66 replies to this topic

[lizzielu]

I'm so glad this topic has been brought up...finally an opportunity to get on my pedastal about something that's been plagueing me for months.

That is...

The industry has labeled us: search engine marketing consultants. If that's all you do and all you want to do that's fine, but it's a dis-service to the industry and where we 'could' be in terms of respect in the larger Marketing/Advertising and Web Development community. Additionally, the client would understand that you are going to do anything and everything in your power to increase sales to their company using the Internet.

I would argue that we shouldn't be SEM's, but rather IMP's. Internet Marketing Professionals. A true Internet Marketing Consultant takes the client's entire Web strategy into consideration, with consideration to the client's larger traditional marketing strategy and formulates a plan to increase traffic, sales, click throughs, conversations, etc... The whole shabang. This professional not only understands SEO and PPC, he also understands design, development, navigation, calls to action, copywriting, content development, ROI, etc...

In doing so we would gain credibility and steer away from all the SEM sharks out there scamming people left and right. I think sempo should be renamed impo. Search engine marketing is just one piece of a true Internet Marketing strategy, in my opinion.

Thanks,

Liz

[Jill]

The "problem" with that, Liz, is that the phrase "Internet Marketing" tends to be used in affiliate marketing circles and has it's own connotations.

There probably already is an IMPO or the equivalent that focuses on various aspects of Internet Marketing. I think SEMPO wants to *only* focus on areas that involve search.

Yes, you and I know that just focusing on search isn't the smartest thing to do, but you gotta start somewhere!

[Haystack]

There is definitely a demand for consultants or consulting firms who can work with businesses to help them shape and implement their website's marketing initiatives. However, it's rare that you'll find one person capable of doing a good job with project management, planning, design, analytics, copywriting, etc.

If a person has a mindset for SEO, that's the place to me. Ideally, they'll realize they can offer their clients additional value through quality partnerships. Or, the SEO may benefit from partnering with design firms or marketing consultants who can run the projects.

[SearchRank]

"Internet Marketing Professionals" would usually be related to banner buys, site sponsorships and as Jill said, affiliate marketing. Back in the days when banners where the way to advertise, that is where the phrase "Internet Marketing" really came to surface.

I would therefore say that search engine marketing falls under Internet marketing as the first is related to search engines and the second encompasses everything. That being said, Link Building services could be considered Internet Marketing because link building is not always just related to search engines but can bring qualified traffic from other industry related sites, vortals, etc.

[Ron Carnell]

There's a very real danger, I think, of falling victim to arrogance.

Over the years, I've worked with a lot of people, usually lawyers and accountants, who thought their role was to run my business for me. None could, because as much as they thought they knew about business, they didn't know MY business. They certainly didn't know my goals, and because none of them were entrepreneurs, they rarely recognized the value of taking risks. Frankly, I paid for their advice but always looked at it with skepticism instead of blind trust. If they could run my business, they would probably be my competitors and make far more than they ever would as "professionals." The very role they chose to fulfill precluded them from pursuing another.

I am not so foolish as to think all rankings are equal, but neither will I blindly accept someone else's estimation of "good" and "bad." You can't play a good game of poker with scared money, but neither can you play a good game with play money. Business decisions cannot be separated from risk, and advisors who share none of the risks cannot make good decisions. As long as it's my money, and my risk, the correlation between rating and conversion MUST remain in my hands.

In other words, when I hire a plumber I expect him to fix my pipes, not tell me when I should shower.

[Scottie]

LOL, Ron.

What if you told your plumber to install flexible garden hose instead of pipe in your house because it was cheaper? It's your house, after all.

Would you be offended if the plumber recommended that you invest in real pipes instead of flexible hose, in order to save you from having to rip the walls apart and replace everything in a few months?

And would you think badly of a plumber who refused to take a job that was doomed to fail?

[sonnyyu]

The industry has labeled us: search engine marketing consultants. If that's all you do and all you want to do that's fine, but it's a dis-service to the industry and where we 'could' be in terms of respect in the larger Marketing/Advertising and Web Development community. Additionally, the client would understand that you are going to do anything and everything in your power to increase sales to their company using the Internet.

perfect!

In other words, when I hire a plumber I expect him to fix my pipes, not tell me when I should shower.

Why not, if I were you I will ask when is best time I should shower and advise what is best name for my new born.

[Ron Carnell]

Scottie, I would value the counsel of my plumber on anything that concerned pipes and plumbing. If he really expected to be paid for advice on the thread count for my bedding, though, I'd look for a new plumber. And if he refused to take the job because he didn't like the color of my bathroom tiles, I'd find someone with better taste.

Seriously.

How many practicing SEO/SEM professionals do we know with an MBA from Harvard? How many have built a successful retail or manufacturing business, either on the street or on the Internet? How many have ever risked an investment much greater than their own time and effort? I have no doubt there are a few who would qualify, but I also have no doubt there are very few. Most of the people in this as yet very young industry are self-taught and experiencing the first real success they've ever tasted in life. Only a handful of them will still be business for themselves five years from now.

