What Are Most Small Businesses Looking For In A Search Engine Optimization Company?
What are most small businesses looking for in a search engine optimization company?
Having been in the web development and Internet marketing business for over a decade I’ve had the extreme pleasure of working with a diverse set of clients from entreprenuers to Fortune 500s. Clearly all companies are looking for a competent vendor to outsource their work to. However, once you get past the basics of competency you enter into another realm of criteria which many suppliers overlook. It’s trust.
Once a small business has found a short list of competent suppliers to choose from they start evaluating these other factors with trust being at the top. The small business needs to know that they can “trust” the supplier to:
- do the work requested of them in a timely fashion
- keep the clients best interests at heart
- not deceive them in any way
The small business will choose to work with the supplier that they can trust the most. What better way to do business? By keeping a clients best interests at heart regardless of how the relationship goes will ensure that the client is happy, and in the end will result in more business down the road. Trust is a crucial component of any business relationship and it should not be taken for granted.
January 23rd, 2008 at 10:05 am
interesting article, Thanks!
i like your blog! :)
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:07 am
Its like Harry Beckwith says, selling the invisible is always about the mitigation of fear.
January 23rd, 2008 at 12:18 pm
I find the smaller the company the more impatient their are. This is especially true if it is a privately owned family business. They have no idea what SEO is supposed to achieve and get confused with conversion. As seo we optimise for the search engines for particular keywords. I had on customer whereby I got her to the top of google for the required keyword but she is unhappy with me because she did not the sales she was after. She clearly misunderstand what SEo is.
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Thanks for article Nice Blog
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I understand completely what you’ve described. When selling SEO alone, you need to be very clear that your being compensated for getting the clients site to rank for the phrases in question, and it has nothing to do with conversion or increased sales.
If you want to take a step further - you can increase your rates and work them longer term to ensure their website is setup to convert traffic, help them track the conversions and then understand how to close the leads and calculate their ROI. Some small business won’t want to pay for that much work though!
January 24th, 2008 at 7:07 am
Nice written article, thanks buddy.
January 24th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
I find the smaller the company the more impatient their are. This is especially true if it is a privately owned family business. They have no idea what SEO is supposed to achieve and get confused with conversion. As seo we optimise for the search engines for particular keywords
January 24th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Nice article. Surely “Trust” is one important factor to consider in a business. :D
January 24th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Absolutely - especially in the face of Shoemoney’s face off with Danny Sullivan regarding the quality of SEO’s today!
January 29th, 2008 at 2:04 am
Gr8 very nice post !! Its good keep going