(Cross-posted on the Inside AdWords and the Agency Ad Solutions blogs) As the advertising industry has grown and evolved, so too has our relationship with advertising agencies. These companies, from SEMs to the largest traditional agencies, play a critical role in the continued success of Google, our advertisers and our industry — so we spend a lot of time talking to agencies about how we can make it easier for them to work with us and our advertisers. We’ve had a lot of great feedback from agencies and today we’re announcing changes designed to offer them better training and more rigorous certification in AdWords proficiency, and to lower costs for those who help advertisers get the most out of AdWords. We’re also making it easier for advertisers to find certified agency partners to work with them on digital advertising. Here’s an overview of what’s changing today. Raising the bar for Google AdWords Certification We’re retiring our long-standing Google Advertising Professionals (GAP) program and replacing it with a new Google AdWords Certification program for those managing AdWords accounts on behalf of advertisers. The new program provides agencies and their employees with more up-to-date, comprehensive, strategy-focused training and certification on the latest tools and best practices for managing AdWords accounts, including: New training materials to help agencies better understand recent changes in search marketing and AdWords functionality, available via webinar series, learning center, or on-site training at Google More challenging certification exams to test practical application of knowledge and best practices (rather than simple recall of knowledge) Advanced-level exams to highlight competency in search, display, reporting and analysis A redesigned Certified Partner badge, which includes a “Click to Verify” element so advertisers can view the partner’s profile page for additional information. For more information on the AdWords Certification Program or to create an account, visit the Google Certification program site and help center . Helping advertisers find Google Certified Partners Google Certified Partners can opt in to Google Partner Search , an online, searchable directory that helps advertisers identify Certified Partners that meet their criteria. Small and medium-sized advertisers who haven’t previously used an agency have told us that evaluating potential partners can be a daunting task, so we think Google Partner Search will be especially valuable for them. To show up in advertiser searches through Google Partner Search, agencies must opt in and fill in details about their core attributes and capabilities. Searches can be filtered by location, agency experience within a particular budget range, the types of services provided and the industry verticals an agency serves. Advertisers can then evaluate the list of Certified Partners that meet their criteria and contact the partners who seem best suited to their needs. To learn more about Google Partner Search, visit the help center . Introducing preferred AdWords API pricing The Google AdWords API allows developers to build applications that interact directly with the AdWords platform. Agencies and developers of search engine marketing tools use these applications to manage large AdWords campaigns more efficiently and creatively. Today, we’re announcing preferred AdWords API pricing. This gives qualified Google AdWords Certified Partners who manage client AdWords accounts free use of the AdWords API based on managed client spend . To apply, agencies must have an active agency profile page and be compliant with the AdWords API terms and conditions. We’ll evaluate applications for preferred AdWords API pricing based on the criteria listed here . We hope preferred AdWords API pricing will encourage agencies and developers to experiment with new strategies, expand the functionality of their tools, and build more comprehensive client campaigns without worrying about increased costs. You can learn more about preferred pricing and how to apply at the preferred AdWords API pricing site . We’re looking forward to receiving feedback on all of these initiatives and to continuing to improve our partnership with agencies. Posted by Penry Price, Vice President, Global Agency Development

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A new approach to how we work with advertising agencies

Webmaster Level: All We try to communicate with webmasters in lots of different places. For example, when we send representatives to conferences we’re happy to participate in public site clinics where we share best practices on how to improve the crawlability and site architecture of websites suggested by the audience. However, we also want to help users who can’t or don’t want to attend search conferences. To reach more people, we started doing free virtual site clinics in languages other than English. These site clinics help site owners make websites in such a way that they are more easily crawled, indexed, and returned by search engine crawlers, which in turn helps webmasters gain more visibility on the web. We did a series of free virtual site clinics in Spanish last year which spanned 5 blog posts . The clinics covered real problems on real sites, and we posted the results on the Spanish Webmaster Central blog. If you read Spanish, I recommend you go read the different posts covering everything from issues with framed sites, to more technical domain setup. In some countries we don’t have dedicated webmaster-focused blogs, but we still want to help webmasters in those countries. That means that you might occasionally see site clinic or webmaster-related posts on AdWords blogs such as the forthcoming ones on the Nordic AdWords blogs (which cover Danish , Finnish , Norwegian and Swedish ). Recently when we posted some advice for webmasters on one of our AdWords blogs, we received questions about the relationship between Google’s search and advertising programs. We wanted to again reassure our users that the ranking of Google’s organic search results is entirely separate from our advertising programs. Furthermore, we do not give any preference to AdWords customers in our site clinics - everybody is welcome to participate. We’re simply posting this on local “AdWords” blogs because it’s the best way for us to reach webmasters in those communities and languages.

