College Football is back tonight with Utah vs. Pittsburgh. Other local games this weekend include BYU vs. Washington and Utah State vs. Oklahoma. Everything is right in the world again.

In honor of college football’s return, here are the position-by-position starters if Internet marketing strategies made up a football team:

Head Coach – Analytics and A/B Testing

The head coach analyzes everything and makes changes to improve. Analytics and testing gives you the stats, tells you what is working, where people are coming from, how long they’ve been on the site, what is bringing traffic and what converts best. Through analytics and testing, you can tweak strategies to be more successful.

Assistant Coach – Competitive Analysis

The assistant coach often scouts out the competition to know how to beat the bad guys. A detailed competitive analysis will reveal the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors so you can know how and where to strike.

Offensive Starters – Building the Brand, Getting Exposure and Outbound Marketing

Quarterback – SEO

Arguably, the quarterback position is the most important position on the field. Top quarterbacks win games despite weaknesses in other areas of the team. If you get top rankings for the right keywords, you will get more website traffic and sales. All-Pro SEO services will almost instantly make you a major player in your industry. Quarterbacks are also the face of a team. Similarly, organic natural results act as the face of your company

Running Back – Conversion Optimization

There are crucial times in any football game where a team needs 1 yard for a first down or a few inches to score a touchdown. A dependable running back will get that extra yardage almost every time. Conversion optimization plays that role for your website. Once you get that extra website traffic, you need dependable website conversion principles to take that visitor into the end zone.

Fullback – Web Design

Fullbacks are often the lead blocker that clears the way for the running back to get that extra yard. Good SEO Web design clears the way for everything else to work right.

Wide Receiver — Social Media Marketing

Fast wide receivers can change the game with one quick-striking score. Good social media marketing using viral video, infographics, blog posts, etc., can quickly send a lot of traffic and create a ton of exposure in a short period of time. Social media can be a game changer just like a flashy wide receiver that blows past the defense.

Tight End – Online Public Relations

Tight ends are instrumental in blocking for the quarterback and running backs. But they also consistently score touchdowns and get first downs in tight situations. Tight ends are critical in clutch moments whether it’s a run or pass play. Online public relations have the same dependability. Online PR doesn’t always results in a home run, but it does consistently bring good traffic quality links. And sometimes online PR scores a touchdown by getting the attention of big blogs and publications. Online PR is the go-to weapon in tight situations when you need good links, and more traffic and exposure.

Offensive Line – Keyword Research

The offensive line is the foundation of every football team. They give the quarterback time to throw and open holes for the running backs. Games are won and lost in the trenches, and they are similar won and lost with the right or wrong keyword research. Every search strategy revolves around picking the right keywords to target. Targeting the right keywords will make you a lot of money. The wrong keywords will keep you guessing and will lose you money.

Defensive Starters, Protecting Your Online Brand

Defensive Line – Reputation Management

The defensive line is the literally first line of defense. Any offense will roll over a team with a pansy D-line. For online marketing, this is similar to reputation management. It’s the foundation to defending your brand online.

Line Backer – Link Building

I chose this mostly because linebackers and link building have the same abbreviation: LB. So, you can come up with your own analogy on this one.

Corner Back – Social Media Profiles

Corner backs protect the pass and are sometimes the secret weapon on a corner blitz to reach the quarterback. I compare this to social media profiles. An active profile that provides valuable information and brings in fans, is a big part of protecting your brand and company. Social profiles are usually found high in the search engines for a company’s name. Plus, social media is all the buzz right now. In the sports world, corner backs are usually the guys with all the hype.

Safety – PPC

The Safety position is self-explanatory. The Safety has a lot of roles, but is there to basically defend wherever things break down. That’s what PPC is for. A good mix of PPC with your SEO will make sure you get the right exposure and traffic while you work on getting your SEO rankings where you want them.

Kicker/Punter – Local Search and Maps Optimization

A good kicker can nail a field goal in clutch situations or pin a team near the end zone on a good punt. Local Internet marketing places your website in the right spot for local shoppers to find your business and buy your products.

You have been waiting for it all summer and now it is finally here! My follow up post to SEO for eCommerce Part One: Content Woes. Before I go into details on the next biggest problem with eCommerce sites and search indexing, I will take a few minutes to reply to some of the questions that were asked after the last post.

Question: Can you copy website content and then edit it?

Yes you can copy website content and edit it. If you edit the content that was copied enough, then it will become unique content and can be used on your website.