ECommerce, obviously, is a young industry, with a short history and few established rules. It's not at all surprising to me that people with a little success under their belts would begin to feel they have all the answers, and I think this is sorely complicated by the fact those people are rarely dealing with "real" businessmen. Right now, most of the clients hiring outside SEO/SEM consultants are analogous to the miners flocking to Northern California in 1848, eager to cash in on a modern-day Gold Rush with little personal investment and even less work. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, and even the most neophyte consultants being hired must seem like bloody geniuses. I think it would be a tragic mistake, however, for those consultants to start believing their own press, because that's when they stop learning. Real business is as much art as science, predicated on experience and success, and those with all the answers have rarely learned to even ask the right questions yet.

I spent almost two decades writing software for a few very specialized vertical markets. I know those particular markets as well as any man outside their industry can, but the caliber of companies I called clients never let me forget that I WAS outside their industry. I had no problem recommending a RDBMS or a big piece of iron to Prudential, for example, but I wasn't foolish enough to think I could help them set rates or write endorsements. On the rare occasion when a master agent hired my company and really needed that kind of advice, I fulfilled my obligations and then ran for the hills -- because I knew they wouldn't last two years. You cannot hire a software vendor, or a SEO/SEM specialist, to make a business successful. That has to come from inside the company.

A consultant can be a invaluable resource, but only within their area of expertise. SEO/SEM should be about driving good traffic to a business that knows how to convert those visitors into customers. Your expertise should be confined to helping the client differentiate "good" traffic from bad. If you ever feel the need to tell a client their prices are too high or they really should consider accepting credit cards, you're wasting your time and their money. They've already proven they won't succeed and, frankly, you can't do it for them.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man may indeed be king, but it still boils down to the blind leading the blind.

[Scottie]

I completely agree that there are SEO's who only know algos and keyword density and don't know (or want to know) anything about marketing in general.

When looking at a SERP that inspired my article though, I think anyone working on those sites should have known better than to keyword stuff those sites to the point that they were unusable. They got excellent rankings, no doubt about it. But it didn't help them. I think there's a huge difference between telling someone that their prices are too high and getting them high rankings at the expense of making their site impossible to use.

I do believe there is a happy medium in the middle between telling them their business is doomed to fail because they don't know what they are doing and simply stuffing in keywords, Submitting to Directories, buying a few links and cashing their check.

The original post questions whether or not rankings are the only goal.

[Ron Carnell]

I'll certainly agree, Scottie, that rankings should never be at the expense of sales or usability. That would be tantamount to my plumber tracking oily mud all over my bedding while he's working on my pipes (this analogy is starting to raise some very embarrassing questions). That's not the same, though, as the original question of whether an SEO should "actually help the client improve their business," nor does it jibe with many of the other responses offered after the question.

Let me try to rephrase my points, Scottie, because I have little doubt the marketers amongst us will generally agree.

If an SEO/SEM is contracted to increase rankings, they have an implied responsibility to deliver traffic that can be converted (by selecting appropriate keywords in cooperation with the client) and to avoid doing anything to hinder conversion (keyword stuffing being only one of many possible sins). I think the prices they charge should reflect that level of service and ONLY that level of service. I am willing to pay for their expertise, but I'm not eager to pay for presumed expertise that they, in fact, do not possess. Any more than I would want to pay my plumber $75 an hour to stand around and talk about my sheets.

The foundation upon which all marketing rests is a deep understanding of the customer. That doesn't come cheaply, and no SEO/SEM can offer me anything beyond generalities based on a few hours they spend at my site. If they presume to know my customers better than I do they have a problem that will ultimately detract from the job they were hired to do (and if they're right, the problem is only compounded, because that means NEITHER of us knows the customer).

Perhaps it's time to change to a less embarrassing analogy.

If I place a full page ad in the WSJ, I expect to get traffic in return for my money. I do not expect some copy editor to tell me how to convert that traffic into sales, and more importantly, I am not willing to PAY the paper for their presumptuous advice on conversions. Send me the people. I'll make the sales.

[Jill]

Ron, your points are well taken. However, many SEO-types have been in the Internet Marketing business for a long time, and often have picked up tips related to other marketing (besides search engines) along the way.

Many clients that SEOs work with are new to the Internet, and new to having a Website. Other clients have had a "real" business for a long time, but don't know much about integrating that with a Website.

It is not an search engine marketer's responsibility to teach their clients every aspect of Internet Marketing, that is true. However, many old-timers (like me) are partnered with the best and brightest in other fields such as copywriting for conversions, designers who know how to design crawler-friendly ecommerce sites, others who might be log file analysis pros, another might be a public relations pro, etc.

Or, in the case of a large SEM firm, I would imagine that they have these specialties inhouse. Now, maybe they should simply be called Marketing Firms, or Advertising Firms or whatever, and perhaps they are. They could be a marketing firm with a special emphasis on search engine marketing, or they might have equal emphasis on all the various sub-disciplines within marketing.

