“If you can rank a site in lucrative markets, why would you do it for clients instead of for yourself?”
That’s the first thing you, the prospective client, should ask each of the SEO consultants you are considering. In my opinion, there are only three honest answers to that question:
1. “I choose interesting projects that give me looks at complex problems I wouldn’t normally see in the course of building out my own sites.”
This is my approach to whatever portion of my resource mix gets allocated to consulting engagements. I still take on about ten private clients a year and each of them are trying to solve a very complex problem. This keeps me at the top of my game, I feel like I’m earning my check, and it definitely gives me a competitive edge.
2. “I understand that I don’t know everything and, while I can help your business succeed in quality search engine traffic, your business is successful in a facet of this business I feel I could learn from you on.”
A few of my clients are hardcore paid search arbitrage and affiliate guys who are trying to mitigate some risk by acquiring defensible organic search traffic. One other client is a big domainer. I’ve learned some amazing things from these guys that have helped hone my marketing chops while imparting my expertise to them.
3. “I think easy cash today is better than more cash a year from now.”
This is an answer I’d hope to hear from a younger consultant than an A-lister. For many of us, we only consulted as long as we had to in order to build up our bankroll. I’m constantly amazed at how many of these “SEO Firms” with the big followings generate little to no income from their own projects. If there is a stronger signal of quality for a lack of confidence in their own ability, I can’t think of it.
That said, I charge a lot and I have an addiction to cars, so I may divert some more energy to consulting before a car purchase. It’s really, really hard to ween yourself from the Consulting Crack Pipe, but with that said, if your consultant does nothing but consult/teach, that’d be a huge red flag to me. If anyone with more than 3 years of experience is allocating more than 50% of their time to consulting, I’m going on record as doubting their skills.
So, after just throwing 75% of the industry under the bus, here are some people I would recommend because I know they can teach and I know they could eat well if they stopped consulting:
In no particular order and assuming you called me with your really interesting project first:
1. Aaron Wall
2. Todd Malicoat
3. Greg Boser
4. John Andrews
5. Rae Hoffman
6. Andy Hagans
7. Michael Gray
8. Neil Patel
9. Cameron Olthuis
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18 Responses to “The First Question You Should Ask Your SEO Consultant”
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I agree with point 3 for those new to the industry.
There is another reason to work on other peoples marketing. There are a number of businesses that don’t exist purely as a website but have a larger investment in the business itself and they also need marketing online.
Some of us enjoy marketing and while having your own websites is great and is another source of income, that is not necessarily the passion.
This is like asking why there are ad agencies. Why don’t they just sell their own products instead of those of a client?
Two other possible reason:
- because I go insane staying at home constantly; I like to have the occasional client to get me out of the house and have new topics to talk about (ie talking about their business)
- because looking at a new business makes me think of new things - it keeps me out of a rut. Discovered an entire new niche that had never occurred to me while doing research for a client one day. Unrelated to the client, so no poaching - it was a one-liner in a keyword tool to which I went ‘$$$’. Its been most lucrative
I’ve moderated it a little to make sense.
i agree wholeheartedly despite being a newbie. I have been working for a large SEM network for a few years now, and have been passing on regular SEO advice for free to my affiliates - so much so that i have decided to start earning from it. Although finding the time to actually start is proving difficult with work and mortgage commitments, hence my rather shabby site at the moment.
That’s why i like your 3years timeline, by then i will have tried out all of the stuff i’ve been preaching and learning with the obvious trial and error phases. In fact if you are consulting, surely it is better to have tried everything out yourself at some point to see if you can make it work, what doesn’t work is probably more valuable in some cases that what does (hopefully not too many sites though, act like a top affiliate and work on 3-4 max)
A few questions my affiliates normally ask me when looking for SEO companies:
What rank is the SEO business site for SEO etc?
What do you rank well for? if it is something like “SEO in new york, next to the bar, by the river” then your probably not very good.
Past history? Good, sites you have worked on that rank well/better. A number of SEO companies list their clients and the terms they rank no.1 for, which is usually very very niche and sometimes almost irrelevant. this might be more prevalent in the UK than US.
Andy
Working with clients provides social interaction and is a lot more reactive, while it takes a lot of self-motivation, daily dedication, and proactive work to build passive income from personal internet marketing activities. It’s almost like asking a great salesperson or manager why they don’t own and run their own company. I personally, find it much easier to work for clients. Clients create pressure, deadlines, and you work together to determine needs and project parameters. It keeps me focused. Furthermore, a lot of people got into this career simply to work for themselves and are making a lot of money with a steady stream of clients. Not everybody (e.g. people with families and high expenses) can just shrug off most of their work to chase the “easy” internet buck, nor does everybody want to write and write and write about topics for months just so they can monetize their site or create another eBook.
