Big SEO Company – I’m going to take your clients away.

31 Responses

1. Going by the number of cold calls on my voicemail, I think the majors are more concerned w/ sales than service.

2. Are you saying it’s all about the links?

3. The problem now is that links are harder to come by – at least for those not trained in the ways of the linkninja 😉 When you’re a large company you need to find processes that can be automated on a large scale by people with little training. The large companies themselves only have one or two consultants who “really” understand what is going on in the world of search and can set policy and methods.

   This has always been the advantage of the lone consultancy or smaller companies – you have a much greater chance of actually dealing on a day to day basis with someone trained in SEO/SEM. Their staff can also be trained to a much higher level of quality – as they too have that increased level of contact with the SEO/SEM consultant(s).

4. I totally agree. Some of the fees are outrageous and the services are horrible. There are some great SEO forums…including yours that any newbie could learn enough to get started at least.

5. I think it’s more a case that consumers need to be more aware of who the right level of companies is to go with.

   There are obviously companies aimed at the more corporate level – in which case, it would be made for a small business to throw cash at corporate level pricing.

   I tried to make that point at Mike Grehan’s blog over here:
   http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17554653&postID=113726570060959383

   when Mike asked Andy Hagans in public how he’d allocate a mere $1000 budget.

   It is interesting to compare how you perform against competitors, though – I posted up a graphical comparison on my corproate blog after a client came on board from another big SEO company. I won’t link to it from here, as it may be seen as rival advertising, but let’s just say the results were *very* different.

6. ya know Brian you make a good point…it’s almost a clash of company sizes…Mike asks how someone can only charge $1000, and what services they can provide for that….I’ll ask the other side….how can a big SEO company charge 10k per month for meta tag and on page optimization?

7. I think that is why you see so many articles trying to push people away from small SEOs toward branded big firms. And another reason big firms try to hire big names to be lead generators. There is no substance to the service so may as well try to glamorize a call center.

   You can charge $1,000 a month AND still build links. I have done it. I have helped others set up biz models that do it.

8. Part of the issue, I think, is that link building is hard work, and the big boys don’t seem to want to work that hard.

   When you focus exclusively on on-page optimization, you can hire a failed journalism student, teach him or her to write to particular keyword densities, pay him or her $20/hour, and charge $300/hour (or more). As a business model, that baby scales!

   And, better yet, when the search engines change their algorithms next week, you can charge for the rewriting of the SEO copy. Good stuff!

   Of course, I have to be able to sleep at night, so such a model doesn’t work for me…

9. Ironically, by the tiime many of these big companies get around to focusing on offering link building services, that strategy might be as out of date as meta tags are now.

   Of course, from a marketing point of view, many of these companies are just offering what customers think they want, rather than what they really need. It’s not very ethical, but it probably helps close more sales.

10. A bad SEO company is the reason I learned as much as I did about SEO.

    I hired an SEO company, paid them, and all they did was make few things on the homepage and never once mentioned links (I , was a total newbie).

    From there, I decided to forget about them and learned all I could about optimization and pushed a gambling site to the top for 2 word phrases I wanted – not the 3 word phrases they suggested were obtainable – without their “help”. Actually, I did get #1 position on google for the 3-word phrase they suggested and guess what? No traffic!

    (Of course, then came the attacks: 302 redirect hijacks, stolen content and assorted other dastardly deeds aimed at sites who do well for profitable phrases)

    It’s amazing to me that any SEO company would not even mention links to a customer. That’s wacked.

    I haven’t trusted pro SEO’s after that, although I’ve made some good money on occasion helping other webmasters who have asked (I wouldn’t do it full time, I don’t enjoy it – too much of it involved trying to educate people who want to pinch pennies. How much patience you guys must have!) 😛

11. I think some of the companies looking for simple, quick-fix solutions get caught up in the big churn and burn SEO companies’ sales pitch which leads them to expect more than what’s possible.

    SEO does not scale well but can be very profitable and so this crap happens. Once a SEO company gets to a certain size and has a greedy management team, trouble.

