So, you’re interested in SEO for your business.
You go-about seeking a partner that will service your SEO needs, needs that you’re not quite sure of because SEO is relatively new to you.
You know you need it but aren’t quite sure of what to do around it – you kinda need the partner you take onboard to tell you what you should be doing.
You hire them on the basis that they’ll provide you with your SEO needs, needs that they will need to inform you of, right?
SEO’s kinda been sold to you simply as ‘SEO’.
This is a mistake. I want to outline a couple of reasons why buying into SEO, from a partner, simply as ‘SEO’, is a mistake.
Selling SEO in this way is an old school digital marketing approach from folks at agencies.
It’s the agency old school mentality of ‘get the work in now and figure it out after’.
It’s a sales-focused mentality that consumes SEO – agency-side.
You see, SEO is very broad.
You could have an SEO who only works on content and then you could have an SEO who is purely technical.
Both are SEOs but do very different jobs.
Being sold SEO with the name alone is not specific enough.
If you hire a partner and ask them to provide you with what you need to do to see an uplift in your traffic, you really should ask for this to be itemised so you know what work will be carried out.
Just being told you’ll be serviced with SEO is nowhere near adequate.
Back in the early days of SEO, you see, SEO used to be synonymous with link building.
This is a word hardly used these day, right? Agencies refrain from it.
But in the early days, SEO was viewed as link building itself.
And as such, agencies used to sell this service simply as ‘SEO’ with the intent to build links. And this was communicated with clients. It was all above board.
SEO is a lot more elaborate now.
And, frankly, for agencies, it’s a lot harder now – penguin put a stop to the link building money train.
Where agencies could sell SEO as is and simply buy, I mean ‘build’ links, now, after-sale, they have to figure it out.
I suggest that you needn’t buy into a service that’s unclear, that’s ‘figured out’ only after you’re onboarded.
And here’s why…
Your SEO may be performing well. It may be doing so well that the SEO work needed for your site is technical.
You may only need technical SEO that’s specifically to maintain your site health.
Now, don’t get me wrong, carrying out technical SEO is important for your site.
It’s important even if it’s purely to maintain a good site health.
However, technical SEO, to maintain good site health, is not going to drive traffic.
It will maintain it, it will prevent you from regressing but it will not directly lead to an improvement in traffic.
Now, if you hired a partner to improve your SEO, and were sold it as a line item that simply read ‘SEO’, even if good SEO work is carried out, it may not lead to the traffic increase that you expect.
The partner wouldn’t be at fault – if they’re servicing you with SEO, they’re in the clear.
Frankly, they’re in the clear.
You’re far better off, instead, to buy into what you NEED.
This will require KNOWING what you need.
In other words, knowing more about SEO – not to do the work yourself, but to at least know not to buy into the catch-all ‘SEO’ services term.
Being sold SEO services with this term, alone, is often a recipe for disaster.
Buying into SEO in this way is like buying into a blank PowerPoint deck of a subject, which is then filled in afterwards.
You’ll never know what you’ll get.
In most cases, in my opinion, what you’ll get is a mismatch of SEO sales and SEO services.
You see, selling SEO and marketing with SEO are two different things.
Working with a partner that sells you SEO as a singular line item is a problem.
You may think you’re buying into SEO services but you’re actually buying into SEO sales. There is a difference.
You’ll be sold the service and afterwards, the service will be figured out.
And there’ll be a high chance that the people who sell you the service are not the people who will actually service you with SEO.
Furthermore, when the SEO you need is not specified, the number 1 agenda, of your partner, will be to fill your time.
What do I mean by this…?
Marketing agencies, like all servicing industries, offer their services packaged as time. Hours billed.
When the SEO services you’re sold is not specified, the work that’s carried out is led by the need to use the time you’ve paid for – the time not specified to any particular work because it’s within the service name ‘SEO’.
Think about this…
What kind of service do you think you’ll receive if what you need is on-page SEO and the SEO person assigned to work on your site is an SEO outreach specialist?
You see?
You’ve got to specify the SEO work you need.
The more specific you are the better you can be serviced.
And, actually, the better you’ll be able to decipher whether your partner is right for you or not.
SEO, you see, is very broad.
Knowing what you need, and more importantly, knowing not to buy into an SEO service that’s sold to you simply as ‘SEO’, will save you from going through a lot of frustrations.
SEO is complex enough. You needn’t add to the difficulty of wielding it to get you the results that you seek.