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1 - If you have 2 SEO's on the same domain, one's aggressive tactics can kill the results of the other
2 - It is extremely rare that 2 SEO companies will have equal results and equal customer service skills. Meaning even if you do with with 2 on two different sites, more than likely you'll find yourself liking on over the other either in how they respond to you or in results.
Most GOOD SEO shops will turn down an opportunity if there are to be 2 SEOs on the SAME site because they ultimately want to be responsible for as much of the outcome as possible and having someone else in there will only cause issues and infighting.
Infighting will just lead to you have to manage the two, taking more of your time away from what matters most.
Unfortunately we have pissed in our own pool with so many bad SEO shops who overpromise that clients are starting to think this is a good idea to hedge against a bad experience.
It's about trust and expectations.
David, what you are describing is a bit different. When there is a lead agency that works with independent contractors or hires other vendors for things they don't specialize in, I think that can work fine.
What I'm talking about is when you have two full service SEO agencies, worlds collide.
The 4-5 prospects that I am referencing in the post above were all on their 2nd, 3rd, 4th SEO engagement and were operating on some assumptions that doubling up on vendors would work in SEO as it had worked for them in other industries.
I was just trying to say that there are ways for it to work with smaller agencies, although I would recommend clients START with ONE provider and expand only if that first provider is allowed to recommend whom to work with.
I don't think that companies should heir multiple marketing firms. Targeting and analyzing a definite customer base will increase a company's output and business productivity. This is the main reason, ventures heir marketing agencies. hiring more than 2 agencies might increase database but its not necessary that they will work on same track.It may lead to two different concepts of consumers mind. rather than going for 2 agencies companies should believe in one agency's working and they should emphasis over its proper functioning and whole some work out over customer base.
Regards,
Alex
I worked on a project to advise best practices for ecommerce & SEO. Project manager was an "SEO expert" but actually only new PPC. Client didn't know difference. SEO expert's approach: SEO comes later after 60 days of PPC to identify keywords. OUCH! I spent hours trying to train client so they could understand their decisions, then left project - too many sleepless nights. Site was developed with non-SE-friendly URLs with no keyword mapping to pages. Site has duplicate content issues - working with them again in "repair" mode. AND no landing pages were not discussed for PPC campaigns.
Sounds like client education is key, prior to engagement, to avoid issues you discussed here.
@Andrew Eklund - Managing expectations with SEO/SEM can not be stressed enough. I understand how long things can take to start affecting your rankings, but the person that writes the check, will always want results YESTERDAY.
With the economy getting tight, people are looking more and more to have their website perform where their traditional advertising and marketing might have. This means when paying for SEO consulting; every day, week, or month that goes by without a positive change in their rankings, (or being on page 1 for selected key words) they began to second guess investing money in SEO. They start to get nervous where their next lead is going to come from, and when they will be on the top for their list of keywords.
Again, managing expectations that this will take time, and using PPC will help drive the needed traffic in the mean time, seem like great advice.
Sometimes companies don't want to hear what you have to say when you are conservative with estimates but it's always better to under promise and over deliver than the other way around.
Depends how granular you're getting though; at one point you're better off letting affiliates mine that longtail for you. 4-5 word phrases? Yeah, no minisite there...
If you're publishing sites to monetize content, then I see your point. If you're optimizing content for a known brand and there is no distinct content or marketing reason for a microsite, it's likely a waste of time.
SEO for lead generation and sales is a very different thing than using SEO for content monetization.
Bssed on my personal experience, there are reasons to work with more than one SEO company.
Some companies are really good at creating long-term enterprise level, international search strategies. So called thought leaders.
Other SEO companies have really good tools for diagnosing structural and code issues.
Some companies have strengths in link building and social media.
And even other companies focus on helping to hire, organize, and train an in-house SEO team.
It's hard to find one company that is THE best choice for all four of these initiatives. Especially for large complex organizations that have thousands of large complex websites.
It is rare, I'll admit, that a typical website needs more than one SEO company, but using multiple companies does certainly have it's place.
Being succesful at it requires working with companies that have mutual admiration for eachother, a strong sense of co-opetition, an understanding that there really aren't many long-term approach secrets in the industry , and a willingness to put the client's needs first.
Best,
Derrick Wheeler
Sr SEO Architect, Microsoft.com
TopRank is one of those agencies engaged by several Fortune 20 companies specifically for link building and social media promotion expertise. However, these were projects or focused on specific segments of the overall business.
The effectiveness of a multi-agency engagement is largely dependent on the client's vision and ability to manage the relationships.
The situations I described in the post are based on smaller companies, $1bn or less, that sought to put peer agencies in competition with each other rather than a "coopetition" situation.
Regardless, the vast majority of SEO engagements need only 1 agency to achieve desired results.
Totally agree with you. Just wanted to introduce a scenario where it makes sense to use more than one. As an agency-side SEO for over ten years, I was involved in the scenario you outlined on many occasions. The most common example was working with a client that hired a design/development company that said they included SEO as part of the design/development process. This usually ended up with a bad working relationship because our role became criticizing their work and usually ended up creaping their scope. :)
Great article by the way. Very thought provoking.
--Derrick
Also, thanks for stopping by! Hope we can earn many more return visits. :)
Our search marketing firm just had a situation like this.
A prospective client wanted us to do a quote for SEM and SEO services. We did the paid search quote, as well as a quote for a site audit, keyword research, and SEO plan plus staff coaching. Pretty standard stuff.
Since the client did not know what phrases they wanted to focus on, it was kinda hard to give a price on executing on the plan that hadn't been put together :)
Anyway, they took a look at the price (which was mid-range)and said, basically "well, for that we would expect you to do the plan, execute on it, and get some results in 1-2 months."
Since they have a page rank of 4, and their competitors are up there in the 6, 7, and 8 range, with a whole lot more high value links, we felt it wouldn't be fair to promise dramatic results in 2 months, on key phrases we hadn't yet settled on.
Anyway, long story short, we talked our way out of the SEO engagement. The hook? They asked us to "supervise" the work of a lower-priced search marketing agency.
Of course, I told them I wasn't comfortable suprvising the results of another search marketng firm's work, but they could come back to us if they want to take a second look.
I have a feeling the other search marketing agency will be calling me for sympathy in about 30-60 days...
best
George