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info [at] interleado [dot] comInternet Marketing Consultant - What To Look For!
Good Practice: Check list for Assessing your internet marketing consultant:
1. Free sample with every pack!
Internet Marketing Agencies and Consultants should offer potential clients a free trial introduction to their services. All internet marketing companies use tools of one sort or another so it shouldn’t be a big thing to get some type of free report or website audit. This is a great way to start off a trusting relationship with your new internet marketing company.It’s important, as a customer, that you feel comfortable in the knowledge that you are dealing with a legitimate internet marketing agency that values customer service. Here at Interleado, we offer a free trial of our SEO Workbench as well as a follow up phone call to discuss the effectiveness of your Internet Marketing Strategy.
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2. Does your Consultant Carry out a Thorough Service?
Whether it’s a PPC, SEO, Social media or a full 360 internet marketing campaign, an agency should have a well thought out process that will deliver optimum ROI. There should be constant interaction with the client.Monthly reports on every aspect of the Marketing strategy should be provided, with detailed explanations of whether individual targets have been achieved. At Interleado we offer monthly reports of your SEO progress as well as initial face to face meetings to kick start your campaign if necessary.
An Internet Marketing Consultant should be able to point out why a website is not getting as much exposure as the client would like, while on the other hand explaining to them how it’s just as important for them to get involved in the campaign as it is for the agency.
The client should be able to hold their own when the agencies services are complete. This involves frequent interaction and the passing of knowledge from the agency to the client. This is especially true of social media strategies.
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3. Active Content-Rich Website
An active blog or a website where content that is updated regularly is an indication of a consultant that is active within their sector. Fresh content is the engine that will keep your website growing, so if you're working with an Internet marketer who is not practicing what they preach – ask why!Interleado’s blog is highly active with at least 3 postings published per week. We discuss all the most popular internet marketing areas and weigh up the pros and cons of different applications and resources available for internet marketing.
Check out our Competitor Anlysis Reports
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4. Good Website Design and Functionality
Does your internet marketing agency have a well designed website? There is nothing worse than going onto a website looking for a particular product or service and not being able to find your way around.As part of your internet marketing strategy, you may be investing heavily in PPC and SEO campaigns, trying to increase traffic to your website. Make sure enough attention is paid to your website’s usability/design and “Call to Action” methods, which are arguably equally if not more important.
Think about the company you’re getting involved with, if their own website is well designed and easy to navigate, chances are, any work they do on your website will be consistent with what you see on their website.
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5. Don’t Fall For A One Trick Pony
It should be clearly stated on their website, what the company is involved in. Bullet points stating that they specialise in SEO and PPC and “online marketing” should not be enough. There should be detailed descriptions of how these “agencies” carry their work out.Do not just revert to a PPC campaign without addressing your organic position in Google’s SERPS. Your internet marketing consultant should be recommending and giving advice on all methods of online marketing, including search engine optimisation, pay per click campaigns, social media strategies.
While Interleado prides itself mainly on the functionality of our software, we also offer broader Internet Marketing Services and give advice on other internet marketing strategies such as PPC campaigns or social which media strategies to take.
Check out Interleado's SEO Workbench
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6. Be Inspired by Leaders!
Internet Marketing Consultants should be setting an example with how they brand themselves before a potential client should trust them with a brand awareness campaign for their company. Have a look to see if they have decent rankings for themselves, or a strong social media presence.Interleado regularly syndicates content on the web via various social media portals. Our Facebook page allows us to post content to 1000s of people every day. We also have a substantial presence on Twitter and Linkedin.
More of our content can be found in social media sites such as DIGG and Reddit which directs a significant amount of traffic to our website on a daily basis. There are a variety of different social media applications that you would expect to be introduced to during an internet marketing campaign. The trick is, deciding which ones will be the most beneficial for your business.
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7. Proven Track Record
Customer Testimonials are a good way to see a track record of a company you are thinking of working with – even better is to ask to speak to some of those testimonials. Plus the type of testimonial, what industry sectors are they are, does the internet marketing company specialise in one particular are?Back to Top
8. Easy to Contact
They should make themselves available easily available for follow up calls and general after sale enquiries free of charge. You should have numerous different contact options available wherever you have posted content on the web. Do they have an address, a real address? What about a phone number?Back to Top
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9. Get Honest Answers!
What about if your business is new and has no track record on the internet?What is the best internet marketing strategy in this case and how long will it take to start seeing traffic from the search engines?
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10. Pricing Strategy
How much are you expected to pay up front? No money should be exchanged between parties until both are clear about which particular strategy is going to be take?Is there a performance related option? Again, in cases like these seek to speak to previous clients and ask them about their experience.
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Bad Practice: Check List for Identifying Unscrupulous Internet Marketing Consultants:
1. Limited Reporting Coverage
Keyword rankings might have been fine to report on five years ago, but today, it just doesn't matter as much, or at least it shouldn’t!Sure, it's a good to at least have an idea where your site ranks for valuable terms, but if your site isn't converting, or you're ranking for terms that aren't relevant, it won't matter.
Good reporting techniques should include analytics analysis, and not just traffic numbers, but insightful, business impacting reports.
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2. Creating content is a Must…
Internet marketing is about leveraging digital tools in order to drive qualified traffic to a website that converts in such a way that business goals are met. In today's web, the name of the game is content. Be that in the form of blog posts, video, or podcasts - you have to be creating regular, fresh content to succeed.Fresh content is the engine that will keep your website growing, so if you're working with an Internet marketer who is not pushing you to create content, again you should be pushing back and asking why.
