In my daily work on and in Credo, I often am asked who the “best (SEO/content/marketing) agency” is. I have literally heard those exact words hundreds of times in the last two years. I get it. We all want “the best”. We are all addicted to quick answers and quick solutions. The world has trained us to think that there is one “right” solution, and usually a quick one, to many of our problems.
I once read a story about a young developer doing work through an agency for a client. They went to meet the client and were surprised to find another outside consultant in the room for the meeting as well. As the meeting went on, they found that the business owner listened to the consultant more than the agency employees. Later on the agency employees found out that the business was paying the consultant $500 an hour, while only paying the…
One question we hear a lot is if you should use Shopify or Magento for eCommerce. So our researchers dug into the problem and came back with a few findings. The short version is that Shopify is a commercial eCommerce platform where you pay to use the service as a subscription. Your site is hosted by Shopify on their servers. This is much like SquareSpace or WordPress.com, where you do not have to worry about hosting or upkeep, but you…
One sticking point around hiring someone for marketing services is around the cost. If you’ve ever had discussions with me or an agency/consultant, most of us will tell you that great work done by an expert does not come cheap. In our pricing survey, you’ll learn that most agencies and consultants charge $150+ per hour for their work. You won’t see those prices on places like UpWork usually.
There is a massive difference between knowing you need help with your digital strategy and knowing how to fill that all-important void. When it comes time to do just that, the ever-increasing pool of digital agencies makes it increasingly difficult to evaluate the differences between one marketing proposal (and digital agency) to the next. As of today, there are over 150,000 digital marketing agencies and consultants in the US alone. That is a lot of agencies trying their very best…
Are you in charge of marketing at your company, yet struggling to get buy-in or communicate across departments to get things done? The truth is that modern marketing teams have to partner with other business units. In the past, we were able to go off and do our “marketing things” like PR and trade shows that required very little overlap with other departments.
Do you want to close more of the leads coming to you into new clients and therefore more revenue? If so, you have to follow these three rules of sales: Follow up with everyone within an hour of receiving their message. Follow up with them every couple of days for the first week, then send a final email that you are going to close their record. Set their expectations for next steps and keep to what you commit to. If…
SEO can be a black box, and many business owners have minimal understanding of it. To that end, that’s why you hire a professional to help you out. At the same time, there are many things that agencies wish their clients knew so that progress could be made faster.
This is a question I get asked a lot, both as a business owner and an SEO consultant in my own right. The truth is, it’s a great question. If you’re hiring someone to do SEO for you, you need to know what you are paying for. This is why I coach agencies and consultants to help you understand specifically what they are including in a scope of work for your business. It’s also a great question because different agencies…
I am going to say something that many of you will disagree with: You should not base your marketing investment decisions off of cost per lead in the B2B space. In fact, I think cost per lead is the worst metric you can look at as you build a service-based business.
Most startups underinvest in SEO for a really long time. If that’s you, listen up. On the one hand, I can’t blame you. You’re trying to get a new thing off the ground and just keep it alive, and maybe even grow it. You’re trying to figure out your customer segments, how you’ll make money, who you need to hire and when, and so much more. Trust me, I’ve been through all of it over the last two years running…
Migrating your site to a new domain or URL structure is a huge undertaking whose SEO implications should not be taken lightly. In fact, I would say switching URLs and technical stacks can be one of the highest risk things you can do for your site’s SEO. Sometimes, though, we have to do things that are risky for other reasons. Maybe politics is at play and you were not involved in the decision. Or maybe the UX team has made…
In the never-ending debate on the best PPC Pricing Model, Kirk Williams responds to a recent article against Percentage of Spend pricing by defending it. See his thoughts here, on why Percentage of Spend pricing doesn’t necessarily misalign the agency’s goals with the clients. Make sure to read to the end, where he also presents a variation of the model as a new way to price that brings out the best in all models.
If you are looking to market your small (or medium or even large) business, it’s all about your audience. That’s where you start and that’s how you market to them.
Looking for a new PPC agency who can accelerate your results? Schedule a free marketing evaluation with our team to meet the right agencies fast. In this economy, you can’t afford not to. It’s fast, free, and we get it right. Matching brands with agencies is literally what we do. Many paid acquisition agencies and digital agencies charge a percentage of spend for their fees. The question is: does this pricing strategy create a recipe for client-agency disaster? Or, can…
For a long time, the GetCredo.com homepage has been confusing to people. If I had a nickel for every time people have asked me about the old top image and the thinking behind it, I’d have a lot of nickels. And unfortunately, I never had a good answer. The answer was usually “Oh it’s a legacy thing and I am thinking about changing it.” It was dead weight. It was confusing. So we changed it.
Sometimes, you change. I’ve spoken with a few agency owners and consultants who have realized that they either have or need to go upstream in their business to a) be more profitable and b) be happier. I’ve seen this happen many times. So how do you move upstream and change your prices, and what does that mean for your current clients who are paying you less than your new rates? This video covers that second part – communicating pricing changes…
Every SEO I know right now is putting together a roundup post of “what #X experts think of SEO in 2017”. I’m going to do it differently. If you’re down in the trenches doing SEO, you should have a pretty good idea about where SEO has come from, where it currently is, and where it’s going. I help 60-70 businesses a month find an agency or consultant to work with, mostly for SEO. I also work with a few enterprise…
Last night I published over on my personal blog my thoughts on how Twitter as a public company can turn around their fortunes. I laid out four main areas I see where they need to work – messaging, user identity, making decisive decisions, and combatting abuse – but I feel like one of my strongest points got lost. Twitter needs a Panda update.
When most people start consulting on their own (and subsequently hire people and start an agency), they charge too little. Don’t be embarrassed – everyone does it. When I did my first freelance consulting projects in 2011/2012, I charged $50 per hour and was billing hourly. I realized years later that I made them ~$2,000,000 dollars from my SEO work, and I made ~$2,500 from that engagement. Great ROI for them, but not for me. With my next few clients,…
Hey Credo pro – You’re on Credo because you want to build your business and get more clients. One of the toughest parts of any sales program is getting responses from leads, and Credo is no exception. When you are responding to an Open Lead on Credo, you’re one of multiple (up to 4) responses, so you still need to set yourself apart from others.
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