Search Engine Marketing Company

Choosing a search engine marketing company is our focus here and the choice you make is an important one. The right choice can lead to tremendous initial growth in your company's online business and create the foundation for a satisfying business relationship that keeps growth alive over the long-term.

Trust

When selecting a search engine marketing company, you are first and foremost establishing a business relationship and successful relationships are built on trust. You will be placing your online success in the SEO/SEM company's hands. Most of us can tell pretty quickly if someone deserves our trust. Follow your gut instincts, but also consider these questions:

Does the a search engine marketing company answer your questions honestly and completely or did it avoid certain topics and give fuzzy answers to others? The SEO/SEM company should have nothing to hide when it comes to describing how they optimize sites, their track record, etc.

Does your a search engine marketing company have experience in the industry? Have someone experienced with creating web sites look underneath the hood of a couple sites the company has optimized, looking for any unusual coding that may be hidden from public view.

Do they have a list of references you can contact? Hearing the first-hand experiences of past clients is a great way to learn about the company. (Note that some of the company's past clients may have asked not to be included in a reference list and the company should honor those wishes.)

Does the a search engine marketing company pressure you with sales tactics designed to force a decision before you're ready to make one? Building a relationship isn't about closing the deal; it's about doing what's best for you, the client. You should be able to speak with the individuals who will be doing the actual work on your site, not just with a salesperson.

SEO? SEM? Both?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one form of search engine marketing (SEM). SEO is the process of making a web site search engine friendly. SEM, on the other hand, can be done without concern for a web site's search engine friendliness. (For further information, see the SEMPO Glossary.)

SEM often involves pure advertising via the cost-per-click (CPC) and pay-per-click (PPC) programs offered by several search engines. In these programs, you bid on certain words or phrases and your advertisement appears when a search is made for those words or phrases -- usually near, but not as part of the traditional search results.

Some issues to consider:

Do you need SEO, SEM, or both? Ask the companies you're considering for their recommendation. Ask them to separate the time and costs of SEO and SEM when they give you a cost proposal for your project so you can make a more informed decision about the value of doing both or just one.

If you need SEM, will the company you're hiring do that part of the project themselves? CPC and PPC advertising is a specialty that not all SEO companies practice. The ones that don't, can often recommend companies to handle that aspect of your project.

If CPC/PPC advertising is part of your project, how long will the campaign last? How much will it cost? Which search engines will you use? What types of tools does the company use for managing your bids? Is the company skilled at writing targeted ad copy?

How will the company identify the best keywords and phrases for your optimization project? Whether you need SEO, SEM, or both, identifying the most appropriate keywords and phrases to target will be a key factor in the overall success of your efforts. Make sure you have input into this process since you, ultimately, know your business and industry more than anyone. If you specialize in and want to promote your blue, graphite widgets, don't allow the SEO/SEM company to emphasize widgets in general (not enough focus) or red, titanium widgets specifically (wrong focus). The SEO/SEM company should be able to provide general statistics indicating how often your preferred keywords and phrases are actually searched for on various search engines.

It's up to you to determine the goals and definition of success for your SEO/SEM project. Perhaps it's nothing more than an increase in traffic to your site, an expansion of your mailing list subscriber base, or doubling last year's online sales in the holiday season. During the initial meetings with the companies you're considering, you'll need to articulate your ultimate goals and whether they're short-term, long-term, or both.

It will, however, be the SEO/SEM's job to help you calculate success with information and statistics about the project.

Things to consider:

Does the company make promises to acquire you as a customer? Building trust involves setting realistic expectations. No SEO company can promise long-term top rankings in the search results of any search engine because search engines are constantly changing how they index and rank web sites. (In the short-term, however, CPC and PPC advertising might include a guarantee of visibility on the first page of search results if you're bidding/paying enough to be seen there.)

What kind of reports will the SEO company provide to indicate your web site's ongoing ranking in various search engines? How often will you get those reports, and can the company help you understand them? Some companies may be able to provide sample reports to give you an idea of what to expect.

How will you measure your ROI (return on investment) and what role (if any) will the SEO/SEM company provide in this process? A better question here might be, is your company able to accurately assess ROI? Are you generating the needed information internally to be able to measure the results of your SEO/SEM project? Many businesses are not at this stage yet. In a recent study by NetIQ, only 11% of respondents were conducting detailed ROI analysis on their search engine marketing efforts.