Yesterday’s New York Times had an interesting article that describes web users feelings about advertisers tracking their web usage.    The article details recent results from a joint survey by Penn and Cal Berkley.  The survey indicates that two thirds of Americans object to online tracking by advertisers-and that number goes up once they learn the different ways marketers are following their online movements.

The study’s authors hired a survey company to conduct interviews with 1000 adult internet users.  The interview, which last about 20 minutes, included questions like “Please tell me whether or not you want the web sites you visit to give you discounts that are tailored to your interests?  Overall tailored ads did not appeal to 66% of the respondents.

A full breakdown is shown below.

Recently, the European Commission threatened Britain with sanctions  for allowing an Internet service provider to use a new advertising technology to track the Web movements of customers.

In the United States, lawmakers in both houses held hearings last fall on targeted advertising. The topic may be technical, but it has become a hot political issue. Privacy advocates are telling Congress and the Federal Trade Commission that tracking of online activities by Web sites and advertisers has gone too far, and the lawmakers seem to be listening.  Although no legislation came out of the deliberations, one broadband operator, Charter Communications of St. Louis, dropped plans to conduct a test of behavioral advertising technology after receiving protests.

Marketers are arguing that advertising supports free online content. Major advertising trade groups proposed in July some measures that they hoped would fend off regulation, like a clear notice to consumers when they were being tracked.

The most important thing is to bring the public into the picture, which is not going on right now.  So how do you feel about being “tracked”, the government wants to know.

comScore, Inc. has released their monthly comScore qSearch analysis of the United States search marketplace. In August 2009, Americans conducted more than 13.9 billion core searches, with Google accounting for 64.6 percent search market share. Microsoft Sites grabbed 9.3 percent market share, a 0.4-percentage point gain versus July 2009.

Google led the U.S. core search market in August 2009 with 64.6 percent of the searches conducted, followed by Yahoo! (19.3 percent), and Microsoft (9.3 percent). Ask Network captured 3.9 percent of the search market, followed by AOL LLC with 3.0 percent.

Aug-09 vs.
Core Search Entity           Jul-09        Aug-09          Jul-09
——————           ——        ——          ——
Total Core Search             100.0%        100.0%        N/A
—————–            —–          —–            —-
Google Sites                         64.7%            64.6%         -0.1
————                  —-           —-            —-
Yahoo! Sites                          19.3%          19.3%            0.0
————                  —-           —-             —
Microsoft Sites                      8.9%             9.3%             0.4
—————                —            —             —
Ask Network                          3.9%             3.9%            0.0
———–                    —            —             —
AOL LLC Network                3.1%           3.0%              -0.1
—————                —            —            —-

* Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and
cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and
user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five
search engines are not included in the core search numbers.

You can read the full release here.

With big boosts from search and mobile, combined with continuing shifts in spending away from traditional ad channels by marketers, WPP’s GroupM, the largest buyer of media in the world, is projecting that global Internet spending will increase 11 percent next year to almost $65 billion and account for nearly 15 percent of all measured media.

More specifically, interactive media will represent nearly one of every five dollars spent by marketers on media in the U.S. next year, according to the report release yesterday.   GroupM predicts that interactive media, primarily online, will represent 17% of the U.S. advertising marketplace in 2010, up from 15.4% in 2009.

That makes interactive the third largest medium in the U.S., behind television’s 44.2% share, and magazine’s 18.4% share of 2010 advertising budgets.*  According to GroupM’s estimates, interactive media will overtake newspaper’s U.S. advertising share this year.   Newspapers, which had a 14.8% share of U.S. ad spending in 2008, will fall to a 13.6% share this year, and a 12.4% share next year. Interactive media had a 13.9% share in 2008.**

We have talked about the shift in advertising dollars from newspapers to the web in previous blog posts.  Even the most widely read newspaper in the US, USA Today, wrote about this trend last March.

You can see a Google Maps listing list of newspapers that have closed here. I think for the majority of the newspapers, although their online ad revenue has grown, it is too late to fix their core business models to make it through the era of real time, mashed up, and twitter size news.

*Courtesy of AdWeek
**Courtsey of GroupM Release

Google is warning webmasters about duplicate content and various site issues.  A few months back, Google explained the multiple pros and cons of duplicacy in the content and the related issues showing their concern over it.

The Duplicate Content and Multiple Site Issue was a hot topic at last month’s Search Engine Strategies  conference in San Jose. Google has reproduced the talk on the Google Webmaster Central YouTube Channel.

