My primary role as SEO Manager involves overseeing numerous sub domains, corporate sites and international sites. I have the fortunate opportunity to “manage” or assist in managing an SEM campaign for one of our sites.
It certainly helps to have a basic comprehension of what PPC is, there are a lot of similarities with SEO. Chosing keywords and deciding that landing pages they land on certainly a critical and important aspect of any PPC campaign.
As an SEO Specialist within an interactive marketing agency and as a consultant, I see various SEO contracts for SEO services. I am still amazed at the lazy or less than par things being offered by other agencies and vendors.
There are some basic practices that should just part of the program like solid link building utilizing link baiting techniques, social media where applicable, and here’s one building a plan with an SEO strategy. Crazy I know.
I must admit it drives me nuts when I see in 2008 claims that “we will get all your must have keywords in the top 5 rankings in Google” - are you kidding me? Hello, 1995? Doesn’t anyone know what solid conversions are, ever hear of ROI? This is what a real SEO program includes.
Well, one day when colleges offer Internet Marketing as part of their undergrad programs, and SEO 101, 102, etc are offered, there will be more educated and sophisticated SEO programs out there to really compete with. (by the way - anyone who might think SEO is going by the wayside - doesn’t realize marketing has been around since the stone ages, and as long as business lives on the web - so to will internet marketing including SEO - just my two cents worth).
Ever thought what direction you should take your SEO career? Work directly for a marketing agency or for yourself as a consultant?
I’d like to share some ideas that you may or may not have thought of. While I have had experiences with both working for myself as an Internet Consultant with small to medium sized businesses and currently working within an interactive marketing agency - I have to say that both have their pros and cons.
There are several SEOs out there who think “why would you want to work for the man when you can bring in $10k a month for just one client?” Nice thought of course and it does happen, but my quick answer is “you like sales and virtually going door to door to find that 10K?” If you don’t have any professional contacts that’s exactly what your left to doing. You could join your local Business Networking International or Chamber of Commerce, but do you have any idea of the small business landscape out there? There are great small business owners who do the local community a tremendous service with what they offer, but sadly they don’t (I am speaking in general terms here) quite get the big internet marketing picture. This SEO stuff is very valuable to their websites (if indeed they even have one - and that’s another story for another time ;). I have literally gone within the tri-state (NY, NJ, PA) educating business owners on the fundamentals of a good solid SEO built site, regular marketing of it and how this could impact their bottom line tremendously.
Needless to say, I have met many good people, but couldn‘t quite grasp where to get the funds for this. I suppose paying $500 per month on billboards is still their way of thinking.
The plus side of consulting offers many flexible ways to grow your career such as attending any and all SEO related functions, directing my team of analysts to do the nitty gritty work while I further myself educationally and professionally. Of course the obvious - being my own boss.
Agency life has its positives such as getting a regular paycheck whether I found a client or not this week, benefits like a 401K that matches dollar for dollar, health care insurance (until we have national health care plan that will help our entrepreneurs they have nothing), working within a team of other intelligent and like minded SEOs, working with a variety of Fortune 500 clients is a huge advantage. I have learned a great deal over the course of my 18+ months at the agency I work for. While there are some out there simply reading online about what works and what doesn‘t or how to do xyz in SEO, or attending “seo classes” the only true way to learn is on the job.
The negatives - well like most agencies or other places you work, it can get very stressful and there can be bureaucratic things you have zero control over simply because there are executives or higher ups who don’t take what you actually do into consideration when the business planning takes place – largely because they don’t understand the complete picture – SEO process, etc.
All in all you have to do what’s right for you and your career. Working as both a consultant and within an agency are great experiences that can serve you no matter what direction you choose. Having both experiences certainly has made me a great deal more well rounded in my career than I had ever expected.
Good Luck in your SEO endeavors!
There are numerous ways to go about this, but to organize yourself somewhat you should really research the competitive landscape first.
One of the first things any competant SEO person should do is to identify your website’s true competitors by analyzing high conversion keyword phrases. You can use whatever keyword tools your familiar with, or read those that I commented on in a previous keyword research tool post.
Identify your most relevant search engines (Google, Yahoo, others?) and identify the top competitors for each phrase. Repeat this process for each of your high conversion and high activity phrases and then compare across keyword phrases. The site that rises to the top SERPs with the most consistency is the true competitor to beat. This could be challenging, not the exercise, the competitor.
This list could be very extensive, but it should be clearly written out and very well planned and organized. Its very easy to say, I can rank #2 in Google for “NY Trees”, big deal, seriously who can’t anymore, it isnt 1995 anymore. Website analytics and overall SEO has gotten to a more sophisticated level and should be thought and planned out well.
Discuss the overall strategy with your client’s goals and audience in mind then –Plan your work and work your plan - a real intelligent project manager professional once said.
If you have any better ideas on this topic, I would love to hear them. I am testing out a new strategy with a particular client and am always open to new and exciting ideas.
2008/23/September
I would like to update this entry - as it is now a year old and I have created a global strategy for Asia Pacific and Europac. First things first, yes, keywords still rule and one of the best keyword research tools, no not word tracker thank you, but Google Insight!
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