Question: What do I recommend for link building to eCommerce sites that don’t have real linkable content?

The trick to getting links is to generate content that is “linkable.” Content can be generated through blogs, articles, buyer’s guides and knowledge bases. These types of features on eCommerce sites are great for building “linkable” content and they can also help you stand out as the expert in your industry.

Question: How different do the descriptions have to be?

Sometimes all it takes is some rewording of a couple of sentences to make product descriptions unique enough. One easy way to get unique content is to read the manufacturer’s description and then write it from your memory. In most cases you will not be able to remember everything word for word and your version will be different enough from the manufacturer’s.

Thank you everyone for your questions and comments. Now I am going to describe the next problem that occurs frequently with eCommerce websites: poor site structure.

Poor Site Structure

The problem of poor site structure occurs with eCommerce sites when the navigation of the site makes it difficult for search engine crawlers to find the product pages of the website. Standard eCommerce website designs will employ a category and subcategory system that helps the visitor to browse by narrowing their options until they find what they are looking for. The flaw in such a system is that it requires that a search engine crawler travel too deep into the site to find the product pages.

How do You Know if a Crawler is Traveling too Deep?

One indicator is the Page Rank score of the page. You can find the Page Rank score of any page on a website by simply visiting the page with the Google toolbar installed on your browser. Pages that are not too deep will usually have a Page Rank score. There are other factors that could cause a page to not have a Page Rank score so this indicator isn’t 100% reliable. My rule of thumb for determining if a page is too deep is to count how many pages I have to visit before getting to the product page. If it is more than three pages deep then it is too deep for the search engine crawler.

How do You Correct the Site Structure?

The simple answer to the question about correcting the site structure is to tell you to make your product pages no more than 3 pages deep. But I know that this isn’t always a simple fix. Some websites are huge with millions of products. Creating a site structure that consists of one level of categories and then the products would create pages with thousands of links. This is where it will require a carefully planned link structure.

• Code the main site navigation using SEO friendly CSS so that you can include expanding sub-navigation menus.
• Include featured product links on the homepage and main category pages of the site to promote better indexing of popular products.
• Use blog posts, articles and buyer’s guides to link to specific product pages.
• Add a quick bookmarking widget to your product pages so they can easily be bookmarked and shared on social networking sites.
• Include an HTML sitemap (or multiple sitemaps depending on the size of the website).

The main thing to remember with site structure is that you want to make it easy for both a search engine crawler and a customer to find any product you sell on your website. Go through your site and see how easy it is for you to find your products. Ask friends and other family members to do the same. They can give you good feedback and help you find places you could change to make your eCommerce site both user and search engine friendly.

One the largest hurdles in getting a website to rank well and make money for a client, can be the client themselves. It is hard to watch a well-meaning client get in their own way and not know it. For that reason I am writing this post to help them understand what they can do (and not do) to make sure that they get the most out of their money when they hire an seo firm.

Choosing the right keywords

One of the most common mistakes that I see clients make when working with an seo company, or doing their own search engine optimization, is picking the wrong keywords. It is easy to become blinded by massive projected traffic numbers instead of focusing on the real number that matters – sales.

I have seen this happen repeatedly. Let me set this up for you. Here is a mock phone conversation after the SEO company has done some keyword research and recommended the appropriate keywords to the client:

Client:  “I would like to target keywords x,y,z.”
SEO Company:  “While the research does show that those will bring traffic, I am not sure those are the right keywords to target for sales.”
Client:  “I know my industry and those are the keywords I need to show up for.”
SEO Company:  “Okay.”

…After months of hard work that has resulted in top rankings for the client’s given keywords:

Client:  “I am not seeing a good enough return on my investment with you to justify continuing. My sales have not increased significantly and it certainly is not enough to cover my contract with you, let alone make money. You have been working on this for several months now and I am not seeing how search engine optimization has helped me at all.”
SEO Company:  “Well, we have gotten the top rankings for the keywords you asked for and your traffic has increased, but perhaps we should look at now optimizing for the other keywords that we recommended.”
Client:  “No, I don’t think that will help.”

The mistake clients make with keywords is demanding that the SEO marketing company target their efforts on broad keywords that will not translate into sales. A better strategy is to start with a list of longer tail keywords to target. These keywords are the ones that will have a much higher conversion rate and they almost always are easier to rank for. You are much more likely to see a positive ROI by using this strategy.

