SEO Advantage

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of marketing for an online precious metals retailer that sells gold, silver, platinum, palladium, copper, and supplies for investors in hard assets. We’ve been in business since 2009.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SEO Advantage?

Like anyone who is in the business of selling their wares online, you count on search engines for direct traffic. We were trying to rank well for the things that we’re trying to sell. Organic rankings were our pursuit. We needed a firm that could make sure we weren’t doing anything wrong, and to help us pay attention to competitive challenges and the algorithm changes that could increase organic traffic. We partnered with another company for a very short time early on and didn’t have a great experience.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started from a very basic level. They performed a needs analysis, did a site audit of our SEO [search engine optimization] best practices, and helped us develop processes for making sure that, when we launched products, those pages and our site are optimized. We had a big content initiative. We have always had big content needs with regards to our growing knowledge center and trying to become an industry authority. They’ve really helped us with a lot of that—content producing and publishing, performing outreach for the content, trying to acquire healthy backlinks, etc. The project has expanded from there.

In the early days, they helped a lot more with design. We didn’t have a robust IT group and they helped us design landing pages and managed our pay-per-click advertising and display advertising. In the beginning, we needed help with our URL structure, the logic of our navigation, and pretty much everything. They’ve helped with product copy and published hundreds of knowledge center articles, blog articles, and any other content needs that we had.

The relationship is highly collaborative. I’m not sure if it’s the same with all their clients, but our industry is very unique. It’s a commodity, and sentiment really controls price, so there’s not a whole lot we can do to control the demand for our products. We’re trying to identify and educate new audiences all the time. They leaned on us a little bit to help come up with some of the content and really understand our customer personas. The nomenclature is very specific and our customers are really not the same as somebody who is buying shoes online; they have specific needs and interests. Over the years, they’ve gotten really good at coming up with first drafts and allowing us to steer the conversation from there.

How did you come to work with SEO Advantage?

We found them through a referral. I’ve vetted countless SEO companies over the years. Part of the reason that we’ve stuck with SEO Advantage is that we have a lot of trust and faith in their expertise. We have very close ties with their stakeholders because we’ve been with them for years. We’re so tightly intertwined with them at this point. They know our website and everything that we’ve done and tried whether it has worked or not.

It’s been really helpful to stick with somebody who really knows you well. While vetting other companies and going through and trying to understand them and what they can do, there have definitely been times where I feel like I’m just going to be another number dealing with the project manager. Other companies stick to the agreement and won’t go the extra mile. Our relationship with SEO Advantage is not really like that. There’s definitely value in the flexibility.

How much have you invested with SEO Advantage?

It varies by project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in July 2010, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

I look at a lot of key performance indicators, and I’m trying to allocate that success to our SEO expenditure, but it’s really hard. SEO is one of those things that, when you spend a bunch of money, you need the expertise to be able to handle problems and do certain things correctly. We grew from nothing to a company that has millions of page views a month, and a lot of that traffic is direct. We perform really well organically; we’re on page one for a lot of the things that are important to us, and we’re doing things to stay there all the time because the competition is working really hard to displace you.

Regarding SEO, it has been a successful investment. There have been some really big projects, like the knowledge center, for example, putting it outside the content management system. Having really good SEO-friendly content at the root level was their idea, and those entry pages are extremely valuable to us.

How did SEO Advantage perform from a project management standpoint?

I don’t really have anything bad to say about them, but nobody is perfect. We’ve developed this relationship where they understand that I’m the lead on this side, and I work with a lot of different people at SEO Advantage. They have project managers, but I don’t have a specific project manager that I deal with. I really deal with the stakeholders. They’re as good as anybody else is with project management. They’ve done a reasonably good job, or we wouldn’t continue to partner with them.

We get in-person visits periodically from one of the stakeholders. I have access to cell phone numbers as well. I call them on a regular basis, we exchange emails as necessary, we do JoinMe meetings and we have content meetings on a regular basis about what we’ve done, what we are doing, what we’re going to do, and what’s working. I get analytics reports from them monthly and I can get any ad hoc information that I need, which I do need quite often. There are a number of people over there who are just really great at providing extremely helpful information. We have quarterly summits about the big stuff that we’re doing, and we meet monthly to discuss a couple of other things.

What did you find most impressive about SEO Advantage?

I feel like they are a partner, and that’s really important. Their success is connected to my success, and I feel that from them. They’re an honorable group of people and have a high rating in my book in terms of integrity. They have no problem making sure that you understand what the approach is. There are no shortcuts, and sometimes things take longer than expected when you’re talking about organic performance, but they do it right, and they’ve been right enough times that I trust them. That’s a really hard thing to find in a partner that you’re spending a lot of money with. You want to trust them, and you want to have access to their expertise when you need it. We consult them on lots of things that are outside the scope of our agreement with them. They have always impressed me with the things that they have done.

They’ve always gone above and beyond. If I need something and I think they can do it for me, they do it. I really appreciate them going the extra mile for us. We’re really important to their business and we understand that.

Are there any areas SEO Advantage could improve?

It’s their business, and they’ve done a really good job with it. At first, there were things that didn’t come soon enough for me, like time tracking. Now, they do a really great job of that. It’s something that they grew into, but it’s not something we really pushed hard. The biggest challenge that I’ve had is that I’m between them and our stakeholders, and I have to defend the expenditure. When somebody asks what they did for us this month, you’d like to have a long list of all the great things that they are doing.

