and what they will share with associates and who will likely become a customer.

SEO services offer things that reach into the communication systems of the general public, professionals, decision makers and opinion influencers alike. The experts know what forms of communication, educational articles, blogs, social media, etc., are prevalent and favored by the target groups. They know how to formulate messages and place them in areas where they will draw traffic to the website. They will recommend which search engines to use and manually submit the URL to them so there is no doubt as to their being listed.

These are services that are done on an ongoing basis, by necessity. The internet is not static and it never rests or has a day off. It is never turned off or gets unplugged. And here is the danger, while you are sleeping, your competition on the other side of the world is awake and at work. With the new global economy, realization of the virtual, never-ending business day is tantamount to achieving success. So, your website has to be working hard, 24/7. Professional SEO services make sure that is happening.

When selecting an affordable SEO service, have the same mindset as bringing on a new business partner. After all, their continued success depends on yours. The contract will have you working as a team to make sure the website stays current and viable. No inertia is allowed, this can be fatal. Stale and dated websites wither away to the bottom of the rankings, never to be seen. No business can afford low rankings. Pursue SEO as you would any means of advertising, the web page has your name on it. Using professional SEO services will build brand loyalty in a way that no other medium can. Wise executives consider SEO to be essential to survival and profit in today's market.

This article is free for republishing

Published at Sooper Articles http://www.sooperarticles.com

This is so true!. The internet has become such a major factor in being competitive in global commerce that no responsible CEO can avoid knowing how to maximize their investment in their website."

Excellent article and every single small business owner ought to read it.

Enjoy it!
Lead Generation Companies

Thursday, September 9, 2010