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A word on site clinics

The principle behind the advertising products we build at Google is simple: ads are information . But the type of information that ads provide is getting more varied and inventive all the time, and as a result ads are getting more interesting, social and useful. As advertising evolves, we want to build the tools that make it possible for marketers to connect with customers in meaningful, creative ways. We’ve found that the best way to do that is to focus on the user, test new approaches regularly and listen closely to the feedback of the advertisers using our products. To work closely with advertisers on what comes next, today we’ve launched Google Ad Innovations , where we’ll show you some of our latest ideas around advertising technologies and get your feedback. One of the new features we’re showcasing is a set of AdWords reports, launched last week, called Search Funnels . These reports can help an advertiser understand whether there are keywords in her account that are helping to drive sales at a later date. At Google Ad Innovations, you can read more about this feature , watch a video walking you through how it works and send us your ideas on how to improve it. If you’re interested in the future of advertising with Google, pay Ad Innovations a visit — we’ll regularly add tools and features to the site, and we hope you’ll check them out! Posted by Susan Wojcicki, Vice President, Product Management

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Introducing Google Ad Innovations

Google aims to provide as much information as possible to users so that they can make informed decisions. For this reason, we have been awaiting a series of decisions by the European Court of Justice that explore the extent to which trade mark rights can be used to restrict information available to users. The first of those decisions was delivered today. The question before the court was whether advertisers should be allowed to choose keywords freely when reaching out to users on the Internet. In other words, if advertisers are allowed to show advertisements when another company’s brand name is entered as a search query. Trade marks are part of our daily life and culture, helping us to identify the products and services that we may be looking for. They are key for companies to market and advertise their products and services. But trade mark rights are not absolute. We believe that user interest is best served by maximizing the choice of keywords, ensuring relevant and informative advertising for a wide variety of different contexts. For instance, if a user is searching for information about a particular car, he or she will want more than just that car’s website. They might be looking for different dealers that sell that car, second hand cars, reviews about the car or looking for information about other cars in the same category. And, contrary to what some are intimating, this case is not about us arguing for a right to advertise counterfeit goods. We have strict policies that forbid the advertising of counterfeit goods; it’s a bad user experience. We work collaboratively with brand owners to better identify and deal with counterfeiters. Some companies want to limit choice for users by extending trade mark law to encompass the use of keywords in online advertising. Ultimately they want to be able to exercise greater control over the infomation available to users by preventing other companies from advertising when a user enters their trade mark as a search query. In other words, controlling and restricting the amount of information that users may see in response to their searches. Today, the Court confirmed that Google has not infringed trade mark law by allowing advertisers to bid for keywords corresponding to their competitors’ trade marks. It also confirmed that European law that protects internet hosting services applies to Google’s AdWords advertising system. This is important because it is a fundamental principle behind the free flow of information over the internet. Our guiding principle has always been that advertising should benefit users, and our aim is to ensure that ads are relevant and useful. We will study the decision as we move forward in order to make sure that we continue to deliver advertising that is perceived as both valuable and relevant by our users. Posted by Dr. Harjinder S. Obhi, Senior Litigation Counsel, EMEA

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European Court of Justice rules in Google’s favour

