Ecommerce Consultant and Growth Strategist for small businesses

07592 629885 | Dominic Smith - Ecommerce Consultant

redleafdigital- Ecommerce I Strategy I Digital MarketingEcommerce I Strategy I Digital Marketing
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Success Stories
  • Strategy
  • Testimonials
  • Platforms
  • Small Business Blog
  • Contact Me
Menu
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Success Stories
  • Strategy
  • Testimonials
  • Platforms
  • Small Business Blog
  • Contact Me
  • Understanding what your SEO agency is actually doing is key

    3 Feb 2015 Dominic Comments Off on Understanding what your SEO agency is actually doing is key

    For any small retail business, budget is invariably tight and every penny of your spend should be accounted for however in the murky world of SEO, do you actually know what you are getting for your money?

    Time and again I have come across small businesses who have invested considerable budget every month on this wondrous and much misunderstood thing called SEO only for no-one in the business to actually know what they are getting for their money!

    Investing money in SEO needs to be a process of continual review – what was good SEO practice last year may not be the best this year. My own thoughts on this subject is clear throughout this site – build a brand and something people want – simple!

    The days of spammy link building are (and should be!) long gone however we still have an environment (step up Mark from “The Apprentice) where Google position 1 is still being promised. Any small businesses should be wary of any company that promises this kind of nonsense.

    Lets say an average spend is £3k per month – £36k pa. If you are low on resource but you feel there is reach in your brand then why not consider employing one or two people to expand your social media presence and focus on simply expanding your brand reach – be that with bloggers, affiliates or suitable partners?

    Let me give you an example of why should be wary of this thing called “SEO” and spending without understanding what you are getting into – this is a real example of some work I undertook upon reviewing a companies SEO contract.

    Company X

    Cost

    £3000 pm retainer

    £36,000 pa

    What do we get?

    Strategy document was unclear – PPT only with no details in contract

    Details Keyword analysis, Onsite Optimisation, Content Development and Onsite Optimisation

    Actual delivery is link Building – subbed out to Philippines but with 50 links per month

    Impact since beginning of relationship

    Diffficult to say at mo – traffic volumes and organic traffic remains constant therefore have to question what impact they are having. Over 6 months they have definitely improved our rankings on key terms however they need more guidance on the terms to focus on. Has this improvement led to huge sales increases?

    Reports

    Not very thorough and much of info is from GA which we can get anyway – money for old rope! Just feedback what has happened rather than providing recommendations moving forward etc

    Communication

    Infrequent and sense of lethargy their end. I do not feel we are working that effectively with them and currently working on this but queries remain unresolved etc

    Personal Thoughts

    At present we are getting increased keyword presence but cannot accurately model out increased demand – problematic for most SEO companies but does not seem to be an apetite from X to model this out

    Recommendation

    We are paying £3000 per month for what is effectively a service based solely on link building. We need to further investigate the actual increment

    End Result

    This company were paying £3k pm for a service which was ultimately harmful to them – paying for spammy links for their products from websites totally unrelated to their offering – end result being no sales and poor conversion (like paying to get links to your ladies footwear site from Japanese gig guide sites!)

    Summary

    This is just one example of how you really need to understand exactly what you are getting when working with an SEO company. Increasing your site traffic and sales from natural search will be one of the most cost effective channels you have however it must be understood first.

    Categories: All Posts, SEO

    Tags: SEO

    Destinology review – how they can get more brand reach How to identify Poor SEO service from your agency

    Comments are currently closed.

Categories

  • Acquisition (4)
  • AI (2)
  • All Posts (41)
    • Data Science (1)
  • Amazon (1)
  • Analytics (6)
  • Brand (9)
  • Conversion (12)
  • Customer Surveys (2)
  • DXP (1)
  • Email (4)
  • Google (6)
  • Mobile (2)
  • Paid search (5)
  • Planning (9)
  • Platform (4)
  • Presentations (2)
  • Promotions (3)
  • RAF (1)
  • Retention (7)
  • SEO (7)
  • Site Search (1)
  • Small Business Blog (3)
  • Social Media (4)
  • Strategy (9)
  • Trading Tips (18)
  • Traffic (6)
  • Uncategorized (11)
  • Why me? (6)

Tag cloud

Analytics Bounce Rate Brand Brand Building Business Change Checkout Conversion CRM cro Cross Device Tracking Customer Retention Customer Surveys Data Digital Marketing Email Google Instagram KPIs link building Local Marketing LTV Mention Me Mobile Paid Search pinterest planning PLAs Platform PPC Presentations promotions RAF retention SEO site search Small Business Blog Social Media strategy Trading Tips
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2015 redleafdigital redleafdigital.co.uk is the trading name of Redleafdigital Limited, registered in England No. 09313456. Registered Office Address: 23 Huntley Road, Cheadle Heath, Stockport, SK3 0RP