By using effective Content Syndication Strategies you can dramatically improve your SEO ranking.
Check out our Content Analysis Reports
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3. They preach single tactic strategies
There was once a day when you could survive online with PPC alone. Unfortunately, those days are no longer here. PPC is getting increasingly expensive and has always driven lower amounts of traffic than organic SEO.Online audiences split and fragment in different directions almost daily. Which is why it's important to take into account multiple tactics when executing an online marketing campaign. An holistic view should be taken when looking at creative ways to drive traffic from the search engines, that may include SEO, Social Media, PPC and PR.
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4. They guarantee results
Most of the major search engines base their business model on highly technical, proprietary search algorithms. This means it's impossible for anyone to know exactly how they work. The most any Internet marketer has to work with is an educated guess culled through many hours of research and testing.What all this means is results cannot be guaranteed. A good Internet marketer will simply give you his or her best guess as to the performance of a campaign. Here at Interleado we provide detailed reports on how you can improve your websites visibility, but we insist that you get involved in the process too.
Unless your business makes a commitment to develop your online marketing strategy internally as well as externally (i.e. outsourced) the overall performance achieved in the internet marketing campaign will be limited.
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5. Lack of Marketing Knowledge
Most web designers do not take long term marketing into account when they build a site in the first place, nor should they, it’s not their job.They design websites, and yes, they include some marketing elements initially but it is not their job to continue to build your presence online once they website is completed. Make sure you don’t have unrealistic expectations of your web designers- they design, not market!
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Check out our SEO Ranking Reports
6. Limited Reporting Coverage
Keyword rankings might have been fine to report on five years ago, but today, it just doesn't matter as much, or at least it shouldn’t! Sure, it's a good to at least have an idea where your site ranks for valuable terms, but if your site isn't converting, or you're ranking for terms that aren't relevant, it won't matter.Good reporting techniques should include analytics analysis, and not just traffic numbers, but insightful, business impacting reports.
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7. Looking for new ideas…?
A good Internet marketer is, at the very least, keeping up to date with changes in the industry. And if they are in fact doing this, they should be bringing plenty of new ideas to the table. Their blog should be bursting with ideas and comments/analysis of things going on in the industry. This knowledge gives them the perfect opportunity to introduce you to new ideas for your business.What impression do you get from looking at a blog that hasn’t been updated in months or worse still, seeing no blog!
Would this inspire you, fill you with confidence that you are getting involved with a cutting edge internet marketing company? Look for though leaders in the industry, it may cost a bit more, but generally it’s worth it.
Another angle to this is to make sure you know who is working on your website. If you’re talking to a sales person initially make sure you ask who will be working on your website. This is especially relevant for working with larger agencies.
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Bad Practice: False Promises:
“Guarantee 500+ Backlinks in 1 month.”
Time and time again, you will get agencies offering you 500+ back links for a particular fee. This is a complete scam. For your website to gain more authority in Google’s SERPS’s you need to have good quality back links, not a massive amount of backlinks coming from websites with very little authority themselves. These are no good to you and will have very little impact on your SEO ranking.Interleado’s reports will point out exactly who you should be getting baclkinks from. With our SEO Workbench you can check which webpages that are not only linking back to you, but that are linking back to your competitors.
It will also run a competitor analysis to point out where all your competitors websites are getting backlinks from, which may be the reason you are not achieving as high an organic ranking as them.
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“We guarantee you top ranking on Google.”
This is a classic guarantee that people used to use draw you in. Of course, some agencies still make this ridiculous claim.The word “guarantee” alone should make you suspicious. They might be able to set up a PPC campaign to place you at the top of the page, but they definitely cannot guarantee any ranking position.
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“Content is King”
Content is very important to an Internet Marketing campaign. However, I do want to warn you against someone who uses this quote.Many times, this means they place so much value on content that they might not develop a well-rounded approach that addresses everything you need. Linking is an extremely important aspect to any campaign.
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“Our Social Networking strategy is to build out a Facebook page”
Building a Facebook page is actually a good idea; but beware of Internet Marketing agencies that think that alone is a Social Media strategy. Many agencies like to claim to be Social Media experts, but they are really learning on the job.What I have seen is that bad Internet Marketing agencies will build out these Social Media Networks – MySpace,Facebook, Youtube,Twitter, Flickr, and others.
After they set up these pages, they feel their work is done. Social Media Marketing is a lot more than that.
During the setup process, there can also be very little interaction between the agency and the client. This is a huge mistake as it will probably become dormant when the agency has received its payment for setting up this social media campaign.
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“You will see unmatched success immediately”
You probably see a growing trend on this list. Beware of exaggerated claims. Yes, it is possible to launch a significant PPC campaign with a healthy budget. You can see huge results immediately.This does not mean they are building a solid Internet Marketing campaign that will provide a foundation to produce stability and results for years and years to come.
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“We know great ways of tricking the search engines”
Anyone that is trying to trick the search engines is probably practicing “Black Hat” SEO tactics. These tactics could show increased performance initially but the search engines do a great job of catching up with these scam artists.In the long run, your website will be negatively impacted by Black Hat SEO. The goal of a company should be adding value for the user and not employing shady tactics to fool the search engines.
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“We promise thousands of clicks for only $xx.xx”
Thousands of clicks do not mean thousands of quality visitors into your website. It also doesn’t mean ANY true quality leads.Many clients can have their budgets diminished by poorly thought out PPC campaigns, who not only ignore SEO campaigns, but also bid way too much for key words that might not give the client any ROI.
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