All website owners need to pay for the costs of creating content and making it available online. Whether delivering entertainment, products, news, services, social networking or opinions, they need to pay their way by selling advertising or charging their users. Website owners, or “online publishers,” span the range from individual bloggers to multinational companies. If they sell advertising, they can do this directly themselves, via their own sales force. Alternatively, they can use an ad network to place ads on the pages of their website. Many publishers use a combination of these methods if they can’t sell all their ad space themselves (for example, a publisher may have an unpredicted surge in traffic — and therefore ad space — resulting from a popular post, or from a major website linking to them). We have a long history of helping online publishers make money from their websites. We wanted to update you on our continuing work in this area, and how Google’s newer products can provide real and significant results for clients. We currently have three main products that work together to help online publishers of all sizes and types maximize their revenue. AdSense AdSense , launched in 2003, places highly relevant ads on our partners’ websites , who share in the ad revenue. In 2009, our AdSense partners, comprising over a million large and small publishers, earned over $5.2 billion through AdSense. AdSense is designed to help online publishers get the most revenue possible for their ad space, without having to directly manage advertiser relationships. When a publisher enables AdSense on their site, Google automatically maximizes the publisher’s revenues every time a page loads . It does this in real time, by selecting the most valuable ad from AdWords advertisers and a large pool of other competing ad networks and buyers. Ad serving Larger publishers with their own ad sales teams use our ad serving products (like DoubleClick’s DFP or Google Ad Manager ) to serve the most valuable ad that they’ve sold directly to advertisers or ad agencies. DFP is the industry’s leading ad serving platform that powers the advertising businesses of the largest online publishers, while Google Ad Manager is designed to meet the needs of growing online publishers. Our ad serving products are a key focus for us and we’re continuing to make significant investments in this area. You can read about some of our DFP customers here and some of our Google Ad Manager customers here . DoubleClick Ad Exchange DoubleClick Ad Exchange is a real-time auction marketplace for display ad space — it includes ad networks on one side, and major online publishers on the other. Publishers are in complete control of which networks they allow to bid, what ads can appear on their sites and which ad space they make available. Maximizing revenue across various ad networks is sometimes called “yield management.” For major online publishers, the Ad Exchange offers an easy-to-use yield management solution — it selects the highest paying ad from across multiple, competing ad networks, in real time. However, the Ad Exchange goes further than simple “yield management” to provide a more complete revenue maximization solution. Through a unique process called “dynamic allocation,” it also compares — again, in real time — the value of the highest-paying ad in the Ad Exchange with any ads that the publisher has entered into their ad server (such as ad network deals) and chooses the highest paying one. By definition, the Ad Exchange only serves ads when it can offer a higher price for ad space. In fact, analysis shows that the average price a publisher receives for ad space sold through the Ad Exchange is over 130% higher than the average price of ad space sold directly to ad networks and other third parties. (Of course, while similar, the ad space being compared is not identical.) A continuing effort Today’s online publishers, large and small, operate in a complicated and fragmented advertising environment. We’re focused on developing a full suite of technology products — such as AdSense, ad serving products and DoubleClick Ad Exchange — that can maximize all publishers’ advertising revenues. We’re also working to bring new advertisers to online advertising and make the process easier for them, to grow the advertising pie for everyone. By doing this, we hope to help all publishers fund their websites, which enables them to create a wide variety of online content for all Internet users. If you’re interested in the ins-and-outs of our approach to maximizing revenue for publishers, you can read more in this document . Posted by Neal Mohan, Vice President of Product Management

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Our approach to maximizing advertising revenue for online publishers