Not making the Recommended Changes To Their Site

There will always need to be changes made to a site for optimization purposes. One of the ways that a client gets in their own way is in their refusal or slow implementation of those changes. It is important that once some recommendations have been made, the changes are made as soon as possible. The longer it takes to make the changes the slower the rankings will come and the longer it will be to see a return on the investment.

Resist Adding Content

In order to get rankings for certain keywords it is necessary to have content that revolves around the keywords that you are trying to rank for. Often there will be recommendations to add or alter content to the site. If content is recommended as part of an SEO campaign, it is important to add it. if some alterations are recommended, then make those. If you are concerned with the recommendation, discuss it and come to some compromise that will work for you and the SEO firm, but do not resist the change all together.

Communication

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate! One of the most frustrating things for an Internet marketing company is to have a client’s campaign slowed or stopped due to a lack of response from a client. Understand that if you are not answering their emails and phone calls, then they are likely at a standstill on your SEO campaign.

On the other hand, some clients are a little too eager to communicate. As a client, you should feel comfortable to call or email them whenever you need to. But remember they only have a certain amount of time each day to do the work, and the more hours they spend on the phone with you or replying to your emails, the less time they will have to get the work done.

Micromanaging

It is important to understand the strategy that your SEO company is using, but if you are a client that must approve every little move, then you are getting in the way. Remember that they are the experts and they have done this more than once.

By micromanaging you may cause delays because they are waiting for your approval. You have a business to run. Do your due diligence before hiring any Internet marketing company and then trust that the company you have hired knows what they are doing and can get you the results that you are seeking. Discuss with them what kinds of things you want to approve and then let them do their job.

SALT LAKE CITY — Up until now, SEO.com’s clientele was mostly made up of larger corporations and businesses with a bigger marketing budget. With one partnership, that’s all changed.

SEO.com has partnered with Boostability.com, a local Internet marketing firm with a proprietary SEO platform, to offer clients Google maps optimization and other local Internet marketing services.

“We’ve been seeking out a partner that could be a service provider for small, local accounts,” said Chris Knudsen, vice president of marketing. “We’ve found that in Boostability. They have great software, an equally great background in search, and a management team and product that will deliver results.”

The affiliation comes after SEO.com experienced multiple years of rapid growth and is on track for a record year. In the last two years, the SEO company increased its monthly revenue by 600 percent and went from 12 employees to nearly 70 – and is still aggressively hiring.

This April, SEO.com was named the No. 2 SEO firm by Website Magazine. The SEO company has been listed among the top 10 SEO firms in the country by PromotionWorld, and one of the top 25 fastest growing companies in Utah by the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum two years running, including No. 6 in 2010. SEO.com also has been named among the Emerging Elite by MountainWest Capital Network.

Through this partnership, SEO.com is now offering local search services (including local SEO and maps optimization) ranging from $200 to $1500 a month, in combination with its proven enterprise offerings. Boostability will fulfill the service for SEO.com and will greatly benefit from the addition of many new clients every year.

“Given our incredible lead flow and reputation, we will now be able to service thousands of new accounts though this partnership,” said Nelson James, president of SEO.com. “We are pleased about being able to provide the value and benefit that comes from SEO to even more businesses in need.”

“We’re excited to be a part of what SEO.com is doing, and to help both sides continue to grow,” said Travis Thorpe, CEO of Boostability. “They will be able to leverage our proprietary technology and we’ll benefit by getting more customers as a part of their brand.”

About Boostability.com
Boostability provides SEO technology and fulfillment services for agencies, media companies, and phone book (yellow pages) providers. Using proprietary technology it delivers cost-effective and scalable SEO solutions.

About SEO.com
SEO.com is a search marketing firm that delivers a big ROI for its clients by driving traffic to their websites through aggressive search engine optimization, pay per click management, and social media marketing. SEO.com then turns those visitors into sales through search-optimized Web design and conversion optimization. Clients range from small startups to Fortune 100 companies.

Don’t Blindly Trust your Data

Too often, webmasters and even Internet marketers put too much trust into the data that their Google Analytics accounts are reporting; especially if they see traffic increasing.

For example, I recently ran across an account that looked like it just exploded with additional visits and revenue from organic sources.

From every angle I was looking at, it simply looked like everything was working the way it should. Organic traffic was up, PPC was up, even direct traffic and referral traffic was looking great.

However, it was just too good to let it go without investigation. It wasn’t until I looked at the PPC accounts that I noticed anything was wrong. The PPC account was turned on the very same day that the traffic started to spike. In fact, the traffic graphs were pretty much identical, showing a strong correlation between the PPC being turned on and the traffic we saw coming in.

