Recently we wrote an article detailing our recent SEO and content success. In the article we mentioned that we fired our SEO company. We were frustrated because after nearly 12 months of work, this SEO company had produced no measurable results.
This upset some SEO folks.
So, in the coming days we’re going to focus on one simple question: how long does an SEO firm need to generate results?
This particular blog looks at that question from the perspective of an SEO’s client. Other blogs we write in the coming days and weeks will look at this question from the SEO’s perspective.
The Scenario
You’re a marketing executive at an SMB. You hire an SEO company to improve the visibility of your site, your rankings, your traffic, and your phone call volume.
You’re paying this SEO agency over $1000 each month. That’s a substantial chunk–maybe all–of your marketing budget.
You have weekly phone calls with the agency. They’ve been pretty vague about their general SEO strategy. You’re not quite sure what they’re doing, but they seem to know what they’re doing and they’re confident in their strategy (whatever it is).
3 weeks go by and not much improvement is apparent. Your keywords are not ranking higher. Your page rank has not increased, your traffic isn’t up, and your phone call volume is flat.
6 weeks go by and not much improvement is apparent. Your keywords are not ranking higher. Your page rank has not increased, your traffic isn’t up, and your phone call volume is flat.
3 months go by and not much improvement is apparent. Your keywords are not ranking higher. Your page rank has not increased, your traffic isn’t up, and your phone call volume is flat.
At this point the CEO is wondering why you aren’t seeing results yet. He’s wondering if this $1,000+ each month is being spent wisely. You’re starting to feel some pressure. Not a lot. But some.
Every phone call with the agency goes the same way. You hear two things from them:
– “SEO takes time. We’re building a strong long term SEO strategy for you. In the long run this will pay off.”
– “Your backlinks are increasing and your rankings will soon follow.”
6 months go by and not much improvement is apparent. Your keywords are not ranking higher. Your page rank has not increased, your traffic isn’t up, and your phone call volume is flat.
9 months go by and not much improvement is apparent . Your keywords are not ranking higher. Your page rank has not increased, your traffic isn’t up, and your phone call volume is flat.
Same. Thing. Every. Month.
By this point you’re frustrated. Your CEO is frustrated. How long do you let this continue?You’ve now spent nearly $10,000 on SEO and you have literally nothing to show for it. Heck, for $10,000 you could have gone out and purchased 500 opt-in leads from reputable sources at $20/lead.
Instead you spent that money on SEO.
The Recap and The Question
The scenario above is not far-fetched.
And again, our purpose here is not to pile on SEO companies. Many of our clients and resellers are SEO companies.Rather, it is to ask the question: how much time should you give an SEO company? And to SEO companies the question is: how much time do you need?
I’m curious to read your comments.
In the coming weeks we’re going to have SEO experts and SEO agencies answer this same question on our blog: how much time does an SEO firm need to demonstrate results?
Hello,
I work for an SMB and am working to improve their SEO presence via keyword optimization on the website, optimized home pages to increase enrollments in our product, link building and landing pages.
I read your post about why you fired your SEO firm, but it seems to only be related to the fact that your blog yielded better results. This makes sense since google crawls relevant content, but what if you don’t have or need a blog? What would you suggest doing then?
What strategies was your SEO company that didn’t work? Was it PPC, irrelevant keyword suggestions? Did they ever mention creating original content or was this something another member of your team came up with?
I’d like to learn what NOT to do when helping an SMB with SEO please.
Thanks!
12 months to see an improvement in rankings is too much. I wonder if the company believed they could make a difference before they took the project on.
A lot of SEO firms take clients on first and then worry about if they have the resource or the know how to get them the rankings second.