This has been occuring to me on and off lately, so I figured I'd start a discussion.
I've dealt with a some clients, talked to other consultants and generally have been around enough to form this opinion - and that's what it is, my own opinion.
I'm thinking it's time that smaller websites (take "smaller" as you like - I'm thinking "owned by a guy or two and growing slowly") really need to do a reality check before looking for a paid consultant or pro-SEO help of any kind.
Here's my arguement, to paraphrase an old racing axiom:
Speed costs money; how fast do you want to go?
This is not a new topic, either, just something that sprang to mind today while brushing my teeth.
Basically, it centers around a small website owner's desire to buy paid help for things like SEO work and PPC consulting/management.
No one will argue that sometimes paid help is the best route. Obviously we're all on our own to research consultants prior to giving over any money, but that rarely happens to the depth it should.
Take a recent situation I heard about:
Guy reaches out for paid help - wants SEO & PPC help for his site, he says. Consultant puts the plan together and says he'll cover the seo highlights (canonicalization issues, meta tags, directory submissions (free, not paid, in this case) & content creation and offer advice on effectively managing the PPC stuff. The consultant went to great lengths (he says) to explain that SEO results take time, and given the clients current issues with dupe content, not to expect things to be radically changed in 30 days, etc., etc. All basic stuff and both parties agreed to it and set payment as half up front, then at day 31 & 61, equal payments to cover the balance of the contract.
Time goes on, the work is getting done, but the consultant sees the client is slow to update the content on the pages. The consultant also learns, upon requesting the second payment, that this gent is NOT the person controlling the money at his end - that's a hidden partner.
The second payment comes through fine, but now the client wants coverage included for his blog, too - not talked about when the contract was signed. Fine, the consultant takes this on and starts offering the advice and direction.
During this time, the client is upset because the PPC is costing more than he'd like. The consultant explains that if that's what it costs to bid on the top phrases, there's little either of them can do. The consultant then offers a bunch of research phrases with lower CPCs and suggests the client bid on those, as the CPC per term is lower. The client loves this idea, until he sees his effective daily spend is "still too high". So the client really wanted cheap phrases, with no competition that converted well. Tough call. The consultant then learns that this exact combo is what the client had promised his "silent partner" could be found and capitalized on. Too bad it was going to take more than $100 per month to run it all...
So rolls day 61 - and no payment is forth coming. The consultant assumes this is because the new content is not yet fully completed for all the client's pages - if this is lagging, it's reasonable to assume the client may hold back the final payment. The consultant contacts the client to offer an update and revised timeline for the content, only to be told the client has hired another person to actually write the content - talk about a waste of time for the consultant.
The client then sends a request for more keyword research in another area and asks if the content created to this point would be considered duplicated in any way if it were used on, say, another domain. A light goes on in the consultant's head that the client is double-dipping on his work - but he chooses to let it go knowing it would indeed be dupe content - he tells the client this as well.
Now, for the directory submissions, the original agreement was to drop the site into the top 20 free directories, and the client would manage the paid-inclusion directories (I thought this prudent of the consultant given the client is not in charge of spending on this project - the purse-strings are held by another person entirely, remember). The consultant actually goes on to submit the client's site to about 50 or so free directories (nothing spam, just free only) since he now has time freed up from not having to create content.
So, the consultant has written off the final payment, the client has become non-responsive and things are generally in the crapper, as it were. The overall traffic from search engines is up for the client, but they're sour that PPC is expensive. Neither party is happy.
This story brings me back to my initial point - that about smaller websites being realistic about the costs and effects of hiring consultants to manage things.
Being small, they have less money to throw at things and generally want the most for the least. Couple this with many smaller sites wishing to "seem bigger", then reality setting in and details untold becoming obvious issues, it's a tough gig for both camps.
In the end I'm left thinking that given good SEO help usually costs a small fortune, what's the small website to do? It's tough enough stepping up to a level of spending of $2500 for most sites - and many SEOs don't work that cheap.
Consultants have an equally hard time as smaller sites tend to be privately owned/operated by one or two individuals, and this less-than-business-like behind the scenes setup often leads to problems as pros try to conduct proper business and site owners demand things after-contract. (I'm not saying ALL small site owners are not businesslike, just generalizing a point here - I've met plenty of site owners who are great at conducting business in a professional manner - they're just few & far between in my experience.)
In the end, that consultant I mentioned above ended up putting enough hours into the project (62 hours over 3 months), that after he wrote off the final payment, his value was sitting at $31 per hour. Far below the usual $100 per hour he strives for.
Now, stories are stories, but I see a couple of lessons in all this:
Smmll websites need to understand the value of what they're getting when they hire a pro - if they cannot afford it, fess up and learn it yourself.
SEOs need to know when to cut bait, or even better, how to effectively sound out potential clients. This consultant now asks clients up front who's writing the cheques - who is in charge of saying yes & no to the money. Simple thing, but it could have avoided issue had he asked up front.
Now, keep in mind a few things:
1 - I trust my sources/contacts/colleagues, so when they lay stuff like this out to me, I take it at face value.
2 - The thoughts in this post are my opinion - not any kind of slight on anyone - just an opinion.
3 - No matter the validity of the facts told to me and represented here, the lessons are still valuable.
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