Why SEO firms are different from most companies

December 19th, 2006

Jordan McCollum over at Marketing Pilgrim posts on How to Own an SEO firm - Nothing that many small independant SEO firms have been bought by larger marketing agencies later. She makes some good points as to why SEO firms are different than your normal corporate office, and why working in a different way is important for SEO specialists.

• SEO requires a certain amount of creativity, flexibility and uncertainty—pretty much anathema to the corporate world. But without these things, your company’s services will become outdated and stagnant.
• SEO requires research and experimentation. Don’t expect to be able to devote 125% of your resources to slaving away solely for clients, unless your clients are willing to be guinea pigs as your SEOs try out new things—things that may or may not work.
• SEO is always changing. What works today may not work tomorrow. If something does stop working, it may take time to find another effective method. Time spent researching and experimenting can help to minimize that time.
• Learn everything you can about your SEO company’s methods and strategies. Encourage them to experiment and improve their methods. But until the day when you can sit down and do what each person in your SEO company does, don’t dictate new strategies and methods (although you might suggest them). Remember, you bought them because you liked what they were doing.
• As with any merger, there are already a lot of issues in this “family”—don’t make more. This company’s employees have probably grown quite close. Whether or not they like one another personally, if you make drastic changes within their community, there may be backlash.
• You pay for what you get. Skilled, experienced Internet marketers are often hard to come by. Do everything you can to not lose your SEO employees. Losing your valuable employees may ultimately result in the failure of your SEO company. This is directly related to:
• SEO is not like KIA. Unlike the auto industry, SEO doesn’t mesh well with lean manufacturing. It takes quite a few man-hours to maintain dozens or hundreds of clients.