What Entourage’s Vinny Chase can teach you about selecting an SEO Company

April 30, 2008

So what does selecting an SEO company have to do with Vinny Chase? I’ll tell you, but first watch this video then read the inspiration below:

If you were Vinny, how would that experience have helped or not helped you choose an agent?

Here’s how this came to me…

This week we turned down the opportunity to work with a great organization because they required us to come in with a presentation for their selection committee. We don’t have canned presentations for “pitches.” Instead we like to sit down with a potential client figure out who they are, what makes them unique, what their needs are and THEN see if we are a good fit to help. After explaining this, it was still required for “participating firms” to have a thirty minute presentation or the deal was off (yes it had to be 30 minutes). So for now we walked away (remember walking away from deals is one of my ways to grow a stress free agency.)

When I am given the opportunity to speak with people about SEO/SEM, I tell all of them that the decision of selecting a search company is one that will be made with the GUT. Why? Because every SEO/SEM company is going to sound the same, talk the same game, and use the same shtick.

Every company will have slides on:
• The team’s experience
• How they alter on-site factors
• Their linking strategy
• Results for past clients
• Bid management
• Blah, blah, blah

While some may have one or two unique features, most people purchasing search marketing services (especially SEO) still don’t have enough knowledge of the space to know if those differentiating factors mean anything to their bottom line.

At the end of the lineup, most search companies will sound the same, leaving you to scratch your head and say, “What now. They all sound the same, so how do I pick?”

For those of you seeking great search companies, you will need to be Vinny Chase. Look for the company that shows some passion, something different, and is at least somewhat discriminating about the opportunities they take on.

If you want a second or third place search firm, ask them to come in and do a presentation or answer an RFP. The ones that jump at the opportunity without qualifying you are hungry for business.

In the search space where rip off artists are everywhere, the GOOD search companies that you WANT to work with will at least want to speak with you before running off to blindly answer an RFP/presentation. The ones that come on in with presentation in hand without first asking you about your goals and how you plan on achieving them, etc, etc might be dangerous, so do your due diligence on them.

All in all, If you want to make Medellin you need Billy Walsh (), not some suit!

Finally, let’s not forget the lesson learned at the end of this episode: After seeing so many canned, unoriginal presentations, Vinny decided to stay with Ari. When he arrived at Ari’s office to tell him, Ari proceeded to deliver the exact same type of canned presentation as all of his competition, prompting Vinny to can him!

The client may think they want a full presentation at the beginning of their search for a great SEO company, like Vinny thought when he began his search for a new agent, but they’re better off getting a company that doesn’t try to fit themselves into a mold and actually takes a chance doing something unique.

Inspiration for this post:
Rachael Levenson – she brought up this episode while in the car coming back from a results & ROI review up with a current client. Rachael, we gotta take more road trips!

Entourage – please come back soon. Without The Wire, Sopranos, and Sex & the City, the lineup is looking weak.

Posted by wil at 4:06pm
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$0.76 / gallon gas in Philly. No mistake, no Photoshop

April 25, 2008

As a celebration for the 76ers being in the playoffs, a local Philadelphia gas station is selling gas for $0.76 per gallon for exactly 76 minutes today. Three hours ahead of time, the line of cars already extended over three blocks, with everyone waiting anxiously to get their cheap gas and celebrate Philadelphia sports teams.

Obviously this isn’t the typical SEO and SEM update we post on our blog, but we’re not just SEO consultants – We’re Philadelphia enthusiasts who know just how heartbreaking it can be to be a Philly sports fan and are happy to celebrate Philadelphia whenever there’s a good reason.

