The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Dorothy was right to have asked that (at least in the world of my caffeine and sugar swirled imagination), because web marketing firms have three basic types of clients. Informed clients, who know what the service is for and what getting good web marketing service is worth, uninformed clients, who are negligent in understanding web marketing and consequently have no idea what finding a worthy consultant even really would mean, and then those who are going to attempt to drain the consultant's patience and good will completely dry by asking the consultant to educate them and then disbelieve the consultant's handy verifiable reports and numbers, and then attempt to not pay the consultant for the work after it's done, claiming that they have no way to know if it's worth what they paid, because they don't understand the language of web marketing to begin with.

For example, SEO is search engine optimization of a web site's content. It also is a synonym for the other activities that get done in relation to optimization, namely: keyword research, inbound linking campaigns, blogging, web analytics, adjustments to the content based on web analytics feedback, monthly reporting and proposal-making and so on. Not every client is willing to pay for such a comprehensive and in-command approach, but that is the ideal situation for both the client and the consultant. In actuality, the traditional activities of this type are not really the limit or end-all of SEO activities. This is why I prefer the term "search engine ranking", because there is so much more involved than I can possibly educate a client on, and I'd rather promise results within a certain range to get my point across and save my breath. If they don't know what web marketing basically covers, and they want a lecture about it, I will refer them to search my name in Google, and then bid them good day.

Some clients are neither good or bad in the previous two ways, they have ample funds, and even if they don't take the time to understand what things are worth, they're going to invest it anyway and probably take your word on everything, however...before it's all over they're going to get ugly with the consultant, either because they have psychological problems, or because of the sheer stress to do a job they neither like nor plan to do much longer. This client will do whatever they can to drag others down that spiral with them. There is nothing one can do beyond due diligence with this type of client, that, and wash one's hands when finished and move on.

Repeat clients are not always the best possible scenario that a consultant can be provided with. Search engine marketing consultants need respect and a certain degree of autonomy as well as monetary incentives in order to truly perform their best for the client. I typically organize the experience for my client and record all decisions electronically (via emails and generally an emailed invoice), so that there is some written record of what's transpiring down the line. This is not generally a legal precaution (though it can be) but mainly a way of saying "Now see? This is what we discussed...). I feel that this makes me a more desirable consultant and a more reputable one. I can't eternally backpedal away from the client if they cannot backpedal away from me also. SEO is already a business much like traditional advertising, where people have expectations, but expectations have a way of getting away from their originating source to become runaway freight trains with no particular destination.

What I would recommend to all the new site owners out there, both corporate and entreprenurial...is to stop and surface-learn all the various types of, and factors to do with, web site promotion, and then once you've collected all that standard information, to realize that there simple MUST be more to it than you were able to cull in about a week or less, if consultants have been doing this and making money at it for many years now. SEO clients-to-be should educate themselves on what organic search marketing (roughly) is, ask around for quotes and guarantees, and then go with the best legal guarantee among those who appear most competent and who have handled a lot of clients in the recent past. Notice that I don't advocate going just on the guarantee alone. It's what should be the crucial factor in the end, the level at which your investment is safeguarded, but you need to be shrewd enough to know that it's just a big empty hole before you walk right into it. Staying on the yellow brick road requires seeing the path clearly, which means coming to understand something about web marketing in general. I can't emphasize this enough. For Dummies books can give enough info to the client to intelligently handle a web marketing relationship with a consultant, and to more clearly understand the consultant's overall competence and specific strengths.

PayPerClick, of course, cannot be guaranteed in terms of visibility, and is short-term in nature, but there should be improvements, and a good consultant should be able to provide progress of some kind over the course of an AdWords or Yahoo campaign (otherwise why would you use him?). Additionally, by giving your SEO team who is qualified with PPC a chance to manage your 2 campaigns jointly, you are improving the likelihood that you can get higher organic search results for the same keywords you bid on via AdWords on a regular basis. In typical "we can do it because were Google and we're not evil" fashion, AdWords makes AdSense a tool that can be leveraged to the AdWords campaign holder's advantage in organic search results, over and above those who do not use AdWords. Is it fair? No. Is it really happening, yes. Google, one should always bear in mind, is a company, and companies are out to make money. Finding the profitability for Google has been a key concern. They are developing an audience via their search engine, and they have to be able to make some mulah some how, some way. AdWords, Froogle...in the end, they'll find a way to make money off of everything they have dreamed up, but the organic search results will remain free as their eternal "try me" offering to get the consumer to spend dollars on the big money rides.

In the end, if you aren't going all-out with measurement and an ongoing campaign to adjust to the metrics, you should not expect to see the results in the form of phone calls and orders from sheer SEO, it doesn't usually happen that way, although SEO can most certainly lead to those phonecalls and orders for a client who has done the due diligence self-educating. Seeing the hole in advance is the first step to not getting trapped in it. SEO and web marketing works, for those who know what they are doing. I wish every client the ability to see the big elephant-sized holes in the ground before they get there, and the ability to see the golden road to web marketing success for their businesses. And to the reluctant scarecrows unable to get down to the road from their stationary posts, a more curious brain and at least the nerve to learn for themselves.

To learn more about this author, visit Mark Brimm's Website.

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