A great discussion thread on Webmaster World regarding their poll that ran last week asking Would You Allow Google to Manage Your AdWords Account? To a seasoned PPC manager, the results were not surprising.  An overwhelming majority of the responses were basically, “no way!”  In short, readers feel that the Google AdWords representatives who manage accounts for big and small advertisers cannot do as good a job as an SEM company or someone who manages it themselves.   There are many stories in the thread, mostly negative about their experience with having Google manage their account.

Just take a look at the pie chart, 87% said no, they would not allow Google to manage their AdWords campaigns. That is out of 150 Webmaster World reader responses.

The other responses said that they would allow Google do the set up of the initial campaign but then take it over from that point going forward.  That really means, no, they won’t allow Google to manage their campaign.

To take a step back, Google has a large stable of staffers just down the street from our office ready to help you set up and continue to maintain your Google AdWords account.   And they do it for free. The issue is, at least according to the stories in the thread, they don’t manage the accounts as effectively or as smart as you would yourself or as a professional PPC management company. At least, those are the overwhelming opinions in the thread.

Google can’t take the time to truly learn and understand an individual marketers business.  That is why there are so many advantages to working with a local SEM resource.

Just remember, “Free” is not always a good investment.

Microsoft announced last month a new collaboration with consumer measurement firm comScore to design a digital media-planning service dubbed the “reach and frequency planner (RF planner)”.    The RF Planner uses a hybrid audience measurement method that combines Microsoft’s ad serving data with demographic information from comScore’s panel.

The goal of the RF planner will be to help brand advertisers better measure and track their online-ad campaigns.   Advertisers would be able to more easily determine and predict how consumers will respond to their digital ads.

Current online reach and frequency metrics are typically computed at the site level.  Measuring reach and frequency at the ad placement level is more precise because it shows the reach of the ad campaign that can actually be achieved, the true potential frequency and the specific demos of that audience.  Campaigns planned at a total site level can overstate reach and understate frequency, and may not deliver the desired demographic mix.

The new RF Planner service will offer the detailed campaign-level analysis and streamlined planning capabilities that have long been a benefit in the traditional media space.

Big buzz in the interactive agency world this morning as Sean Corcoran from Forester Research released his latest Interactive Agency ratings for Q3 2009.  The report is titled “The Forrester Wave™: US Interactive Agencies — Strategy And Execution, Q3 2009″ (read excerpt).  In the report, he discusses how the market is now ready to take a big step to join, and in some cases even replace, traditional agencies for leading brands marketing strategy.

OgilvyInteractive, Sapient Interactive, R/GA, VML, Wunderman, Razorfish and Organic scored best and were named category “leaders” by Forrester.  Corcoran praised OgilvyInteractive’s breadth of services and ability to run integrated campaigns using Ogilvy’s broader resources.   Sapient’s tech prowess was noted, and R/GA was cited for having a clear mission as the “agency for the digital age” and excelling in new technologies and trends.

Ironic that the Forrester report comes out on the same day that Publicis announced they will be buying Razorfish from Microsoft for $533 million.   Acquiring a top-rated digital agency serving the only growing part of the advertising industry today is strategically smart.  Publicis now owns the world’s top two digital agencies by revenues having bought Digitas two years ago, further separating themselves from WPP, Omnicom, and Interpublic.

The Forrester report can be purchased from their web site for $1749.

4 out of 5 inquiries from new customers begin with some form of the question, “How much does a website cost?”

I think they would be most happy if I could open up the magic website price book and provide them with a useful answer.

Instead, we usually say … “well, that depends upon the type of website you would like to build.”  (How’s that for helpful?)

Actually, it is helpful because such a question begins a discussion that allows both parties to thumbnail out the actual scope of the project at hand.

Here is Stone’s approach to collecting the information necessary to provide initial pricing estimates.  It is a four quadrant model that includes: scale, features & functionality, content development, and interactivitiy.

Scale – How many sections and pages are we thinking about here?  Is it a redesign of your current site whereby the size of the site might grow by a foreseeable percentage?  Is there a competing site that does a good job capturing the information we’re hoping to capture?  Have you jotted out a preliminary sitemap?  The more thoughts the client can provide on the scale of the site, the quicker we can provide helpful budgetary information.