Andy,
The good part is, 50% of the clients don’t know what ‘good’ is. They’ll believe what you tell them.
It’s not like an ad agency as much as it is like an investment advisor. If he is any good, he is making at least as much money from the investment advice he provides clients as he does from the commissions he earns from those clients.
I think you are way off here idea wise, but on target link bait wise.
As a self-proclaimed “car addict”, do you first find out if your auto mechanic owns the same make and model vehicle before allowing him to work on it - or is the fact that he has experience working on your type of car good enough for you?
To state that “there are only three honest answers to that question [from your intro]”, you are viewing the situation with a very limited point of view.
What about the fact that some people/agencies are too busy with client projects to work on their own projects - have you ever considered that?
The missing part here is that SEO only comes in after the great idea or the product. No matter how high you can rank your pages on certain search phrases, or how meaningful you can make your content to search engines, it won’t really be of any use unless someone looks for it. It’s the intention to search for it that matters.
Very interesting post (and comments) about why we consult. I’ve personally gone back and forth with the idea of whether or not to remain in consulting for a variety of projects, to build 1, 2 or more unique revenue generating sites, or to just look for a job working on SEO/SEM for one large, well paying company, and focus my experience there.
I definitely agree that consulting, as a revenue stream, is an addictive model, which can be very difficult to switch out of (but is it really different in any situation where you end up doing something well and it becomes a key component of your lifestyle?).
Matthew definitely hits a good point - for most people, there are going to be factors that influence our lives - professionally and personally, which push our decisions one way or another. I think you are right however; most SEO consultants are working on something beyond the consulting stream - assuming that they have that capability and expertise. My opinion is that SEO (specifically SEO, not marketing) has been a very entrepreneurial endeavor, so the characteristics of people drawn to SEO, naturally will lead them to seek out ways to apply SEO to their own initiatives.
I could care less about ranking for everything under the sun just to make a buck off of it. There’s more to life and more to SEO than money and success. I’d rather have a little bit of both worlds than do everything in house.
I’ve always wondered about this with regard to SEO pros, and I’ve said the very same thing about copywriters. Luckily, some of the best do make a lot of money off of their own projects. Gene Schwartz is my hero, because he realized that he had a license to print money with his words.
I hate the thought of “leaving money on the table” by refusing consulting work, but when faced with the reality of an inquiry, that’s exactly what I do 9 out of 10 times. I can make so much more money, have so much more fun, and have a much better quality of life by developing my own projects.
Nice post, but I’d add a couple more to the list. And if someone answered 3, I’d be worried that they’d take unnecessary risks for short-term success rather than build for the long term.
4. Because teaching is rewarding. Money isn’t everything.
5. Just because I know what makes a site rank in search engines doesn’t mean I have the time or inclination to compete for top terms. Knowledge and application of knowledge are two very different things.
Thanks for the recommendation, Brian. I’m currently working on an SVN-based site network, on Zend Framework. A few key people maintain the core code base, “local” webmasters maintain per-site data, view templates, styles, and local application code, and Zend provides the framework via SVN externals. Dev sites are updated via SVN 10 minutes after every commit. The local guys push their own buttons to take dev to production. Some of them enjoy SVN log access, so they share/learn fromeach other’s projects. It’s a dreamy setup… put together by a few quality people, and as SEO/Consultant I enjoy committer status for the core code as well as each actual site (and I coached some of the local webmasters on the application side of the ZF as it rolled out. Not just to be helpful, but because post-adoption I am neck deep in the local site business strategy/SEO on that framework).
I could never keep that kind of team in-house. If I didn’t consult, how would I get to be part of that coolness?
Oh and yes, I have already deployed a mini version for my own network of sites
Consulting has its advantages.
I think this is pretty ridiculous. Not everyone has the same skill set. Just because you’re good at SEO doesn’t mean that you’re capable of (or interested in) conceiving, setting up, and running your own for-profit enterprise.
The client has to offer value to the project. If they expect to be able to offer an idea and have you implement and manage the project 100%, then you have to ask why you wouldn’t just do the project alone.
But if they are offering skills you don’t have, and are prepared to devote their own time / cash / epertise to the project then it’s worthwhile to have them onboard.
There are many additional reasons why you would prefer to consult that develop your own projects. Sipmly the buzz of helping others’ businesses succeed.
It’s not all about the money.
If you were to ask me that question, I’d probably answer you one thing: “There are times when it’s easier for us to handle things for others while we can’t do or apply it to our self. The same thing is true with people working as SEO for other sites. Also, working for other people and for other sites provides more rooms for new ideas and knowledge. These ideas may not be known to me if I’m the boss and at the same time the employee.”
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