In the early days, they were growing, they were short-handed, and technology maybe wasn’t really their strong suit. Their strong suit was optimizing websites to perform organically for their clients. I could’ve partnered with somebody else who could have provided me with a bunch of fancy reports that maybe would have made our stakeholders happier, but the truth is that we may not be where we are right now had I done that.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Babcock Law Firm, LLC has two offices. The main office is in Littleton, Colorado and the satellite office is in Denver. We’re a boutique law firm that specializes in personal injury, worker’s compensation, and insurance bad faith litigation. We are 100% on the plaintiff side. We do not represent any insurance companies, corporations, or businesses. We represent victims of either other peoples’ negligence, workplace injuries, or wrongful conduct by insurance companies and their families. I’m the managing attorney and sole owner of the law firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SEO Advantage?

We were looking for someone to help us with marketing and business development. Since we are only dealing with the plaintiff side, we hope that we don’t have repeat customers because that would mean someone is getting hurt over and over again. It’s not the same way when you’re an insurance defense attorney because they keep sending you cases. For me, it’s a one-time transaction with my customers.

We engage SEO Advantage on all types of marketing, in addition to the search engine, internet, and social media marketing. We use traditional methods like referral resources including prior clients, doctors, etc. Starting a firm like this means you have a very limited case load or no case load because you came from another firm. I needed to develop a caseload by marketing with traditional methods as well as finding ways to cast a wider net to include people who search the internet for a law firm. This was the first work I’d done regarding SEO [search engine optimization].

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I started the firm in July 2007 and used the capital I had to develop an online presence. In the beginning, our focus was organic SEO for the initial website. SEO Advantage did regular updates to the website and wrote blog posts, knowledge center articles, e-books, and press releases. They would market to outside resources in terms of developing inbound and outbound links. They provided programming, copywriting services, and external marketing.

Over time, their work evolved into other things including revamping our website to make it mobile friendly. We’ve expanded into social media marketing including Google Plus and Facebook. They’ve also helped with PPC [pay-per-click] on Google and some of the other search engines. I had done PPC myself when I first started but it’s no longer easy to do on your own. SEO Advantage has also done keyword studies. They have a person on their team who specializes in PPC to optimize the budget and make sure I’m getting the best bang for my buck.

In connection with social media marketing and the organic optimization in terms of inbound and outbound links, the project manager from SEO Advantage hooked me up with some journalists. I have been interviewed by several journalists on my practice areas, tort reform, and other topics; one of the articles was published in the Huffington Post. SEO Advantage is doing more work with attorneys and they are developing a national joint website that attorneys can participate in called Enjuris.com, which I’m a part of. Because of the competitive nature of our industry, the trend has been to have a large, national website that dominates the rankings. Some of the websites are directories, some are mass marketing tools, and some are a combination of a marketing tool and a reference source for consumers. Enjuris helps us compete on that level. My website competes on an individual level and with Enjuris on a larger scale as well.

How did you come to work with SEO Advantage?

I asked people that I was close to that had no conflict of interest who they would recommend from other states. A very close friend of mine designed my website but his agency didn’t do any SEO. They gave me referrals for three companies and SEO Advantage was one of them. I met with the companies and made sure they weren’t working with any of my competitors in order make my website the top site in Colorado for what I do.

I worked with a firm previous to starting my own firm that does more of the mass marketing with an emphasis on online marketing. I talked with West Publishing, who had expanded into marketing, along with other local companies who would sign up numerous firms in the same area. I had a problem with that concept. These companies told me they would do great marketing for my business because they had success with three or four of my competitors. That didn’t make sense to me because I knew they were telling all of their clients that they could get them on page one and would ask for more money to get us each ahead of our competition. I don’t have a background in SEO or technology and knew that some of the companies would take advantage of that and would have me spend money without me understanding what was going on. I’m very detailed oriented and I didn’t want a company that would do that. I wanted to find a company that I knew was a quality provider. After a series of conversations with different firms, I decided SEO Advantage was the firm I felt most comfortable with.

How much have you invested with SEO Advantage?

We spend an average of $80,000 per year with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with them in July 2007, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

I track every call that comes to my firm. In the last ten years, my online presence has directed several thousand potential clients to my firm. Those several thousand client referrals have turned into roughly 1,000 clients. In terms of the website from where it started in 2007 to where it is now, there’s been a 2,000% increase in referrals.

How did SEO Advantage perform from a project management standpoint?

I’ve been through a couple of different project managers that I communicate with multiple times a week. The other people working on the site, including those working on PPC, social media marketing, copywriters, copy editors, programmers, customer service, etc., all fall under the project manager. They’re always on top of things. If I detect an issue, I get an immediate response.

Are there any areas SEO Advantage could improve?

No. I’ve always been pleased with their work. They’re great at communication. I run my firm like a business because I have a background in business, so I enjoy the numbers and analyze my marketing every year. I run a cost-benefit analysis and can tell you how much I make per case on the ones I get through my online presence. It has been a good experience from a communication and outcome standpoint. From a cost standpoint, that’s more anecdotal. I have very close friends who are my competitors and we talk about our firms and marketing strategies. From those conversations, I know I’m beating my competitors on cost value. Some of my competitors are paying 150% of what I’m paying for the same level of service, but sometimes, not for the same level of success that I’m receiving. Overall, I don’t have anything negative to say, which is probably why I’ve been with them for ten years.