Interview with Lead to Conversion

Please begin by introducing your company and your role there.

Lead to Conversion got its start back in 2006 and was primarily focused on SEO, PPC & social media marketing serving both English and Spanish requirements. As the years progressed, we continued to grow not only our client base, but the range of services as well. Fast-forward a few years to around 2012, which is about the time when the vision and plethora of service offerings grew exponentially. It was around this time when we started doing a lot more creative and branding work for clients which includes brand development/redevelopment, responsive website design, online and offline collateral development, etc.

My role at Lead to Conversion is CEO, which to me is just a fancy title. Unlike many traditional firms where clearly defined hierarchy can often dictate how or who you can talk to, I look at myself as a peer that anyone in the organization can approach and speak to openly and honestly. The same goes for our clients as well.

A typical day for me is anything but typical. It varies day-to-day and can often consist of sales, marketing, operations, etc., depending on what’s needed that day. Fluid is probably the best way to describe it.

What goals should a business define before looking to hire a SEO partner?

When people ask us about goals for organic search, some expect our answer will be all about search engine rankings.  Rankings are clearly a part of search marketing success, however, we named our company Lead To Conversion because we are all about helping our clients convert new customers on their websites. That's really what it's all about for us as digital marketers.

Conversion goals are key to the success of any business with a website. Without clearly defined conversion goals, it’s impossible to glean quantifiable milestones and ROI.

As for how a business should define these goals, it really depends on the type of business they’re in and what they consider to be goals/conversions. Fundamentally from an online marketing perspective, the first thing that needs to happen if not already in play, is to set up analytics, such as Google Analytics as an example. This will allow for the business owner to establish a baseline of where and how much traffic their site is getting on a daily, weekly, monthly, etc. basis. It will also help them understand if a particular marketing endeavor is working or not based on evaluating data in aggregate.

Examples:

For a small business whose sole purpose is to drive people into a physical location, it can sometimes be difficult to track and quantify ROI since these types of actions are taking place offline. That said, however, there are ways to track “foot traffic” leveraging unique coupons, unique phone numbers, etc., that are only associated with the online marketing initiative.

For businesses such as manufacturers that are selling goods in a B2B capacity, tracking isn’t as difficult as they may think. Using online “contact us” forms with confirmation URLs, phone tracking, unique email addresses, etc., can help determine where inquiries and ultimately sales are coming from for any particular digital marketing endeavor.

Ecommerce businesses are much easier to track simply because their business is online. Utilizing tracking phone numbers, unique landing pages (PPC, email, etc.), setting up confirmation page goals once a product is purchased, etc., allows for both the client and the agency to clearly showcase value.

In your opinion, which factors should be weighted most heavily when hiring a SEO company?

1. Focus (the company specializes in the type of work you require)
    
2. Proven performance (client reviews, case studies, client list)
    
3. Company attributes (thought leadership, staff experience, reporting)
    
4. Price (value, within budget, pricing model)

What are some red flags to watch out for when evaluating a SEO company?

There are so many red flags in our industry, but I’ll just focus on the main ones.

“Guaranteed placements” - Sorry, there is no such thing as guaranteed placements in organic SEO since we don’t control the algorithms at the search engines nor have the ability to control future algorithm updates which can dramatically change the landscape of placements. Any company that offers guaranteed placements should not be pursued IMHO. Any best practices-based SEO company doesn’t offer this type of guarantee, so I suggest not falling into the guaranteed placement trap.

Month-to-month engagements - Since SEO is a long term initiative that takes at least 2-3 months to start seeing results with up to 12 months to see solid results for hypercompetitive phrases, it’s a red flag for any SEO company to be offering month-to-month SEO. At a minimum, SEO campaigns should be 12 months, but come with early out clauses built into the contract/scope of work for no less than 3 or 6 months depending on the competitiveness of the client vertical.

“Money back guarantees” – There may be some legitimacy to money back guarantees in certain instances, but true SEO is very labor intensive and has a lot of hard costs associated with running an effective campaign. Cost of personnel, personnel time on the account, tools, reporting tools, ongoing consulting, etc.

From a business ownership perspective, owners need to ask themselves how a company can survive long term in a money back guarantee scenario.  I firmly believe you get what you pay for and there are hard costs to hiring smart SEO professionals! Often times, the money back guarantee is loosely worded or ambiguous as to the types of phrases they’ll rank for the client. So they take advantage of some customers’ lack of knowledge, for example, guaranteeing a #1 placement for a longer tail keyword phrase that has minimal competition and won’t drive any traffic to the customer’s site.  What good is that? It’s also quite possible this type of agency has a good majority of the work outsourced for cheap and has substantial markup to where it doesn’t affect their bottom line if they have to give the money back to the client. These are only a couple thought-provoking examples, but there are several other scenarios to consider here.

Bad reputation – I often tell potential clients that we live in a world of hyper transparency – good or bad. Do some searches on Google for “[agency name]+review(s)” and see what the world has to say about the company. Even if there are bad reviews mixed with some good reviews, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad company. Perhaps asking the company directly about what you’ve read and hearing their response will help mitigate any concerns there. However, if the agency is getting blasted with negative reviews from a multitude of sources and former clients, they may not be the best fit.

Does your company have any specific requirements for a potential client, such as a minimum budget or project length?

It really depends on what the client is seeking. Typical SEO engagements range from 6 months to 12 months on average. PPC engagements have a minimum 60 days. Website design projects vary greatly depending on the size and scope of the project, but typically range anywhere from 2-8 months. Email marketing can be month-to-month. We also offer straightforward consulting which doesn’t require a minimum monthly commitment.

What unique value does your company provide compared to others?

In general, I think one of the key differentiating qualities that we have are the people who work here and the reason this company was co-founded to begin with.

We’ve taken an enterprise-level skill set, distilled it, and make it executable for small and medium-sized businesses and enterprises alike at a fraction of the cost of a typical enterprise campaign. I think frankly that is a strong differentiating quality in terms of us versus a good majority of our competitive landscape.

I can talk all day about this, but what really matters is what our customers have to say.  We send our video team out to record their stories, and we often let them do the talking to potential new customers!

About the Author

Natalie Craigmile Marketing Manager

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