12. Forgot to mention: There is a company in my town that specializes in law firm SEO that does zero link building (some directory submissions) and they literally have thousands of clients. I just don’t get it.

13. I get alot of SEO calls since I’m visible as an advertiser on PPC. They routinely have someone who sets up an appointment, runs a report (usually badly on my site) and someone else with either 15 or 30 minutes trying to sell me.

    The reports are badly run. Very amateurish sales and marketing. BTW – I just listed by favorite free SEO tools and your cool-oh tool is a favorite – http://learn-to-market-online116.blogspot.com/2006/01/free-online-seo-tools-review.html

14. Jim:
    A quick read of Marketing Sherpa’s Benchmark report gives clear answers. Clients have no idea what they’re buying because it’s “too technical.” In the end a good suit beats a qualified guy in his home office who is able to present and then execute a plan.

15. Esoos: ‘Ironically, by the tiime many of these big companies get around to focusing on offering link building services, that strategy might be as out of date as meta tags are now.’

    I think that’s a very valid point. So what might it be next? Where should we be looking next? Who’s planning for these developments? How do you ensure long-term stability with so much staked on SER’s?

16. A couple years ago I worked for one of these firms. I hated it.

    I called it assembly line SEO. Every single client’s site was optimized in the same way. Same number of pages, keywords, links (all 5 of them), etc was the same.

    I would always suggest to the boss that things be done differently, correctly. He never listened. Needless to say I didn’t last long.

    I hated my job . I felt so bad for every client I worked with.

    I don’t think the firm ended up doing to well, they used have first page rankings for SEO phrases and now they have nothing. Although the salesmen could still be cranking out the deals.

    After this experience I refused to work for another SEO firm.

17. What I find amusing (at least for the SEM companies I know in Norway), is that they employ more sales staff than SEM’s. When I get the cold-calls from them I always have a laugh, since the seller sounds very strange when he finds our sites ranking at first page for all the words he is trying to sell me.

    When he starts asking how I do it, I can hear from his comments that he knows nothing whatsoever about what he is selling.

    Also, I ask myself “why do these companies need to cold-call, if they are so good at search engine marketing?”

    I don’t get it.

    To comment on subject: It is a simple fact that links are king, content is queen when it comes to ranking in Google at least. MSN is another story though. But who cares about them?

18. I agree, Jim – there are different levels of companies for different services. If mom & pop simply to buy a few text links, it would be insane to invest thousands in consultancy on the issue.

    Yes, there is a level where large companies will pay high odds for consultancy alone – or even basic services – but if a company has a budget to comfortably work to that, then kudos if the relationship works for both.

    What I really dislike is the idea of charging consultancy fees to small mom & pops – it’s a mismatching of business targeting, IMO.

    If you have a small budget (ie, $1k-$5k), and you’re only offered consultancy, then IMO the services are mismatched – mom & pop need a company that will hold their hand and get them statrted, long enough to see that their not paying for a service – they’re investing in profitable expansion.

    2c.

19. Dave: ” So what might it be next? Where should we be looking next? Who’s planning for these developments? How do you ensure long-term stability with so much staked on SER’s? ”

    Hard to say. Tracking user actions will probably be a big factor, a la:

    http://www.stuntdubl.com/2005/05/18/personalize-search-trustrank/

20. Please post again, Jim. I need some more entertainment.

    Today I had to do this to keep myself happy.

21. Andy, can’t sign your petition until British Columbia becomes a State. 😛

22. Hi Jim,

    “Are you willing to invest at least… $10,000 monthly for extremely competitive markets? This is what we charge for aiming at “natural” rankings (not PPC).”

    10K per month or about 120K per year is about what the large companies with dozens of blue chip clients were quoting me.

    If my boss saw two companies who both wanted 10K per month and one had dozens of other large, nationally recognized brands and the other one had few if any (I don’t know if this is the case. You don’t list your client names). Even though you would probably do a better job in my opinion, he would never understand the buy rational for the SEO Company with few if any large, nationally recognized brands. He would feel safer going with what he would perceive to be the “SEO Industry leader” (if the cost were about the same.)

