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04.02.09 Questions To Consider Before Giving Control To An SEO Firm  By
Stoney deGeyter In this final installment our questions will be centered on control and expected involvement of the business owner. The site owner, to some degree, will likely have to give up some control of their site if they want the SEO firm to implement anything themselves. At the same time, there is a reasonable expectation that the SEO cannot have 100% control over the site in order to ensure the client approves of the specific changes that the SEO is asking to be made. Somewhere in here is a balancing act from the business owner having to do everything themselves and handing over all decisions to the SEO completely. Question 55: Will I have to give up too much control of my site? Unless you want to do everything yourself then you will have to give up at least some control over your site. When it comes to on-page SEO, most SEOs want or need at least some access to make changes. If you are unwilling to give them basic access to the site then you need to be prepared to make all of their recommended changes yourself. How much control you give up will be entirely up to you and most SEOs will work with you either way. Some don't want access and only want to provide recommendations. It also means less work the SEO has to do. On the other hand, the less the SEO does the more you will have to do. Question 56: Am I willing to give out sensitive site access information? Part of giving up control means giving the SEO some sensitive data such as FTP info, CMS logins, etc. And with every bit of access you give them that becomes one more person potentially responsible when something goes wrong. No person is completely error free so the SEO should maintain backups of any changes so if anything does go wrong it can quickly be fixed. But the only way to eliminate risk 100% is to keep all but the most essential people out of the site. You'll just have to decide how essential the SEO is. Question 57: Will I implement recommendations as they are provided? Even giving the SEO full access to your site there will always be recommended changes that fall beyond the scope of their service contract. As those recommendations are presented to you, you then have the option of implementing them immediately, ignoring them completely, or putting them off to the side to revisit another day. Keep in mind that SEOs feel justified in every recommendation they provide and so long as there are any outstanding recommendations they will use that as a justification to explain why the campaign may not be performing as expected.
Question 58: Can I veto recommendations and still expect results? Not all recommendations made by the SEO are going to be urgent or important to the success of the campaign. Some recommendations are "mission critical" while others may have various degrees of importance. Your SEO should distinguish between those which are urgent and those that are not. Even urgent recommendations should be carefully considered. SEOs can often focus on getting rankings over getting conversions. Any recommendation may improve rankings but could at the same time be detrimental to your site's usability. Ideally the SEO will tag each recommendation appropriately so you know what you need to focus on first and foremost. Question 59: Will I be expected to do anything? The short answer is yes. It's a rare circumstance that you want to turn over 100% of the decisions to the SEO. Things such as keyword selection, text changes, title tags and anything that changes the look and usability of the site should be subject to review. Short of that you run the risk of having the SEO implement strategies that are not quite what you have in mind. Question 60: How much will I have to be involved? This depends. Some firms will do nothing more than provide recommendations and leave you to implement them. Others will require client feedback before moving forward to the next phase. You'll want to know what the expectations are for your involvement in the various stages of campaign so you can budget your time appropriately. Continue reading this article. About the Author: Stoney deGeyter is president of Pole Position Marketing (www.PolePositionMarketing.com), a search engine optimization / marketing firm providing SEO and website marketing services since 1998. Stoney is also a part-time instructor at Truckee Meadows Community College, as well as a moderator in the Small Business Ideas Forum. He is the author of his E-Marketing Performance eBook and contributes daily to the E-Marketing Performance (www.eMarketingPerformance.com) marketing blog. |
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