The SEO Agency and The In-house Marketing Team
September 10th, 2008 by johnI get to talk to a lot of smart people about how to improve their site’s search marketing performance. And I read a lot of industry news and opinions on SEO, from both the SEO agency side and from the client side. Plus, there is such excellent research on trends and patterns, from MarketingSherpa, eMarketer and the like. It’s great to be in a hot industry.
One of the trends that gets contentious is one where we see traditional advertising agencies somehow acquiring search marketing “expertise” overnight. I’ve always contended that search engine MARKETING is what SEO is all about–and that PPC is just search engine ADVERTISING. Agencies should be able to do a good job at PPC, because that’s a world they understand (although writing classified ads is not the creative activity that justifies their high fees). On developing a robust strategic information architecture, writing page content that cascades into the site, drawing the search engine spiders along and establishing authority on choice keyword phrases? Not exactly the forte of a hot creative shop.
On the other hand, you have clients expecting their inhouse marketing team to add management of the site optimization process to its job description, without adding staff. Reworking your website’s content, or developing a new site with SEO web design in mind is not a part-time, when-you-get-to-it project. And, it’s probably not something your in-house writer or your design firm can do as well as an experienced SEO agency. However, most sizable companies do their SEO internally, because of the nature of developing content and the requirement of working closely with the web team. And probably, they recognize that the ad agency isn’t a good fit for this type of work.
MarketingSherpa reports that the typical traffic increase from in-house SEO is 38%, and that it’s 110% when clients use an SEO agency. As an agency that turned its B2B marketing expertise into a focused SEO agency six years ago, we know that there are a lot of subject matter experts required to do a good job on the varied range of client sites. It’s this experience and actual mastery of the work that makes our results better than DIY, but it’s not always clear to clients what to expect from SEO.
That’s why we do such a thorough audit, competitive analysis and deep keyword research. We put it in writing, and we scope our projects based on the specific competitive environment our client is struggling in. We’re very specific about the site optimization plan, and what else needs to be done to be competitive. Most importantly, we collaborate and partner transparently with our marketing colleagues on the client side. We want you to understand this stuff, to learn how to do it well, and to help your company thrive in the online marketplace of information, quick comparison and immediate consideration that has turned your sales department into order takers.
Tags: b2b marketing, PPC, search engine marketing, SEO agency, seo web design
September 10th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Nice post John,
I certainly agree with the good points you make about non-experts “training up” on SEM, and the creative versus analytics mindsets that are required by different functions.
But I think one of the major outstanding issues that still plagues the SEM service field is the lack of a clear, simple way that service firms can educate clients as to how the field and their services work. A high level overview, maybe like the design industry’s 4 or 5 step “discovery, design, build, test” (and innumerable variations of it) process.
Ultimately, without a clear, easily understood and easily repeatable process and “status-in-the-process” mantra, SEM firms are/will be viewed as “smoke and mirrors” and won’t be as trusted of a partner as they should/could and really want to be. I think that’s one of the reasons that companies bring search in-house, to keep a closer eye on it… and therefore gain a feeling of control.
Clearly the numbers you reference above show that companies will take a 38% return with confidence/closer eyes in the process, versus a potential 110% return with “smoke-and-mirrors” agency that they don’t fully understand. (Certainly not saying your firm is in this category! Just a point for discussion!
I haven’t worked with your firm, and of course you may have this totally captured/answered in your work/efforts… But I’ve been a in-house search expert, a search manager at an agency, an individual search consultant and now, managing a vendor as an in-house marketing leader… I’ve seen many perspectives, but I still get proposals and project docs that confuse “expert details” (that are really just detailed search jargon) with a real business overview.
I’d sure like to see and perpetuate some really simple, clear, “senior marketing leader” type overviews of SEM, and all it’s variations/areas. Until SEM firms come to some more evolved business communications that can help engender trust with their clients, I think you’ll continue to see the sometimes frustrating world of SEM agency/client relationships as you point out above.
Thoughts? I may work this into a post for my blog…
I love online conversations!
Charlie
September 10th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Charlie–
What a great response…I would like to have a lot more friends who are in-house marketing leaders, because I would love to see what my competitors claim in their proposals! Honestly, this field is rife with opinion masquerading as fact, and with practitioners who act as if their clients could never understand the work they do.
We have developed, and will roll out in the spring, an SEO monitoring dashboard, which I think could help the industry have an objective measure of performance. We intend to sell it to the competition as well as to our clients, and don’t care if people white label it…let’s focus on what’s happening, and where we are making progress and where we need to improve our performance, without the mumbo-jumbo.
Since you’re in Austin, why don’t you come by and I’ll show you how we do business and give you a preview of the dashboard? I’d really appreciate getting your input, while we are still working with the beta version. Give me a call at 512/637-5272.
October 6th, 2008 at 10:21 am
John I think a SEO monitoring dashboard would be a wonderful development for SEO’s and Agencies. Since 2003 (when I got interested in SEM) I have seen the field evolve at a tremendous rate, but I am still perplexed at the level of intentional ignorance agencies have for search and internet marketing alike. Unfortunately, I think that if agencies ignore SEM, or at least marginalize it, then they don’t feel as guilty focusing on print and more traditional marketing/communication endeavors (and charging those outdated and unjustifiable fees). After all, how do you explain, let alone sell/implement something that you do not embrace or understand. The more data and communicable results we can provide for clients the better. Good post. I will keep an eye out for your tool. Keven
October 8th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Hi Keven–
After 20+ years in the agency business, I could not agree more about inflated egos and inflated pricing for \”creative.\” The ad agencies are dinosaurs, lumbering around the decaying world of mass media, and the clients and web marketing people are busy creating business.
Once we saw how much information the dashboard delivered, we decided it wasn\’t just the online reporting component of our big SEO toolset, but could really be a standalone product. We are going to add keyword management to it (which our clients don\’t actually need, since we do the work), and hope to release it 1Q09. Take a look at the features if you like, and please let me know your comments. www.refreshweb.com/seo-dashboard.php John