It was clear that something was off. WAY off. But was it Google’s fault? Not really. Turns out their PPC wasn’t being associated with their account, effectively skewing the organic results.

Now we get to the fun part, where I fixed the problem. In order to make sure that the traffic was pure coming into Google analytics, I changed all of the URLs in their PPC account to tracking URLs, using Google’s URL builder. Let’s look at how we build these URL’s.

Google Analytics and Tracking URLs

The good news is that this is a really automatic process, and only requires a few bits of information (once you get the hang of it, you may not even need to use the builder). You’ll need to input the following information:

• Website URL – Input your desired landing page URL
• Campaign Source – Type in where your visits will be coming from. If it’s going to be Yahoo’s PPC, then type in Yahoo.
• Campaign Medium – Here you want to the medium that is sending the traffic to your site. If it’s a banner ad, then type in “banner”. If it’s cost per click advertising with Bing or Yahoo (or even Google), then type in “cpc”.
• Campaign Name – Type a name that will help you distinguish the traffic from other campaigns and stay organized.

The other two options, Campaign Term and Campaign Content will allow you to distinguish a keyword you want associated with the particular landing page and the content of the ad used.

Results

Once I fixed the URLs and inputted them into the PPC campaign, the Analytics data seemed to return to normal. Note how the traffic drastically changed once the change was made:

Other Applications

Sometimes, when I share this awesome URL builder with others, they think it’s just for PPC purposes. It’s actaully robust enough to handle just about any marketing effort. Here are some common uses:

• Banner Ads
• Newsletters
• Email Marketing
• PDF Files and Brochures
• Sponsored listings (not paid links!)
• Social Media campaigns (such as twitter tweets)

If you have any other ideas on how to use this nifty, sometimes underrated tool, leave a comment.

This is part two in a series of four posts on understanding the realities and challenges of split testing to improve your website’s conversion rate. If you missed part one of the series, you can read it here.

Once you’ve determined that your site gets enough traffic to support a reasonably short testing cycle (if it’s going to take six months, you may want to reevaluate your test), you’re ready to flesh out your testing ideas and go for it. A word to the wise, however:

Coming up with ideas is the easy part. Coming up with good ideas is a little bit harder.

When you catch the bug and get excited about split testing on your website or external landing pages, it will be very easy to jot down a lot of ideas for things you’d like to test.

As you’re compiling these ideas, make sure you’re focused on improving the user experience rather than hoping that “different” will magically equate to “better.” Lance Loveday, conversion expert and co-author of “Web Design for ROI” calls this “testing among good options.” Unfocused testing wastes valuable time and opportunity, so make your tests count!

One of the most common examples of unfocused testing is changing colors – button color, logo color, general Web page color schemes, etc. Once in a while, a color test may be appropriate and effective, but this is the exception rather than the rule.

A good example of an exception in this case would be if the color of a button impedes the ability of a user to easily recognize it on the page or read the button’s call to action. I recently discovered some yellow buttons with white text that were somewhat difficult to read without squinting. In this case, it would be wise to test a darker button color or text color to see if darker buttons would produce a significant lift in click-throughs.

However, it’s a good bet that this sort of test would not be a good idea if you’re thinking, “I’m tired of this light blue. Let’s spice things up and try a deep red instead.” Changing colors purely on the basis of personal aesthetic preference is not likely to make an impact on your website conversion rate.

The Takeaway

You’re more likely to have success testing intelligent changes to elements of your website that have a significant impact on the user experience: your headlines and messaging, page layouts, calls to action, and other elements that impact a visitor’s perception of your benefits and ability to fill needs and add value.

Photo by B Tal on flickr

For those who missed the first post, here is the debate: Are 301 redirects of the non-www version of the site needed, or still considered best practice? If not, what do you recommend? Is the Canonical replacing the need for the 301?

After reading the responses and looking further into the situation, I’m going to share 4 reasons the 301 redirect of the www/non-www is a must.

Get robots to the right address

One of the fundamental elements in search engine optimization is making the indexation of a website as easy as possible. That is why we create the Robots.txt file and the XML sitemap. I think the 301 redirect of the non-www to the www or visa-versa, is on the same level of creating ease for the search engines.