Having trouble loading the image. Here it is in flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/53439828@N00/2441351608/

Posted by adamm at 12:57pm
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10 Reasons Why EVERYONE Should Love PPC

April 21, 2008

Being a PPC marketer, I guess you could say I am a bit biased when it comes to thinking of reasons why everyone else should love PPC. It’s hard to imagine when you are entrenched in the industry, but those same simple reasons why we PPC marketers love the industry are not always so apparent to everyone else. In fact, most times, they are not known at all. Inspired by my recent SES NY attendance, I quickly realized that the best part of actually sitting down to think about these reasons, is that I began to conceptualize that somehow not only have some of these reasons slipped by business owners (read: potential clients), but have often times they’ve slipped by them because us (PPC marketers) often forget how important these reasons are to share with our (potential) clients.

Trying to narrow the list to just 10 was a bit difficult, but I was able to manage (Again, I’m biased - I could probably create a never ending list).

1. YOU have the Control – There are very few mediums of marketing where you have COMPLETE control over your users. PPC gives you the ability to choose your target audience, choose regions, choose the ads they see, choose what you are willing to pay to show your audience those ads, choose your budget limit, choose when you’d like your ads to show and the list goes on and on….

2.You can take IMMEDIATE action – Say you turn on an ad and it fails horribly. You are not bond by any out-clauses, contracts, etc. to keep that ad running and wasting your money. Simply TURN IT OFF. Not to mention, you can respond to offline events more quickly with PPC than with any other medium. This blog written by my colleague is a perfect example of how you can capitalize on offline events.

3.You can test, EASILY and QUICKLY – There are unlimited possibilities when it comes to testing. Maybe you have new promotions you want to test, new ad copy, or new landing pages. Tools such as Google’s Website Optimizer allow you to quickly and efficiently run landing page tests (for FREE). In addition to the above testing options, you can quickly test terms you may be considering to target with an SEO campaign. If those terms aren’t driving conversions from PPC, you probably don’t want to spend the time or resources to launch an SEO campaign for those terms.

4. Try NEW markets – If you are launching your products in new markets, be it new countries, new age groups, etc. you can quickly test the success rate in those markets with PPC at a fraction of the cost, before launching a full blown marketing campaign.

5. Run Promotions – Have a last minute promotion? You can develop an ad and tweak your landing page within minutes to run new promotions. Not to mention you can use geo-targeting to tailor your promotions to specific regions if necessary.

6. It’s COST EFFICIENT – When you compare PPC to other advertising mediums, such as online banners, it is typical to see a much higher return on investment. Also for companies that may have a limited, you can run a very tightly targeted campaign. Whereas with online banners, geo-targeting actually drives your cost UP.

7. It’s RESULTS DRIVEN (not to mention you see results in (almost) real time) – You can easily track down to the exact conversion with PPC. If a certain campaign is not performing well, you have various choices to cut the inefficient spend. For example; reallocate your budget, try new landing pages, try new ad copy, etc. Real time reporting also allows you to see if campaigns are performing quickly. Those that are performing under metric can be identified within a few hours and turned off immediately.

8. Content networks – Coming from a media background, I know that top-quality media buys (banner advertising) can run a high tab. The Content networks offer you a relatively similar advertising experience for a much lower cost.

9. You can easily EXPAND your business – Companies now have the world at their fingertips and are able to reach markets with PPC that before may never have been possible due to the high cost to penetrate those markets.

10. The market is CONTINUING TO GROW despite economic conditions – When looking at at stats of Search Engine growth over the past few years, I am blown away with the continual upward growth we have seen and are continuing to see. The most surprising data is the prediction of continued advertising growth despite the economic downturn we are currently experiencing (granted certain industries may be hit harder than others). I found some interesting research from The Wall Street Journal regarding this issue.

While this list can certainly be expanded, the above reasons can serve as a brief reminder for PPC marketers on why we should continue to stand behind, and promote our industry.

Posted by Crystal at 5:57pm
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Being Arrogant - A great way to lose on the web (Omniture Vs. IndexTools)

April 15, 2008

Since I don’t really “DO” web analytics and instead advise from a distance, maybe I am uninformed, but after reading this blog post it got me thinking about this quote in particular from a person at Omniture on the recent purchase of Indextools:

Posted by wil at 11:15am
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