All website owners need to pay for the costs of creating content and making it available online. Whether delivering entertainment, products, news, services, social networking or opinions, they need to pay their way by selling advertising or charging their users. Website owners, or “online publishers,” span the range from individual bloggers to multinational companies. If they sell advertising, they can do this directly themselves, via their own sales force. Alternatively, they can use an ad network to place ads on the pages of their website. Many publishers use a combination of these methods if they can’t sell all their ad space themselves (for example, a publisher may have an unpredicted surge in traffic — and therefore ad space — resulting from a popular post, or from a major website linking to them). We have a long history of helping online publishers make money from their websites. We wanted to update you on our continuing work in this area, and how Google’s newer products can provide real and significant results for clients. We currently have three main products that work together to help online publishers of all sizes and types maximize their revenue. AdSense AdSense , launched in 2003, places highly relevant ads on our partners’ websites , who share in the ad revenue. In 2009, our AdSense partners, comprising over a million large and small publishers, earned over $5.2 billion through AdSense. AdSense is designed to help online publishers get the most revenue possible for their ad space, without having to directly manage advertiser relationships. When a publisher enables AdSense on their site, Google automatically maximizes the publisher’s revenues every time a page loads . It does this in real time, by selecting the most valuable ad from AdWords advertisers and a large pool of other competing ad networks and buyers. Ad serving Larger publishers with their own ad sales teams use our ad serving products (like DoubleClick’s DFP or Google Ad Manager ) to serve the most valuable ad that they’ve sold directly to advertisers or ad agencies. DFP is the industry’s leading ad serving platform that powers the advertising businesses of the largest online publishers, while Google Ad Manager is designed to meet the needs of growing online publishers. Our ad serving products are a key focus for us and we’re continuing to make significant investments in this area. You can read about some of our DFP customers here and some of our Google Ad Manager customers here . DoubleClick Ad Exchange DoubleClick Ad Exchange is a real-time auction marketplace for display ad space — it includes ad networks on one side, and major online publishers on the other. Publishers are in complete control of which networks they allow to bid, what ads can appear on their sites and which ad space they make available. Maximizing revenue across various ad networks is sometimes called “yield management.” For major online publishers, the Ad Exchange offers an easy-to-use yield management solution — it selects the highest paying ad from across multiple, competing ad networks, in real time. However, the Ad Exchange goes further than simple “yield management” to provide a more complete revenue maximization solution. Through a unique process called “dynamic allocation,” it also compares — again, in real time — the value of the highest-paying ad in the Ad Exchange with any ads that the publisher has entered into their ad server (such as ad network deals) and chooses the highest paying one. By definition, the Ad Exchange only serves ads when it can offer a higher price for ad space. In fact, analysis shows that the average price a publisher receives for ad space sold through the Ad Exchange is over 130% higher than the average price of ad space sold directly to ad networks and other third parties. (Of course, while similar, the ad space being compared is not identical.) A continuing effort Today’s online publishers, large and small, operate in a complicated and fragmented advertising environment. We’re focused on developing a full suite of technology products — such as AdSense, ad serving products and DoubleClick Ad Exchange — that can maximize all publishers’ advertising revenues. We’re also working to bring new advertisers to online advertising and make the process easier for them, to grow the advertising pie for everyone. By doing this, we hope to help all publishers fund their websites, which enables them to create a wide variety of online content for all Internet users. If you’re interested in the ins-and-outs of our approach to maximizing revenue for publishers, you can read more in this document . Posted by Neal Mohan, Vice President of Product Management

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Our approach to maximizing advertising revenue for online publishers

