As you click on the globe, you will see "As the World Turns". I'm making an analogy here between the TV soap opera, and the seemingly global distance between SEO-SEM client-buyers, and SEO-SEM sellers. My goal is to help shorten that distance, and help the search marketing industry grow.
As an independent intermediary, I continually read all the articles by SEO consultants, this year especially, who justifiably (in most cases) complain about the unreasonable expectations and lack of cooperation they get from clients.
Clients need to educate themselves more on SEO in general. Because, I believe that the more they do, the more empathetic they will be to the time, talents, and overall effort that ethical, value driven SEO's have to put forth to give their clients a good ROI, and have them know and appreciate it. It can also help clients avoid "black or dark grey" hat SEO's.
I don't see too many writings from clients, though, complaining about the lack of communication, exaggerated "sales expectations setting" about how good they are compared to other SEO's, and their frustration about how hard it is for a client to discern who is really good from who isn't, for the large range of SEO Consultant pricing points. An exception to this is a ClickZ Feeback page for an article entitled "More Ways Not to Work With an SEO/SEM Firm". Andrew Scantland (a Marketing VP client) says "As a client, my visceral reaction is to stop the whining." So, while most of the SEO's writing these kinds of articles mainly want to educate potential clients (and "vent"), it can come across as condescending "whining", if keywords are not carefully chosen.
There is an acknowledgement in the SEO-SEM industry about client turnover rates being higher than they should be. In the "Readers Concerned about SEO Ethics" article by Jim Hedger, a (non-Jim Hedger) client says SEO's "would justify their lack of performance with the worn-out excuse that you can't make any promises in the SEO game, and that it always takes months to see results. By that time, they are gone with your money looking for the next victim." My "one suggestion", that I mentioned at the end of my last post to help with SEO educational and credibility challenges, addresses those EXACT client concerns.
My opinion is that most SEO's and clients need to be more communicative and empathetic with each other's main areas of concern. I pointed this out in my 7/22/05 post entitled "SEO-SEM Relationship Selling". My favorite quote from it is from a book called "Relationship Selling", which can be applied to both buyer and seller: "If you want to improve your circumstances, begin by improving yourself"! After that, long term SEO contracts can be more comfortably signed with my "one suggestion" that I will get to in a future post.
Animated image courtesy of www.artie.com.
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