Features & Functionality – Basically this means “what do you want visitors to be able to do on your site?” – and – “what type of management control and integration are you looking for on the back end?”.   Front end features are usually more obvious.  Are you looking for basic forms, links, and a search feature?  Do you want to post jobs, manage news & events, and host a forum?  Is ecommerce involved? (If so, get ready for a good many more questions.)  Back end features are typically not as thought through.  What degree of content management are you looking for?  Does the site need to integrate with any other software, servers, databases?  One atypical feature request can easily add 50% to the cost of a web project.

Content Development:  Content covers both the copy (words on the page) and the images (photos, illustrations, video).  Will the client be providing final website copy?  Or, will you be in need of copywriting and/or copyediting services?  To what degree?  Is there any video production needed for the website?  Will we be using stock photography, client-provided photography, or custom photography? 

Interactivity: How much interactivity are we wanting to incorporate into the website?  Hold all other parts equal (scale, features, content), a website with a high degree of interactivity (transitions, multimedia presentations, flash integration) can easily cost 2-3 times more than a basic static website.

To make the “how much?” question even more interesting, the “how much” often depends upon “who” you’re asking.

As you move across the scale from part timers/freelancers/students/friends to very-large-agencies, the cost of a similary scoped project can increase by a multiple of 10 or more.  Experience, team size, and overhead all get factored in and influence the pricing.  On the plus side, you do usually get what you pay for.  Not always.  Usually.  Also, it’s sometimes comforting to know that your web resource will be reliable and won’t be moving/leaving the industry/graduating/you-name-it any time soon.

Technologies used to create your website certainly influence price.  Microsoft licensing costs can add up.  Open source web technology provides a major value, though is not welcome in all organizations.

Lastly, certainly not least, is the degree of search engine optimization effort that is provided with your website.   If a web partner is going to invest the time and effort to identify how people find your business and then incorporate that knowlege into the architecture of the website, be prepared to see at least a few thousand dollars added to the cost of the project.

Stone has delivered websites for $6,000 and we’ve delivered websites for well into the 6 figures.  There’s no one price for a website, only a series of trade-offs.

So there we have it, right?

You’re still very welcome to call us and ask “How much should a website cost?”.  We’ll help you figure it out.

I was asked the other day to walk a potential client through The Stone Content Management System which is based on a very popular open source CMS (Content Management System). If you are not sure what a CMS is, it is a tool that allows non-technical people to update the content, add/delete pages, add/delete images and many more things on their website through a user-friendly administrator tool.

As I was answering questions, the potential client told me that they had heard from another company that an Open Source CMS does not allow for a very flexible design and that if you wanted to have a nice design, the way to go is with a custom CMS. If you have ever taken a look at Stone’s Web Design Portfolio, you will know the answer to this. However, here are my two cents regarding that comment.

It doesn’t matter whether the CMS is custom or Open Source. If you know the system well enough (which Stone Interactive Group does) the design can look however you would like it to look. The second thing to consider is the designer themselves. Stone has a fantastic design team that produces wonderful results and the developers have been able to put every design thrown at them into this CMS.

The nice thing about Open Source is that you have an extremely large amount of team members that put time to keep the CMS up-to-date. If you ever need more help in the future with your website, you can go to many developers out there that may know the system and be able to pick it up quickly. The custom CMS projects that Stone has adopted from clients are typically very time consuming to understand and are typically out-of-date quickly and are not as easy to apply a redesign to.

So when you have the option to decide Custom VS Open Source, in my opinion, Open Source is the way to go and Stone is there to assist you along the way.

Everyone knows that Google is the 800-pound gorilla amongst search engines, so much so that you’ll hear “google” being used as a verb in casual conversation. But even with Google’s search dominance there is still a significant portion of search activity happening on other engines.

According to Hitwise’s April 2008 search share numbers (see chart) Google has a firm grasp on the majority of search traffic with just over two-thirds of all searches being conducted on Google. However, their 67.9% share of searches also means that there are still 32.1% of searches happening somewhere else. From a search engine marketing standpoint this just means that it’s important to diversify your search engine marketing efforts across search engines.

At a minimum, at least target Google and Yahoo, combined they cover 88.18% of searches, and also cover a wider range of demographics since each engine tends to attract a different type of user. One other note, even though MSN and Ask.com have relatively low numbers, there still make be great ROI in targeting those engines, especially since many of your competitors will be ignoring them.

How unfair is this….
A prospective customer visits your website for the first time.
They notice that the site’s design feels a bit dated.
They notice that the website looks ’small’ on their monitor.
They notice that the copyright at the bottom of the page reads 2006.
And they recall that the last site they were on … your competitor … just seemed more professional.
Now, they’ve never met you.
They don’t know the high quality work that you provide.
They don’t know that your value is the best around.
They only know that your website left them feeling flat. Uninspired.
It’s not fair.
But it’s the way the world is working these days.
Your website truly is the hub for all of your marketing efforts.
Start there.