23. The problem is the industry is still mostly snake oil and the customers really don’t understand what’s going on so the first firm that sells them the best story with good referrals probably wins,

    Then a few months later reality cramps set in when the results are being monitored.

    It’s very similar at some level to selling gambling systems to help people win as nobody can beat gambling or the search engines all the time, you can do your best and skill helps but luck is always nice too.

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25. funny i commented on this in my blog just the other day. hadn’t seen this post but I agree that smaller firms are still the best bang for the buck, with the exception of some of the major players that do get results (and charge an arm and a leg)

26. It really comes down to scaling, and (quality) link building is very difficult for most companies to scale, apparently.

    Classic case scenario is an SEO/SEM firm gets a few big name clients who have PR7/8 and crap rankings then they optimize Titles and Metas, adjust keyword density, and do internal linking and end up with top rankings (that the client should have had anyways if their site was built right).

    Now they’ve got great references, they have money to create fancy ass graphs and presentations and spend major money on their site “creative”, hire some big names, and show off all the bells and whistles. Then, when it comes down to performance they fail to meet expectations 80% of the time as 80% of their clients aren’t just suffering from “lack of meta-tag” disease. They need real link development, intelligent content optimization, and something to drive some viral linking/traffic.

27. If you have millons of visitors, no need to SEO, but if you only have few visitors, SEO is waster your time, I think.

28. So you are implying that there is something more important than META tags? Get out!

    Seriously though I very much agree with you. I’m also stunned that these companies tend not to work to actually make the site better – more “link worthy” so that it can actually build a few natural links by itself. They tend to just slap on some meta tags, maybe tweak the titles and run rankings reports for MSN. (Yawn)

29. Another issue faced with the ‘big SEO firms’.. .. is the base values represented by the founders…who can sometimes be very aggressive successful sales people who love nothing more then spending their time knocking down objections from dissatisfied clients who bought into thier hype (and many times their marketing literature will have ‘hooks’ buried to assist with the live phone close…)

    Once in the circuit the client finds out that they really can’t do what they say…and the old excuse comes into play…’the search engine’s algo just changed…it will take us weeks to several months to get you back into the mix’ … and this is tied in with their carefully crafted legalize embedded in everything they publish about their services…

    Give’s the small guys an edge who can build out personalized “honest” working relationships and work to educate their respective clients regarding ‘expectations’ vs. ‘reality’ where the engines and organic listings are concerned…and what the future may hold…

30. I get it….since I used to work in one of those 3rd rate / charge a fortune companies

    – search engines are still a mystery to most brands
    – by their internal makeup, they can only really deal with linear stuff like “I spend this on advertising I get that ROI”
    – they respond to big SEO companies; ‘theyre like us – so we hire them’
    – they typically only let 3rd party companies do consultancy / offer recommendations because they don’t trust anyone with their web property
    – so, when youre technially handcuffed, you have to somehow sell the fact you are good value on a $10,000 monthly retainer, so you talk about simple stuff like meta tags, because they are simple enough to comprehend
    – don’t forget ‘brands’ are still on 1999 SEO and yes it seems wierd but remember, by reading this blog, youre on the cutting edge of SEO!

    The problem is that big companies find the hardcore SEO scene really, really inaccessable. So if you want to make money with them, you have to play a different game.

    and of course, BIG companies see a $10k retainer as small change.

31. Although the post originally was from 2006, i must add the practice still continues. The companies in question (surely like the one you omitted) more often than not forget about link building until the end.

    Depending on the savvy-ness of the client in question, they often hide behind a privacy screen, continuing to bill but without delivering. Seeing a snail cover the distance of the london marathon is probably quicker, that seeing a site improve.

    Like the last poster mentioned the 10k retainer is probably small change & i’m sure the pitch at the 20page report they give out, usually helps clinch the deal.

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