by Christian Arno The case for SEO is quite a simple one really. If a business ranks highly on Google for its industry’s most popular key search terms, then they are far more likely to succeed than if they have a poor ranking. This is reflected in research conducted by the European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) which found that two-thirds of marketers planned to increase their SEO resources in 2009. But we don’t want to preach to the converted here. Most of you will already be aware of the power that SEO holds in terms of targeting domestic markets, which is why you’re here reading this. However, many small businesses could be missing a trick by limiting their SEO scope to domestic shores - the world is a big place and 75% of the earth’s population speaks no English at all. Furthermore, whilst English may well be the most widely spoken ’second language’ across the globe, people simply prefer to do business in their own tongue. In Europe, there are over 200 indigenous languages, 23 of which are spoken in the 27 European Union (EU) member states (some of the languages are spoken in more than one country, hence the disparity). Language Native Speakers Total Speakers English 13% 51% German 18% 32% French 12% 26% Italian 13% 16% Spanish 9% 15% Figure 2: Top five European Languages English is spoken to some degree by over half the population of the European Union. But from a native-speaking point of view, German has plurality with almost 20% of the EU population speaking it as a mother tongue, followed by English and Italian each with 13% and French with 12%. Which languages you work in naturally depends on which markets you intend to target, a decision based on the nature of your business and where you feel there is a gap in the market which your business can exploit. But consider that if your business was targeting a sector in the South American market, having your website available in Spanish opens your business up to a potential 350 million native speakers around the world; expanding further into the burgeoning Brazilian economy and a Portuguese website opens up an extra 200 million speakers. Of course, it also pays to be wary of the linguistic differences that exist between, say, the Spanish in Spain and the Spanish in many Latin American countries. For example, the word carro in Spain is a cart that you push or pull to transport things, whereas in Latin America it is an actual car that you can drive around in. A car in Spain is a coche , whereas a coche in Latin America is a baby stroller. Similarly, dejeuner is ‘lunch’ in France, but ‘breakfast’ in French-speaking Switzerland and Belgium. And whilst France often import Anglicisms directly into their language, French-speaking Canada tend to translate the English terms directly: e.g. ‘Weekend’ is le weekend in France, but fin de semaine in Canada (literally: ‘end of the week). There are many dialectal differences within languages that help to highlight the importance of adopting a fully localized marketing strategy. And the only way of ensuring your message is properly localized, is to use a professionally qualified translator who is native to the target country. Furthermore, the linguist should ideally live in the country too, as language is constantly evolving and they must be up-to-date on the latest local lingo. So how does all this fit in with SEO, the issue you’re all here to read about? Well, keywords are the cornerstone of any SEO campaign…domestic and international. However, it’s important that you DON’T translate your keywords directly from English…they too should be localized. The correct dictionary translation of a keyword or phrase may NOT be what people use to search for the desired product or service locally, they may use abbreviations, colloquialisms or a different word that means the same thing. To help illustrate this point, consider this scenario. A US car insurance company that has dedicated a considerable amount of resources to ensure it ranks highly on Google.com for the search term ‘car insurance’ decides it wants to launch a campaign to target French markets. A literal and not-incorrect translation of ‘car insurance’ into French would be ‘ l’assurance automobile ‘. However, Google’s keyword tool indicates that this term yields very few results. A little research into the key search terms actually used in French search engines reveal that people tend to use variations of this term, such as ‘ assurance auto ‘ or ‘ assurance voiture ‘. By taking just a few minutes to research