Where should my blog reside?
Most every time Stone sets up a client blog this question arises.
Should it be placed within the corporate website?
Should it be distanced from the corporate site?
Should it have its own look?
Domain name?
Should I use a service? Or software?
All good questions.

While action of most any sort is going to be more valuable than paralysis of analysis, the answers to these questions can most easily be answered by the business objectives associated with blogging in the first place.

A blog is one of the simplest ways to get fresh relevant content on a website and – from a search engine ranking perspective – having the blog reside within the same domain name and server can have a positive effect on SEO.

Many believe that a blog within a corporate site becomes a corporate blog … and, by definition, less edgy / interesting / genuine than a freestanding blog. The established corporate culture and reputation will affect the likelihood of that impression.

As far as using a blog service v. software, the services were originally setup to make it easy for everyone and anyone to blog. If you maintain a corporate site, it’s a safe bet to move forward with one of the open source blog software packages. Some of the popular blog packages have morphed into mini CMS platforms, complete with a list of 3rd party components. But all of them will include the expected list of features.

So when deciding where your blog should be located, ask yourself:
1. Are we doing this to improve search engine rankings? (within the site)
2. Are we doing this to position the organization as a thought leader? (within the site) Or are we doing this to position an individual or group as a thought leader? (separate location, design, name)
3. Are we doing this because top management won’t redesign the site and it’s fallen woefully behind the times? (whatever’s fastest)

We’re all “in” the business world. We have to deal with those silly little business world sayings. You know them … C-level … 30,000 ft view … I’ll stop there.

One saying, though, that gives me a physical reaction is ‘you know how it goes, the shoemaker’s kids have no shoes’.

Yes, I know how it goes. We all know how it goes. And we know all of the reasons for these analogous youngsters to be walking around barefoot.

I submit the following. Make your kids some shoes. The best you know how. That way everyone out there see these shoes on the shoemaker’s kids … and they get envious. They’ll dream about such shoes. Make them walk up to your shop and plead with you to sell them such a beautiful pair.

Don’t you think making those shoes would be time well spent?

The ultimate goal for most websites should be to have content that draws in potential customers and to get these potential customers to contact you for more information or some other call-to-action.

But how do you get potential customers to first come to your site and second to contact you?

There are some basics that will help. A quality website design, clear navigation and functionality, outstanding content and images, etc… But these are only the basics of a good website. Even with the basics in place, many sites miss the ultimate goal of having the user fill out a form, order a product or contact the company in another way. This goal is called the “Call-to-Action”. To be successful online, usually you don’t want to just use a call-to-action once on your site, but rather use them throughout your site.

Here are a few quick ideas on adding calls-to-action that you can easily add to your website:

1. Add your contact information on every page of the website.
   Some websites bury their “Contact Us” link. First, add a contact us link to your main and footer navigation. Second, add your phone number and address somewhere visible and consistent on every page. An example would be to add it to the footer or header of the website on every page.
2. Direct your potential customer to where you think they should go next.
   Don’t assume that the users on your site know what information they need next. At the bottom of the content area, add text and a link that would take them to the next step in the process. Don’t make them think. Make it obvious where they should go. You might add a link like this “Now that you have a better idea of the clients that we have worked with, learn more about what you can expect from our services.”
3. Add a “mini” contact form to every page of your website.
   You wouldn’t believe how many people actually fill out a mini form. This should be something that is small and doesn’t require a lot of thought or time from the user. The form might include the following fields: name, email and phone.
4. Capture visitor’s names and email addresses in other ways.
   There are a couple other ways to get a potential customer to offer up their name and email address. Offer articles or white papers on your site. For a user to be able to download these articles or white papers, they have to first fill out a simple form. Also offer an eNewsletter with new articles that may be published on your site at a later time. eNewsletters are a great way to get potential customers more information about your services and provide current customers with new services and information.

Give a few of these a shot on your site and you’ll be surprised at how conversions pick up…

If you don’t quite get what a blog is, how they work, or what their purpose is…here’s a quick video that should help explain a lot:

The video is a part of Common Craft’s Plain English series, breaks down complex Internet topics into simple explainations.

Its hard to pick up a business magazine and not see something about blogs. But what are the real advantages (and disadvantages) for a company to consider before deciding whether or not blogging is for them?

