Reputable SEO?
May 10, 2012 11:50 PM Subscribe
SEO tied to sales- any recommendations?
I'd like to use search engine optimisation to boost sales on our website.
I've spoken to a few SEO companies who all charge lots of money, and won't guarantee that their work will lead to more sales.
All of these SEO companies want to charge based on their time invested, by how much the ranking moves up, or by increase in hits. None of them are interested in receiving a cut of the increase in sales.
Is this normal or acceptable? Can anyone recommend an SEO company paid based on sales? (mefi mail welcome!)
I'd like to use search engine optimisation to boost sales on our website.
I've spoken to a few SEO companies who all charge lots of money, and won't guarantee that their work will lead to more sales.
All of these SEO companies want to charge based on their time invested, by how much the ranking moves up, or by increase in hits. None of them are interested in receiving a cut of the increase in sales.
Is this normal or acceptable? Can anyone recommend an SEO company paid based on sales? (mefi mail welcome!)
It's been done. You'll agree to some kind of audit and will spell out the definitions of sales and increased sales and the duties each party has to perform. It's really more like a joint venture. If you want to get an arrangement like this you either need to be selling something that really excites them for some reason or be willing to give up a percentage that adds up to a sight more than they'd get if you just paid them.
Another arrangement is for you to pay the money into escrow until agreed objectives are met. This again would be done if you were paying more money than usual or were a client the SEO company really wanted for some reason.
It's hard to avoid the market forces, in other words. If it makes you feel better, none of your other vendors can guarantee they're helping your bottom line either though most of them hopefully do help.
posted by michaelh at 1:09 AM on May 11, 2012
Another arrangement is for you to pay the money into escrow until agreed objectives are met. This again would be done if you were paying more money than usual or were a client the SEO company really wanted for some reason.
It's hard to avoid the market forces, in other words. If it makes you feel better, none of your other vendors can guarantee they're helping your bottom line either though most of them hopefully do help.
posted by michaelh at 1:09 AM on May 11, 2012
Yes, Missmagenta is right. You're basically asking an agency to work on a commission-only-basis. That's great for you... not so great for the agency.
The model you're looking for is more common on PPC, because that's a much more predictable marketing channel.
SEO as a real discipline (as opposed to the crappy spam that is often passed off as SEO work) is both very time consuming and not guaranteed. There are way too many variables for an agency to guarantee the effects of their work. What you're buying into is their strategy, time and execution.
Are you an ecommerce site? I've seen some companies use revenue increases as a KPI, agreeing with an agency on a tiered bonus structure based on revenue increases above some kind of agreed baseline. (That's a bonus, you'll still need to agree to a retainer of some kind.)
The flip side of this is that you'll need to be totally, totally transparent. You'll need to track ecommerce values in Analytics, share data, and generally go the extra mile to help your agency succeed.
posted by generichuman at 1:16 AM on May 11, 2012
The model you're looking for is more common on PPC, because that's a much more predictable marketing channel.
SEO as a real discipline (as opposed to the crappy spam that is often passed off as SEO work) is both very time consuming and not guaranteed. There are way too many variables for an agency to guarantee the effects of their work. What you're buying into is their strategy, time and execution.
Are you an ecommerce site? I've seen some companies use revenue increases as a KPI, agreeing with an agency on a tiered bonus structure based on revenue increases above some kind of agreed baseline. (That's a bonus, you'll still need to agree to a retainer of some kind.)
The flip side of this is that you'll need to be totally, totally transparent. You'll need to track ecommerce values in Analytics, share data, and generally go the extra mile to help your agency succeed.
posted by generichuman at 1:16 AM on May 11, 2012
SEO companies who all charge lots of money, and won't guarantee that their work will lead to more sales
This is what we doctors call "a clue".
SEO companies are essentially parasitic.
The right way to optimize your search engine rankings is to (a) have a site worth searching for (b) avoid HTML, CSS and accessibility howlers and (c) sell products that are good enough that your site gets the online equivalent of word-of-mouth recommendations.
The wrong way is to pay some SEO snake oil salesman to dolly your site up with their preferred version of plausible-sounding SEO snake oil. All you're doing, when you do that, is pouring your money into an arms race between the search engines and the SEO snake oil salesmen seeking to game them - an arms race that truly benefits nobody but SEO snake oil salesmen.
You're in direct control of (c), and you'd be far better paying a competent web designer in pursuit of (a) and (b) than any organization specifically advertising SEO as its primary service.
posted by flabdablet at 1:19 AM on May 11, 2012 [7 favorites]
This is what we doctors call "a clue".
SEO companies are essentially parasitic.
The right way to optimize your search engine rankings is to (a) have a site worth searching for (b) avoid HTML, CSS and accessibility howlers and (c) sell products that are good enough that your site gets the online equivalent of word-of-mouth recommendations.
The wrong way is to pay some SEO snake oil salesman to dolly your site up with their preferred version of plausible-sounding SEO snake oil. All you're doing, when you do that, is pouring your money into an arms race between the search engines and the SEO snake oil salesmen seeking to game them - an arms race that truly benefits nobody but SEO snake oil salesmen.
You're in direct control of (c), and you'd be far better paying a competent web designer in pursuit of (a) and (b) than any organization specifically advertising SEO as its primary service.
posted by flabdablet at 1:19 AM on May 11, 2012 [7 favorites]
You need to find a company that has can integrated approach - SEO<>PPC/online advertising<>website conversion optimization
SEO alone is not enough to significantly increase sales; you need to make sure that there is a sales funnel on your website, that you have different landing pages optimized for different customer profiles or personas, and that the website makes it easy to convert leads.
SEO also has to include "content marketing", because the traditional activities of white hat website optimization and linkbuilding are falling out of favour with Google.
BTW, saying that SEO companies are "parasitic" is kind of an uninformed thing to say. Without a marketing team, how are you going to get the word out?
Yours sincerely, an SEO specialist.
posted by KokuRyu at 7:05 AM on May 11, 2012 [2 favorites]
SEO alone is not enough to significantly increase sales; you need to make sure that there is a sales funnel on your website, that you have different landing pages optimized for different customer profiles or personas, and that the website makes it easy to convert leads.
SEO also has to include "content marketing", because the traditional activities of white hat website optimization and linkbuilding are falling out of favour with Google.
BTW, saying that SEO companies are "parasitic" is kind of an uninformed thing to say. Without a marketing team, how are you going to get the word out?
Yours sincerely, an SEO specialist.
posted by KokuRyu at 7:05 AM on May 11, 2012 [2 favorites]
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While not totally impossible, it's highly unlikely you'll find an SEO company willing to be paid based on something they have no control over (or way to measure). If they increase your page rank of traffic then they've done their job, if you can't convert that in to sales then your problem is not SEO.
There are never any guarantees in SEO, there are too many variables outside your control (google's algorithm changes regularly and what other people do with their sites also affects you), do not trust any company that guarantees results.
posted by missmagenta at 12:22 AM on May 11, 2012 [5 favorites]