An unsolicited email just hit my inbox with the subject line “You are losing out on £22,000 A YEAR” that caught my eye, so I opened it expecting – goodness know why – something sensible, a nugget of information that I would find interesting or useful …
But alas, NO!
The author of said email had just duped me into opening and reading yet another crude attempt to to sell Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) services.
Here’s the full email:
You are losing on an average of £22,000 a year because your website is not selling your services.
What most companies don’t realise is that they are failing because they are not living up to modern digital expectations. In order to climb the Google rankings, you need to prove you are an expert in your field.
In a perfect world, you would be able to update your site with relevant, fresh content targeting exactly who and what you want to sell. But realistically, you just don’t have the time.
We are offering a free website valuation to help build your digital footprint.
What infuriates me is these unsupported claims and assumptions damage all the great businesses that have to work darned hard to convince businesses to take online marketing seriously. Business owners do realise the important of online marketing, but rarely understand the resources required to create an effective campaign. By receiving e-mails of this type it promotes a culture of the ‘easy-win’, which is counter-productive to real success in this area.
We have seen lots of indications that Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) do undervalue the work that SEO companies provide. In the last 12 months we have referred several businesses to specialist SEO companies and without exception all have come back and said it was too expensive. We wouldn’t claim this was entirely down to the misinformation spread by aggressive marketing but it certainly devalues the perception of the service.
Its good to finish on something positive, so here are a list of the advice we would give to all companies when considering online marketing:
- Gather Intelligence – The only way you will know how well, or badly, you are doing is by getting feedback about your visitors. This is generally achieved anonymously via services such as Google Analytics. There are more direct approaches such as asking visitors to take a short survey or precisely logging visitor focus / clicks, although be careful not to put obstacles up to current users. A good SEO company can analyse the results for you and advise on best courses of action.
- Know your Return on Investment (ROI) – The above e-mail constructs and entirely fictitious figure in terms of ROI (£22,000.00 a year). Be wary of anyone promising exact figures that are unsubstantiated. By doing step one above you should be able to get a decent idea of how much more income you could receive by increasing traffic by x%. Again a good SEO company should prepare your expectations according to proper research.
- Assign a Proper Budget – hands on SEO companies will often charge per month based upon the amount of work they are doing. Often this is not tied to success but by knowing your expected ROI above you can ascertain whether the monthly amount is appropriate. SEO is like any other field, you will get out what you put in. An overly cheap SEO company will be exactly the same as an overly cheap car mechanic, it will either cost you more in the long run or the results will be completely unsatisfactory.
Although we do not offer an ongoing SEO service, we pride ourselves in understanding business requirements. This often means advising how best to utilise new or existing websites. If you would like to discuss your current situation and whether SEO should or could be working for you, call us to discuss.