Two heads are better than one. How many times have we all heard that in our lives? When having a brainstorming session, it helps to bounce ideas off of one another to generate the best possible solution. Even when saving the world, is it always important to have a sidekick. Or a team of sidekicks.
The same is true of link building teams. It can be considered a general rule of thumb to say “the more, the merrier†when it comes to the size of a team working on link building, social media and content promotion. An experienced team working together will generate far more inbound links and traffic to the target website than just one person – bent over a desk, Red Bull in hand, click-clacking away on the keyword.
When it comes to link building for clients, there are two important questions:
Q: Who knows the client’s business best?
A: The Client. Hands down.
Q: Who knows link building and online promotions best?
A: The SEO Agency. Hands down.
One popular misconception is that some companies think it is a good idea to take their SEO and link building 100% in-house. On the surface, this might seem logical. However, the cost of hiring an entry-level person to take on this brand new role, learn and experiment with it on company time is just as high as pulling a seasoned marketing pro away from their traditional marketing job and training them up on SEO. Training seminars and conferences offer robust information, but without experience, the practical SEO knowledge won’t be there until months or years down the road.
Hiring an experienced agency to tackle SEO content promotion and linking needs is roughly equivalent to one or two entry-level employees’ salary. With a SEO agency, the client will receive years of SEO, link building and online marketing experience from a team of experienced professionals.
The company also benefits from the knowledge SEO agency staff gain by working on many different clients in many different industries. Agencies (like TopRank) are prone to allocating budget and staff to staying up to date on current trends and tactics. The output of that experimentation is information passed along to the client to benefit their SEO and online promotions campaigns.
By conducting training sessions with clients on fundamental linking efforts, the client gains a bit of experience and appreciate. Feeling involved in what is working from a linking perspective reinforces that they are getting their money’s worth from their SEO agency.
“Two heads are better than oneâ€: When both client and agency are working their link building and online promotions magic, everyone wins!
As an example, recent training sessions with one of our clients has measurably contributed to the number of inbound links and online brand awareness achieved. Sites we’ve targeted with online promotions have become the top referring sources of traffic and have stayed there for months.
In another example, we conducted link building and content promotion training with a large client, who was very grateful to have the knowledge and to understand the backbone of what our agency were doing.
When it came down to it, the client was wearing too many hats to take on linking and content promotion. After budget meetings, presentations, product updates, traditional marketing and advertising, the client was all too happy to turn the link building efforts back over to us and we were more than willing to complete it. Client meetings go a bit smoother as the in-house team better understands exactly what we are doing for them and what it takes to complete.
By overseeing all linking efforts, the SEO agency brings in unique experience and the up-to-date knowledge of what is hot in the online marketing industry. The client gains knowledge and a bit of experience themselves. With our powers combined, client and agency can tackle most any linking obstacle.
sweet iPhone theme lee!
Thanks Barry – credit goes to Thomas McMahon for implementing that. 🙂
Dana,
You are spot on. Any SEO optimization efforts needs to be a collaboration between the client and the SEO team.
I hired an SEO company to optimize a company website. Our in-house team was knowledgeable but not expert level. Plus, I couldn’t afford to have the team focus as much time on SEO as they would need to in order to get the job done right.
There was no doubt that the SEO vendor I hired knew what they were doing. But, they took the attitude of “leave it up to us and you can just review what we provide.” After several weeks of mishaps such as really strange keywords suggestions, our team “forced” their way in to help the SEO vendor optimize our pages for language that would resonate with our target market.
As you said, the client knows the business (and the target customer) best. The SEO experts know SEO. The two have to work together in order to be effective.
lol @ the captain planet photo…classic 🙂
While I agree that SEO should be left up to the pro’s and not an in house task. I do know that its not all about linking or even keywords on your site. You have to have a very vast knowledge of everything that is SEO. If you concentrate solely on links and keywords you will never make a dent in pageranks.
I believe one of the biggest assets of using an external SEO consultant is that they probably DO NOT know the client’s industry.
While it at first sounds odd, I have a background doing executive online recruiting. SEO experts from outside of your business are going to apply a whole set of insights and talents that do not adhere to a client’s industry standards. In most marketing situations this helps the client break out of the age-old train of industry thought, and look at the problem from an out of the box mindset.
I routinely mix ideas into my recipe of success by studying models that are successful in other regions, countries, and industries.
Once again Lee, you have hit the nail on the head. All I can say to that is, “Wonder twin powers, – Activate”. A finely honed client and SEO team are truly a dynamic duo when knowledge and motives are shared.
I trust anyone who comes up number #1 organically when searching for “Marketing Blogs”. Seriously, you are right on target with this concept. It is a partnership between the agency and the client.
At last.. transparency,team work is the key to a succesful SEO campaign, an agency without real collaboration with clients..is like a blind man leading the dog..great post.
Team work is key. Having a client use the contacts they have to acquire links, and also coordinating with someone in-house can really make such a huge difference. Great Post.
Great Article and couldn’t agree more – ““Two heads are better than one”: When both client and agency are working their link building and online promotions magic, everyone wins!”
Its all about forming partnerships with clients and building on that relationship in the long term.
Dear Dana,
Very nicely pointed out… Usually alot of confussion arise when the client doesn’t know what is going on or how much time it might require.
When the Client and the SEO Company both are working together they both know the real time status of there SEO Campaign.
And when both are working together it also gives the client an idea to implent all the changes which come into his mind…..
Good Post
Mark
Editor
Clients are ofcourse so crazy for themed links .. but hiring someone inhouse is not very feasible for these companies. And Even when they outsource one way link building they are very skeptical about these blackhat, bad neighborhood and link farms
Every business’ success is reflective on the team working among members, and this also is what “two heads are better than one” about- as you have mentioned above. And yes, this is true in link building. This system also encourages both the agency and the client to work together under the same milieu. Link building as part of online marketing has been very prevalent these days, thus – “brings in unique experience and the up-to-date knowledge of what is hot in the online marketing industry”. Very well said and done.
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