1. Visibility – Blogs are one of the simplest, most-effective means for adding new content to a website. Even if your company writes a blog post once a month, that’s 12 new pages of content that search engines can find. Bumping up the schedule to a weekly blog post would mean 52 high-quality, on-topic content pages added to your site per year. On top of the new content, search engines tend to favor websites that pro-actively add new and unique content to their site. And a blog does just that.
2. Credibility – Done properly, a blog can be a huge boost to your company’s credibility. Writing honest, thoughtful feedback on recent industry issues and news presents your company as an authority within the industry. By communicating the value of your company’s thoughts in your blog, you also are communicating the value of your products and services to your customers.
3. Conversation – Blogs inherently foster conversation with their conversational tone and frequent updates. In essence, your company is beginning a conversation with each blog post that you write. Then (hopefully) readers comment on the posts and the conversation begins. Creating this sort of natural exchange of thoughts and ideas with you customers is a rare opportunity to begin the conversation without needed to “sell” anything. Just let the conversation start…sales tend to follow.

On the flip side, the only real disadvantage to having a company blog is that it takes a great deal of time and effort. However, if you can’t find time to market your business then you probably won’t have a business for long, so get blogging.

Online success doesn’t need to be complicated.  At Stone, we think it’s simply a matter of following a tried and true formula … T x T x T = R.

More specifically, online Results is a product of a Trustworthy website, website Traffic, and maximizing the Transaction rate of your website visitors.

Here, let’s discuss just what a Trustworthy website means.

On the macro level, a trustworthy website – or web experience – is a feeling.  It’s an impression you’re left with.  It’s the impression that greatly influences your next action … Do you want to work with this organization?  Do you get the impression that they will come through for you?  Do you TRUST them?

That trustworthiness is a function of many items.  It includes your sites’s branding. (Not your firm’s branding.  On the web, your site IS your firm.)  Layout, usability, architecture, logo, fonts, images … they all work together to create your site’s design and your organization’s online brand.

It also includes your site’s functionality.  Can your visitors hold their expected level of interaction on your site?  If you exceed their expectations, you position your firm as a leader in your space.  Fall short of their expectations, and you will be viewed as technological laggard.

Trustworthiness also includes content … your messaging, your supporting information, your tone / pace / language.  Do you provide enough detail on your site?  Is it current?  Do you provide opportunities for visitors to get more information?

Lastly, your site’s performance factors into overall trust levels.  A world-class site that drags, contains error messages, or requires visitors to download plug-ins will negate months of good thinking and hard work.

If you’re hoping to achieve improved online success in 2007, the right place to start is with creating a trustworthy online experience.  From there you grow.  From there you can build.  From there you can begin to reach your online goals.

The Stone team is excited to offer up to our friends this new forum. Here, we’ll share ideas, issue challenges, and generally think out loud in order to advance the cause of web business.

If something has been on your mind, send us an email and we’ll post a response. If nothing has been on your mind, check back regularly because there is a mountain of exciting happenings going on out there.

Here’s to a successful 2007 for all.

- Mark

The average search engine optimization company is in high demand, and with rising pay-per-click costs and growing exposure of SEO in the mainstream media, this is unlikely to soon subside. Unfortunately, many organizations that willingly embrace SEO as a marketing tool also unknowingly sabotage the efforts of the search engine optimization company they have chosen. What follows is a list, by no means complete, of some of the most common errors made by companies that can harm their SEO efforts.

Demand Rankings with No Changes to the Site

It is a common assumption that search engine rankings are determined by a magical formula rooted largely (or almost exclusively) in technology. In reality, long-term search engine rankings are generally achieved through an equal mix of technology and updated website content. An ethical search engine optimization company will usually turn down work when told that under no circumstances can any of the visual elements or content of a site be changed.

It is largely a site’s content—from the text to the images—that allows search engines to determine what that site is about. That same content also helps other sites and directories to decide whether or not a site is worthy of a link (and link popularity is, of course, a major factor in rankings). Many companies do not want to hear this, especially after they have paid a sizable amount of money to a web designer. The bottom line? That site built entirely in Flash for which you spent $50,000 is not going to achieve high rankings for a variety of phrases without substantial changes that will allow its content to be indexed by the engines. The truth hurts sometimes—but so can the cost of lost opportunities.

Update the Website without Consulting Your Search Engine Optimization Company

A very common and innocent mistake can have disastrous consequences. It generally happens when a webmaster is updating a website, perhaps simply adding a press release or uploading a graphic. Accidentally, the webmaster saves an older version of the site over the new version, removing many of the elements that the search engine optimization company had added to achieve high rankings. This can result in a loss of positions for which the search engine optimization company, of course, is blamed.