the keywords that consumers actively use to search for car insurance abroad, a major problem can be averted. Similarly, in some markets it won’t be necessary to translate some of the key search terms at all. In Germany, for example, English terminology is often used, especially with technical and web-related subjects. So a website design company that ranks highly in the US for the term ‘web design’ would be fine to incorporate the English phrase into its German-language website. So in the same way as you identify your industry’s highest ranking keywords for the English market, such as via Google’s free keyword finder , you have to research the keywords for each target country, to ensure your foreign language website is properly optimized. Once you have your keywords identified for each country, you can then incorporate these into a professionally translated website. It’s important that native speakers are used to translate your website as it must exude professionalism in all your target markets. English may still be the dominant language in terms of content on the Web, but the majority of the world’s internet users’ first language isn’t English. And this disparity creates a rather lucrative opportunity for those seeking to enter new markets: the competition for key search terms is much less on the non-English language internet, therefore it’s possible to achieve high search engine rankings far easier than in English. The importance of localizing your website for the target market can’t be over-emphasized as there is a myriad of cultural and linguistic complexities that must be addressed - this applies to your international SEO initiatives too. Check out our small business news site.

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Cultural Customization: Localization and Keywords for International Markets

by Mike Moran Image via Wikipedia Trust me. I know the right way to do organic search marketing. I know that you start with metrics. I know that you must measure the traffic that comes to the site and see how many people convert. I’ve even written a couple of books that have a strong metrics focus to Internet marketing, organic search marketing in particular. But when I talk to small businesses, I am more and more wondering if search metrics are optional, at least at first. Yeah, I know that this is crazy talk. Blasphemy against everything I stand for. I know. But I’ve found myself chatting with several small business owners recently who have no idea how to do search marketing and I found myself reluctant to make metrics the first step for search marketing, as I always do for a larger firm. I spoke with one small business owner that asked, “What should I do first for organic search marketing?” And I knew that he has very little money to spend on consultants or fancy tools. And he has less time than money. So, could I, with a straight face, tell him to figure out his conversions and implement Google Analytics? He has no chance of being able to do that on his own and no money to pay someone to do it. So, is that really the first step? I’m forcing myself to say, “No.” We need to tell people how to do something tangible that might cause money to roll in. So, I found myself asking him what keywords he thinks his customers use. (No, I didn’t suggest keyword research, because he doesn’t know how and can’t afford someone who does.) And I found myself suggesting that he change the titles to emphasize those keywords. And just putting a new phone number on the Web site so that anyone who called it he would know is from the Web. These are things he could do. And some money would start to appear in the cash register. I know that my advice was “wrong” but I hope it was wrong in the sense of “do it wrong quickly.” Let’s get started doing it wrong to drive some value and then later we can come back and invest more to really do it right. So, if the boss is already convinced search is a good idea, do you need to start with numbers that prove it? Or can you start by doing some of it and only later coming back and investing in measurement (and keyword research and all the other important stuff we do)? Or is that new phone number enough of a measurement that we can live off that for a while? I don’t swear I know the answers, but I continue to realize that if the advice given doesn’t reflect the real client needs, it doesn’t matter how many best practices you know. The ultimate best practice is to give clients something that they can do. Check out our small business news site.