It's true that there are many SEOs who are simply SEOs, and there's nothing wrong with that. As long as the client knows what they're getting when they hire someone, then it's all good!

Jill

[lizzielu]

Hi gang,

Well the debate heats up...

I guess what we're talking about is Expectations. I would argue that most of my clients 'expect' that in hiring me as their SEM they are going to increase their sales. However, as we all know by definition Internet Marketing requires 2 basic principles:

1. drive traffic to the site
2. convert that traffic to sales

Most clients think (perhaps falsely) that SEM's do both. They truly don't understand that by definition (at least as it stands now), an SEM ONLY does #1 above. I think they don't understand this two pronged approach. Yes, there are many exceptions to this rule - and some companies who have done the initial work first (a well designed and developed site) and hire me after the fact, but typically I find my clients need serious work in both #1 and #2 and 'expect' that that is what they are hiring me to do.

I have 10 years of Internet Marketing experience and feel obligated to serve both of these services to clients. It kills me to call myself an SEM because I understand that literally this means that I am only supposed to provide #1 above. But because I 'know' that they really ultimately want #2 (increased sales), I educate them that they are actually hiring me to do both. After I explain this to clients - they smile brightly and say, "Oh, that's great - yes, we really want you to increase our sales - not just drive traffic to our site. Thanks for explaining it to us!"

The plumber metaphor isn't accurate because, I believe, most people just don't get what it is that we do and they think they are hiring us for both services not knowing that they are really separate issues. What educated person would say, "I'm going to give you $5,000 to get more people to my Web site regardless of whether or not I see a return on my investment." There is an assumption that the increased traffic also increases sales. Therefore, it really is all about education.

Case study: I got a new client. He hired me to do #1 above (SEO and PPC). He just spent $10,000 on a new wam-bam snazzy database driven Web site. GREAT. (other than the fact that it would have saved him a lot of time and money to hire me beforehand - but that's a different topic). So, I'm doing the keyword analysis and editing copy and metatags and everything is going smoothly until....I see that there is no Call to Action on any of his product pages. So, if I used Ron's plumber metaphor, I would keep my big mouth shut and go about my business. Well, that seems awfully arrogant to me. I know that he needs a Call to Action in order to convert the sale, and since he (and his designer) obviously don't know this, what am I to do?

Tell him of course!

I work with his designer to create a nice little graphic that we place next to every single product that reads: "Get a Quick Quote Now" -- which links to a short request form for a quote. Before this the user had to "guess" at how to buy the damn products. The form is also a 'must' in order to do Google and Overture conversion tracking.

So was I being irresponsible ? unethical ? misleading ? over stepping my boundaries ? or..... a good business person who wants to help my clients make money?

The answer is clear. Good SEM's are not SEM's at all. They are Internet Marketing Consultants -- in the new definition of the word. Yes, in its inception banners, buttons, skyscrapers were the role of Internet Marketers, but they are 'out' so why not change with the times and REDEFINE this title and use the term that is more accurate. I maintain that clients Believe that we are hired to increase their traffic and assume that that means sales. A question of misunderstanding along with education.

If you asked a client, do you want to increase your traffic or increase your sales, what do you think most of they would say? It is our job to educate them on why both are necessary and then help them attain their goals.

Thanks,

Liz

[cline]

I'm with Liz on this one, but I'll go one further.

It is NOT rankings and it is NOT conversions. The question itself is wrong as the right answer isn't given as an option. It's about maximizing overall profitability within the scope of the business the client wishes to be in. SEM is a major tool for achieving this, as is improving conversions, but the right answer is much bigger than this.

[projectphp]

If I place a full page ad in the WSJ, I expect to get traffic in return for my money. I do not expect some copy editor to tell me how to convert that traffic into sales, and more importantly, I am not willing to PAY the paper for their presumptuous advice on conversions. Send me the people. I'll make the sales.

Absolutely, 100% agree.

The problem with so many businesses on the internet is that they hire a web dev firm and don't just expect them to just design a site, but give them the keys to their online business and marketing. Its akin to asking a Interiouir designer to build you a shop, market the shop, staff the shop, provide reports on customer behaviour etc. Its crazy.

I am with Ron, if a business doesn't know its customers, if it doesn't know how to convert traffic into customers, the business is doomed to fail.

Edited by projectphp, 09 May 2004 - 08:45 PM.

[Haystack]

The problem with so many businesses on the interent is that they hire a web dev firm and don't just expect them to just design a site, but give them the keys to their online business and marketing.

That happens a LOT. When prospective customers ask me if I can guarantee specific rankings, I'll ask them if they can guarantee that they'll actually sell anything if I get traffic to their site. Basically, I'm try to get them to understand that high rankings don't necessarily correlate with financial independence. It helps set realistic expectations about what they're getting, and how this fits into their web site's larger marketing initiatives.