Many expressed this, and I agree that the search engines are getting smarter and don’t need the redirect in place to understand what is going on. However, I am a believer that you are rewarded for making their job easier. There are other ways to help the Google and Bing know which version of the site is correct — Webmaster Tools being one. However, nothing is more telling to the search engine then the 301 redirect. Why make the search engines guess?

Links to the Right Address

There are many who worry about not getting the full link juice of redirected anchor text links. However, I think Kris Roadruck hit the nail on the head in his comment when he said, “Doing [the redirect] can help would-be linkers know which is the proper address to use when linking.”

Many times when I build a link for my blog or for a client, I simply copy and paste the URL straight out of the address bar. If the 301 redirect isn’t in place, there is know way to tell if you should build links to the www or non-www version of the site. Even if you believe the link juice doesn’t get divided between the different versions of the site, getting the right link from the beginning is still ideal and should prove to be more beneficial.

Where the Link Juice Flows

Having the canonical in place is not a good enough solution to simply replace the 301. If you are skeptical of the link juice being passed through a 301, than I would think that you would be even more skeptical of the link juice that passes through a canonical tag.

The canonical makes for a good safety net overall — if you forget to redirect the /index.html or something to the home page, for example. But when it comes to how the search engines treat a canonical, I tend to be just as leery as Ian Lurie. For one, the canonical tag is newer to search. Not all engines are treating the canonical equally. Sure Google says its almost equal to a 301, but that isn’t how Bing sees it.

And Quick Note on Branding

This may not relate exactly to the debate, but since I received a comment about it from Bill French I thought I would talk about the topic of branding. Although Bill may be correct that the non-www version of the site is cleaner, and the www is no longer necessary, I really believe that having the www in place will be more beneficial for link building purposes.

This is why: like I said before, I copy and paste almost all of my URLs from the address bar. However, when it is a top level domain, and I’m pretty confident in its spelling, I’ll type them out. I am so ingrained in typing the www into the hyperlink, I rarely go back to check if it is right or not. Once again link juice aside, you probably have a better chance of getting exact links to the site when you use the www.

En Fin

Overall, the 301 is such a simple thing to implement, that I can’t see why anyone would not put it in place. Overall, I think the pros of redirecting the non-www version of the site to the www out weigh the cons.

Special Thank You

I wanted to give a special thanks to all those that participated in the debate (Nothing says thank you like a link):
Kris Roadruck
Ash Buckles
Rick Hardman
Matt Siltala
Andy (Didn’t provide me a link)
Jill Whalen
Hugo from Zetaq
David Leonhardt
Sam McRoberts
Jacob Stoops
Kelly Hammer
Bill French
John Andrews
knutselen
Michael @ Email Marketing

photo by Marco Bellucci on Flickr

Back Story

Last week, I wrote a post about quick and easy ways to see if a page was optimized. My second point was about checking for the 301 redirects of the non-www version of the site. It’s simple and in most cases it is one of the first things that an SEO would do to optimize a site, right? However, I was a little surprised about some of the comments I got: “The 301 redirect from the non-www to the www is actually not necessary in most cases these days.”

Now I know the engines are getting smarter and don’t need the 301s in place. But really, are we not even recommending it anymore? Hence the dilemma:

The Debate

Are 301 redirects of the non-www version of the site needed, or still considered best practice? If not, what do you recommend?

Different Idea

One of the commenter’s gave this idea:

“We are working in a linking environment where 301’s have been noted to pass no anchor text and possibly less link juice than believed. If you take this into account, you might see that automatically 301ing www/non-www URLs could reduce a site’s link juice over time.”

Instead, they recommend leaving out the 301s and implement the canonicals.

Let the Debate Begin

Ok, so now is the time for you to respond, and leave your mark on history . Next week, I’ll mull over all that you have to say, and give my fully educated opinion on the subject.

Thanks in advance,
David

It’s not all rainbows and fluffy bunnies, however. There are challenges that can sabotage otherwise promising split testing efforts. Awareness of these challenges will help you avoid some of the common pitfalls.

Here’s Part 1 in a four-part series:

Your website needs robust traffic to support a reasonable testing cycle.

If your website is brand new, it’s likely that you don’t have enough traffic to make split testing worthwhile. The more time it takes to complete a split test, the less valid your test result is likely to be because external factors can influence results.

These external factors are things like shifts in market demand (seasonality is a common example of this) and external media factors.

