Surely I Can’t Be The Only One…
August 14, 2008 on 11:56 am
Filed Under:Web
In my time in this industry here in Perth, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend. While I’m not naive enough to believe that it’s a new one, I’m still bothered by it.
I keep hearing from business owners, current and prospective clients mostly, that they are almost completely unaware of what kind of revenue their Web Marketing investments are bringing them.
This is not their fault.
Well, not completely anyway.
Again, maybe it’s just me being naive, but shouldn’t telling your client how you’re doing be just another part of the services you provide?
We work in an intimidating industry. Not as intimidating as Wall Street Brokeraging or Contract Killing, but what I mean is that most folks don’t understand 90% of what web professionals do, and the other 10% only know because they’ve either been burnt by a firm and wanted to learn for themselves or they used to actually work in the industry too.
As Web Professionals (web designers, web developers, web marketers) we swoop in and do things that the client doesn’t really understand nor have the time to learn and do themselves, and many have been using that to hide their actual level of service from the client.
Think about it, why is it the client’s responsibility to find out how well YOU are doing for THEM?
In another industry, well let’s take Stocks for example, your broker has to keep you up on how they’re doing for you, and they better be doing it well or you’ll dump them and find another one.
This industry should be no different.
As a Web Marketing Professional, I choose to not only give my clients all the information they ask for and make myself completely transparent to them, but I also suggest to them metrics and benchmarks that they might not have thought of and tell them they should measure me against those as well.
If I’m not getting them a good ROI, then they should know why. If it’s because I’m not doing my job well enough, they should dump me and move on, secure in the knowledge that they now have all the right questions and checklists for their next Web Marketer to ensure that they’re going to get their money’s worth out of them.
As I remarked to a higher-than-average potential client in a meeting earlier this week:
"You should always know how your website’s ROI, otherwise what’s the point in spending money on it?"
Surely I can’t be the only one that feels this way. Somewhere out there, there has to be ethical professionals that actively encourage their clients to be constantly ensuring their value to them.
Free Keyword Research?
August 11, 2008 on 1:08 pm
Filed Under:SEO
Google’s done it, and it’s the talk of the town. While running some routine keywords through their AdWords Keyword Tool the other day, I noticed that instead of the usual ‘0.66’ and ‘0.33’ business that they had going on before had been replaced with actual numbers.
I was elated.
Not only does it save a few steps, trying translate what ‘0.66’ means to me, but it’s data directly from the horse’s mouth, and can even be specific to Australia.
Oh happy day.
The answer to this one is pretty simple.
Doesn’t really matter.
Much like you don’t bet all your money on one horse at the racetrack, if you’re doing proper keyword research, you won’t pick your keywords based solely on data from one source alone, especially when there are several reputable and relevant sources out there.
This doesn’t mean I’m discounting that data by any stretch of the imagination, for it is unbelievably helpful, it just means that I’m factoring it into the mix with an increased, but not exclusive, relevance to my research.
So the bottom line is: It’s great, and saves me quite a bit of time in my more cursory research. But it isn’t the be-all, end-all, for keywords and I’m not going to trust it any more than any other keyword data provider.
If you’re smart, you won’t either.