Worse yet, since most sites are developed on a “test bed,” damage can be done when the site goes live. Test beds are not intended to be crawled by search engine spiders, and so responsible webmasters include instructions in the site code requesting that spiders not index the site—the Internet equivalent of a “do not disturb” sign. The major search engines dutifully obey this request on the test bed site. They also dutifully obey when these instructions are accidentally transferred over to the live site during an update. As you might imagine, the results from such an oversight are somewhat less than ideal. Once again, the search engine optimization company generally gets the blame.

Since constantly accepting blame can be demoralizing, a good search engine optimization company monitors the code on all of its clients’ sites on a daily basis, analyzes any changes, and quickly reacts if anything potentially harmful has been done. In this way the website can be repaired before ranking losses occur.

Link to Other Sites

Everyone that has a website has received at least one email requesting a link exchange. Unfortunately, this type of exchange defeats the purpose of link popularity, and engines are starting to take notice. Since inbound links are essentially counted as “votes” for your site, a simple trade-off between sites does not necessarily indicate that those sites are advocating one another. Worse, if you actively link out to a site that becomes penalized (and sites that seek reciprocal links are likely to be very aggressive in their optimization tactics) your site can become penalized in turn.

This does not mean that you should never link out to another site, especially if you believe that the site contains information that is of value to your visitors. Your search engine optimization company, however, should be given the opportunity to review any site to which you want to link. Additionally, a thorough search engine optimization company will frequently review the outbound links on your site, making sure that none of the websites to which you are linking begin using questionable SEO practices. This ensures that your site stays out of danger of penalization.

Create Additional Domains

There are legitimate reasons for wanting to have several domains mirroring your site (tracking the performance of offline website advertising, for example), but few, if any, are search engine related. If you are hoping to get a double listing for duplicate content on multiple domains, you are wasting your time—the engine will typically choose one version of the content and keep the other version out of its index.

Not long ago, there was a danger of all versions of a website being removed from search engine results for having multiple domains with the same content. Most engines, as mentioned above, now will simply choose one of the websites and discount the others. The problem is that promoting multiple domains with duplicate content can water down your link popularity as it is spread over several sites. This obviously hinders campaign performance.

Vanity domains can still be used, but they should redirect to a single version of the website using a 301 redirect. This means that if anyone adds an outbound link to one of your vanity URLs, your site will still get credit for the link.

Try Your Own SEO Tactics

The worst nightmare a search engine optimization company can face is when clients begin to see great results from the campaign and then believe that they should pitch in and help “accelerate” the results. Unfortunately, while the intentions are admirable, this is usually much like someone observing an auto mechanic screw on a radiator cap and believing that this observation now qualifies him as a certified radiator technician (and his tool of choice is generally a hammer). There is much going on in a typical search engine optimization campaign involving page elements, behind the scenes factors, linking strategies, and many other facets. If your search engine optimization company were to take the time to explain exactly how everything worked and why it was important, your campaign could take years. Many tactics, particularly those that SEO beginners might try, can put your site at risk of penalization. I suggest you steer the car and let your search engine optimization company fix the radiator.

Change the Marketing Direction

This may seem like an obvious issue that is easy to avoid, but often a search engine optimization company is the last to know that your company is no longer offering a certain product or service, that you no longer desire certain types of clients, that you are launching a new product or service, or that you are trying to drum up additional business in a certain product or service line. Organic search engine optimization takes time. When marketing issues like this arise, your search engine optimization company should be on your speed dial, so that it can be ready to take action based upon your current marketing strategy.

There are many other ways in which to hinder the performance of your search engine optimization company, but the above list details some fairly common examples. Organic SEO, when done properly, offers one of the highest returns on investment of any marketing channel available. If you do careful vendor evaluation, your campaign should perform above your expectations, provided you trust your search engine optimization company and leave your hammer in the toolbox.

About the Author

Scott Buresh is the CEO of Medium Blue Search Engine Marketing, which was recently named the number one search engine optimization company in the world by PromotionWorld. Scott has contributed content to many publications including Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004), MarketingProfs, ZDNet, WebProNews, DarwinMag, SiteProNews, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide. Medium Blue serves local and national clients, including Boston Scientific, Cirronet, and DS Waters. Visit MediumBlue.com to request a custom SEO guarantee of your company’s search engine performance.