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Are search metrics optional?

by Stoney deGeyter The idea for this post has two sources. The first was a post on SEOmoz about someone’s failed attempt to get quotes for SEO . In light of that firestorm, I was asked if I would write a blog post about how potential clients should approach SEO companies they are looking to do business with. A few days later, while reading David Ogilvy’s classic Ogilvy on Advertising , I came across the chapter which is an “open letter to a client in search of an agency.” This post is modeled after (stolen from?) that. Sir or Madam, If you have decided to hire a new SEO firm or consultant, permit me to suggest a simple way to go about it. Don’t delegate the selection to a secretary, webmaster, your IT department or a low-level employee. They usually get it wrong. Do it yourself. Start by looking at search results. No, not searches for “SEO” or “Search Engine Optimization company.” Those don’t produce quality leads so most SEO agencies don’t bother trying to rank for them. Instead, look at sites that rank in the search results and then find out who does their search engine optimization and online marketing. Read articles on SEO and make note of the authors that you find most knowledgeable and helpful. Talk to them, find out if they do SEO or who they recommend. Get recommendations. By this time you have a short list. Research each company yourself. Read through their websites not just the testimonials page. Look to see if their knowledge and experience in SEO is clear. Call and talk to the head of each agency and their head SEO (it may be the same person, that’s OK.) Make sure the chemistry and communication between you and them is good. You’ll be working together for a long time so make sure you’re a good fit. Don’t worry about meeting the whole team. Each agency is different and you may or may not be working directly with anyone else. Not all SEOs are good with customer interaction and you have no real way of judging the talent of an individual. Good SEO is the result of the everyone working together, not just that of an individual. Ask each agency to provide you with client references. Not printed materials, but phone numbers of current clients that you can call and talk to. Find out if the SEO has improved the overall success of their business, not just improved search engine rankings. Pick the consultant or firm that you feel has the best record of success and is most likely to help you grow your business. Ask for a quote. If you get a stock cost of services then you’ve got the wrong company. If you get a price range, pursue it further. If you get a customized quote but it falls out of your budget range, consider it anyway. Find out what services the company will be engaged in while marketing your website and the cost/benefit of each. Don’t haggle over price only over the specific services provided (cost will change as services change.) Its entirely possible that the SEO company can reduce their fees by trimming services such as social media marketing, link building, content development, etc. You can always add those back in later if they are determined to be necessary for the success of your campaign. If you haggle over cost then you’ll likely come up on the short end in the long run. You can also ask for the same amount of work be performed over a longer period of time. This will create a slower path to improved performance, but will fit your budget better without cutting essential services. Insist on a twelve-month contract. SEO takes time to implement and to see the results. The larger the site, and the more keywords there are to target, the more work needs to be done. SEOs can cram everything into a few months, but the up front cost will be extremely high. Longer contracts give both you and the SEO more security and reduce the pressure of having unwarranted expectations that cannot be met. Now that you have your SEO firm or consultant, are you going to get the best out of them? Clients get the SEO they deserve. Some clients tie their SEO’s hands by disagreeing with most change recommendations. Others use up all their account time keeping the SEO on the phone “discussing” the account. Some clients slow the process by not responding to the SEOs queries and requests. Others are an absolute dream to work for, responding promptly, providing feedback as needed and letting the SEO do their thing. There is nothing wrong calling your SEO provider if it helps the SEO campaign progress, but too many “updates” slow the process to a crawl. Anybody can perform their own SEO based on an article they once read somewhere. It takes a genius to leave the SEO alone to do their work and implement the changes they request. I had one client rewrite all the copy we fixed. He believed his audience was too sophisticated for calls to action. He’s wrong. Give your SEO access to your website analytics data as well as all sales and conversion data. This will help them assess performance (real performance, not rankings) of their optimization efforts. It will also help them steer the optimization efforts into the most profitable direction. Give your SEO a single point of contact, and make sure it is someone who has the power to make decisions. Too often SEO recommendations are shot down by someone who is not involved in the process and has very little understanding of why the recommendation was made. These people can include VPs, web developers and IT staff. I have found that web developers are often the least knowledgeable about SEO but can be the biggest hindrance to it’s success. They don’t want anybody telling them that their product needs to be fixed. It’s too bad, because it does. If you do have to reject recommendations, be sure to investigate it first. Too many recommendations are shot down because someone doesn’t feel it’s necessary, when in fact it is critical to the optimization process. Yes, some recommendations are lower priority than others and some will cost money to implement. Reject a recommendation only after you have discussed the reasoning, urgency and impact with the SEO. Then you can reject it with full knowledge of the potential result. Never reject a recommendation because a developer says it can’t be done. It can be done, but perhaps just not by them. I have one client that has gone through three different development companies since we started working for them. None of their developers have liked me. People don’t often like those that point out their flaws. I also have clients where the developers are quick to work with me on any and all recommendations. We don’t always do it my way, or their way but together we develop solutions that work for everyone. Those are often our most successful clients. There is a convention that SEO firms should never have more than one client in a particular industry. When we work for a site selling kids winter clothes, we are not supposed to work for a site that also sells kids clothes for all seasons. It sounds simple but its impracticable. Suppose our client sells kids winter clothes and another that sells winter clothes and snowboards for adults only. Then one year the snowboard shop starts selling clothes and gear for kids while the clothes shop starts selling kids snowboards. Do we have to fire one of these clients, and if so which one? The one that was with us longer or the one that pays more? I see no conflict when optimizing two or even three sites in the exact same industry. Often what is learned on one site can benefit the other, and vice versa. After all, there are ten top 10 positions. But even still, it’s likely that the keywords being targeted will vary. And where there is some overlap, one site may rank slightly higher with one keyword and the other will rank slightly higher on another. You are competing for business, not rankings, and the visitor will click the other top ranked spots regardless of who optimized them. I’d think twice about demanding exclusion. If the SEO improves your business, then that is all you need to care about. On the other hand, if the SEO gets a better paying client in your industry, you may be the one that gets fired. Stoney deGeyter P.S. If your budget is too small to interest a good agency, find one that offers hourly consulting. Good advice is worth a few hundred dollars an hour and you won’t have any long-term commitments. Check out our small business news site.

