Your initial signs of over spending can easily be quantified. If you are receiving more than +/-50% of your traffic from PPC, then you need to look at SEO. There is no excuse for spending 100’s of thousands of dollars and completely ignoring natural search. This happens more often that you know, most people just give up.
On the other hand you will have firms who spend $200-500k a month in PPC and think that a 150k SEO campaign is expensive. Imagine a public company telling their board that an investment of $150k is too expensive; when they can save over $1M a year. Think about it carefully before you blow the idea off. On the other hand just randomly choosing a SEO firm on a whim is dangerous. Investigate the firms; many of these firms have a lousy track record.
Check for the following when speaking with firms:
1) What is the customer service to client ratio? Many firms claim to have thousands of clients and a handful of employees to handle it.
2) Do they trash other competitors? Focus on the skills, not on the bashing. Most SEO’s are extremely arrogant, and think they are the best thing since the web was started. You will find these people become a hard ache after time.
3) Offers Guarantees? Forget about it, read the fine print. You might get 10% of your money back.
4) Research them! Ignore the gossip from jealous competitors, check with real clients!
5) Check out your rep! Many SEO firms employ fresh off the boat people with an extremely low salary, thus attrition can be high. If your rep isn’t happy at work, then you will not be happy with the work, or there a lack of.
I have heard of some SEO firms’ exec staff throwing furniture in a fit of rage for loosing deals. Childish antics signal instability. I will refrain from mentioning who it was.
Get them to send someone onsite! Learn from them, this is not brain surgery. The more you know, the higher the success rate will be.
Recent Comments