Want to know how long your test might take to reach a valid conclusion? Here’s how to figure it out:

1. Figure out how many test combinations you want to run. If you want to test one variation, that’s two combinations because you always test against the current version.
2. Calculate how much traffic per day passes through the test page. More traffic means the test will take less time, everything else being equal.
3. What percentage of traffic do want to include in the test? Exposing only a fraction of your traffic to the test will reduce the risk of your test negatively impacting revenue, but also increases the amount of time needed for your test.
4. What is the current conversion rate of this page? Whatever your success metric is, you need to know the performance benchmark you’re trying to beat.
5. What is your expected rate of improvement? The improvement needs to be high enough to have a measurable impact on your business. If a 10% improvement doesn’t offset the cost of executing the test, you need to aim higher.

Google provides a free test duration calculator that does the complex math for you. Just punch in the numbers to see how many days your test will likely have to run. If you need to decrease the duration, you can choose to run fewer test combinations or increase the percentage of traffic included in the test.

The Truth

The truth of the matter is that most ad agencies only added SEO as a service because they were forced to by their demanding clientele. Most traditional agencies are not equipped with the tools and experience to successfully implement a good SEO campaign. Digital marketing, whether it be SEO, PPC, CRO or Social Media is quite different than traditional marketing, and though your agency might be great at the print work and media buying, they don’t have the ability to take on the Web.

These days SEO is becoming as much a catch phrase as it is a vital online marketing strategy. Today, without even fully understanding what it is, companies are demanding an SEO campaign from their traditional ad agencies, even if the agency isn’t prepared.

So before you sign on with your traditional ad agency for SEO, here is a quick checklist to see if they know their SEO. The easiest way to do that is to see if they are doing SEO for themselves. Because if they claim SEO is important for you, then shouldn’t it be important for them?

1) Page Titles

Take a look at the page titles of the site. You’ll find these in the top of your Web browser. Page titles are the most important aspect of on-page optimization, and any site that has been optimized for the search engines will have a unique title for every page of the website. I have seen a lot of agencies that completely lack targeted titles, and often their title will only be the company name.

2) 301 Redirect to the www-version of the site

Another way to check their on-page optimization is to see if the non-www version of a website redirects to the www version, or vice-versa.

You can check this by simply removing or adding “www.” to the address bar of the site. If the URL changes from what you had when you hit enter, then a redirect is in place, and the site is properly optimized.

Their Content

Content is the ad agency’s greatest fear. Text is drab on their creativity. It is boring, and it doesn’t get read. Most ad agencies really have a hard time putting content in its place, and they prefer the “flash-and-wow” or shock and awe aspects of a site. They feel it is a chance to show off their skills and creativity.

For SEO, content is crucial. If a company is optimizing their site, they should have a good amount of content describing their services. Not only should you find content, but hopefully you’ll find a structure to it as well. Typically you should see individual pages for every service they offer. The PR service should have its own page, graphic design should have its own, and web dev, media buying, and every other service should have its own page.

This is important because it means more pages are optimized for certain groups of keywords, which is essential for an SEO campaign. Content is good, but structured content is optimized.

4) Length of Service Offered

When talking to the sales team of an agency, you need to find out how committed the company is to your SEO campaign. Search Engine Optimization is not an overnight process, and your ad agency should not treat it like one. In other words, your agency shouldn’t offer SEO services for a one-time fee. If they do, you know they are not committed to your campaign.

5) Where Do They Rank?

Do they put their money where their mouth is? They say they offer SEO, and theoretically they should be doing SEO for themselves, right? So ask them: “Where do you rank for your keywords?” If they are doing well then they should brag about it. If they avoid the question and don’t have a good answer for you, than take it for what it is. If they give you an answer like: “We’re so busy doing client work, we don’t have time to do our own marketing!” (I have heard this many times) then you may want to do more shopping for your SEO services. In the end, I think it is a fair question to ask. NOTE:Ranking for your own branded business name doesn’t count as ranking well for key-terms.

En Fin

SEO can be a great fit for marketing agencies that are looking to offer more digital and online solutions for their clientele. Agencies that don’t currently offer these services may feel pressure to start because of the high demand. However, one of my personal pet-peeves is seeing companies that don’t “practice what they preach.” So many of the ad agencies that are starting to offer SEO are so blatantly bad at it on there own sites, that I cringe to think what kind of work they are doing for their clients.

A Little FYI

If you are an agency looking to keep up with the digital demands of your clients, SEO.com can help. We offer a partner program where we can help you look like the hero you really are. SEO.com has partnered with big time agencies across the country to help out a wide variety of clients. If you need help, don’t be afraid to ask.