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An Open Letter to a Client in Search of an SEO Provider

by Stoney deGeyter The idea for this post has two sources. The first was a post on SEOmoz about someone’s failed attempt to get quotes for SEO . In light of that firestorm, I was asked if I would write a blog post about how potential clients should approach SEO companies they are looking to do business with. A few days later, while reading David Ogilvy’s classic Ogilvy on Advertising , I came across the chapter which is an “open letter to a client in search of an agency.” This post is modeled after (stolen from?) that. Sir or Madam, If you have decided to hire a new SEO firm or consultant, permit me to suggest a simple way to go about it. Don’t delegate the selection to a secretary, webmaster, your IT department or a low-level employee. They usually get it wrong. Do it yourself. Start by looking at search results. No, not searches for “SEO” or “Search Engine Optimization company.” Those don’t produce quality leads so most SEO agencies don’t bother trying to rank for them. Instead, look at sites that rank in the search results and then find out who does their search engine optimization and online marketing. Read articles on SEO and make note of the authors that you find most knowledgeable and helpful. Talk to them, find out if they do SEO or who they recommend. Get recommendations. By this time you have a short list. Research each company yourself. Read through their websites not just the testimonials page. Look to see if their knowledge and experience in SEO is clear. Call and talk to the head of each agency and their head SEO (it may be the same person, that’s OK.) Make sure the chemistry and communication between you and them is good. You’ll be working together for a long time so make sure you’re a good fit. Don’t worry about meeting the whole team. Each agency is different and you may or may not be working directly with anyone else. Not all SEOs are good with customer interaction and you have no real way of judging the talent of an individual. Good SEO is the result of the everyone working together, not just that of an individual. Ask each agency to provide you with client references. Not printed materials, but phone numbers of current clients that you can call and talk to. Find out if the SEO has improved the overall success of their business, not just improved search engine rankings. Pick the consultant or firm that you feel has the best record of success and is most likely to help you grow your business. Ask for a quote. If you get a stock cost of services then you’ve got the wrong company. If you get a price range, pursue it further. If you get a customized quote but it falls out of your budget range, consider it anyway. Find out what services the company will be engaged in while marketing your website and the cost/benefit of each. Don’t haggle over price only over the specific services provided (cost will change as services change.) Its entirely possible that the SEO company can reduce their fees by trimming services such as social media marketing, link building, content development, etc. You can always add those back in later if they are determined to be necessary for the success of your campaign. If you haggle over cost then you’ll likely come up on the short end in the long run. You can also ask for the same amount of work be performed over a longer period of time. This will create a slower path to improved performance, but will fit your budget better without cutting essential services. Insist on a twelve-month contract. SEO takes time to implement and to see the results. The larger the site, and the more keywords there are to target, the more work needs to be done. SEOs can cram everything into a few months, but the up front cost will be extremely high. Longer contracts give both you and the SEO more security and reduce the pressure of having unwarranted expectations that cannot be met. Now that you have your SEO firm or consultant, are you going to get the best out of them? Clients get the SEO they deserve. Some clients tie their SEO’s hands by disagreeing with most change recommendations. Others use up all their account time keeping the SEO on the phone “discussing” the account. Some clients slow the process by not responding to the SEOs queries and requests. Others are an absolute dream to work for, responding promptly, providing feedback as needed and letting the SEO do their thing. There is nothing wrong calling your SEO provider if it helps the SEO campaign progress, but too many “updates” slow the process to a crawl. Anybody can perform their own SEO based on an article they once read somewhere. It takes a genius to leave the SEO alone to do their work and implement the changes they request. I had one client rewrite all the copy we fixed. He believed his audience was too sophisticated for calls to action. He’s wrong. Give your SEO access to your website analytics data as well as all sales and conversion data. This will help them assess performance (real performance, not rankings) of their optimization efforts. It will also help them steer the optimization efforts into the most profitable direction. Give your SEO a single point of contact, and make sure it is someone who has the power to make decisions. Too often SEO recommendations are shot down by someone who is not involved in the process and has very little understanding of why the recommendation was made. These people can include VPs, web developers and IT staff. I have found that web developers are often the least knowledgeable about SEO but can be the biggest hindrance to it’s success. They don’t want anybody telling them that their product needs to be fixed. It’s too bad, because it does. If you do have to reject recommendations, be sure to investigate it first. Too many recommendations are shot down because someone doesn’t feel it’s necessary, when in fact it is critical to the optimization process. Yes, some recommendations are lower priority than others and some will cost money to implement. Reject a recommendation only after you have discussed the reasoning, urgency and impact with the SEO. Then you can reject it with full knowledge of the potential result. Never reject a recommendation because a developer says it can’t be done. It can be done, but perhaps just not by them. I have one client that has gone through three different development companies since we started working for them. None of their developers have liked me. People don’t often like those that point out their flaws. I also have clients where the developers are quick to work with me on any and all recommendations. We don’t always do it my way, or their way but together we develop solutions that work for everyone. Those are often our most successful clients. There is a convention that SEO firms should never have more than one client in a particular industry. When we work for a site selling kids winter clothes, we are not supposed to work for a site that also sells kids clothes for all seasons. It sounds simple but its impracticable. Suppose our client sells kids winter clothes and another that sells winter clothes and snowboards for adults only. Then one year the snowboard shop starts selling clothes and gear for kids while the clothes shop starts selling kids snowboards. Do we have to fire one of these clients, and if so which one? The one that was with us longer or the one that pays more? I see no conflict when optimizing two or even three sites in the exact same industry. Often what is learned on one site can benefit the other, and vice versa. After all, there are ten top 10 positions. But even still, it’s likely that the keywords being targeted will vary. And where there is some overlap, one site may rank slightly higher with one keyword and the other will rank slightly higher on another. You are competing for business, not rankings, and the visitor will click the other top ranked spots regardless of who optimized them. I’d think twice about demanding exclusion. If the SEO improves your business, then that is all you need to care about. On the other hand, if the SEO gets a better paying client in your industry, you may be the one that gets fired. Stoney deGeyter P.S. If your budget is too small to interest a good agency, find one that offers hourly consulting. Good advice is worth a few hundred dollars an hour and you won’t have any long-term commitments. Check out our small business news site.

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An Open Letter to a Client in Search of an SEO Provider