>1 Is The Loneliest Number
A lot of my recent speaking engagements at both Search Engine Strategies and SMX have been geared towards running an SEO company, dealing with a changing economic landscape and similar issues. It is with this in mind that I got thinking about what separates one company from another. There are many great SEO and SEM firms out there, I like to think that Beanstalk is among them but there are also a number of poor ones. What separates the two and why will some succeed and others fail?
In thinking this over I considered skills first. Is it that the companies that weather the years, ride out the ups-and-downs in the fiscal year and the trends in the economy have the highest skills? Not entirely. At first this seemed like a logical, "survival of the fittest"-type scenario but I have seen skilled people (in this industry and others) going down while those who have very little in the way of skill succeed. So it's not entirely about the ability to get the job done. Or is it ...
One defining trend that I have noticed (though I would be very interested to hear about any exceptions to this you might have) is that the companies that specialize tend to be more successful than those who try to do many things. Companies that start by doing, say, web design and get lured into SEO ("Why give away the client to someone else - it's just a matter of packing in some meta tags and buying some software to submit the sites to a billion search engines every month right?") or try to host their own client's sites ("My reseller package gives me unlimited domains and unlimited traffic.") or offer other services that get into trouble.
So my advice has to be (and I'm not the first to say it) - do one thing, be excellent, and leave the rest to the experts in other fields.
Honestly, I've been tempted over the years to try to delve into other areas. I'm a half-decent designer and I know my code well enough (or what kind of SEO would I be?) so when a client comes with no site but a great idea it's always tempting to take the whole contract, but then reason sinks in (even when I have staff who can do the parts that I can't). Even the Beanstalk site was designed by a professional web designer (and many thanks to Frederick from W3 EDGE Web Design for a solid site that converts well). The key then is to find experts in other areas that you can trust with your clients. To that end I personally look for other, similarly-minded companies that specialize in what they do best and leave the rest to others.
In thinking this over I considered skills first. Is it that the companies that weather the years, ride out the ups-and-downs in the fiscal year and the trends in the economy have the highest skills? Not entirely. At first this seemed like a logical, "survival of the fittest"-type scenario but I have seen skilled people (in this industry and others) going down while those who have very little in the way of skill succeed. So it's not entirely about the ability to get the job done. Or is it ...
One defining trend that I have noticed (though I would be very interested to hear about any exceptions to this you might have) is that the companies that specialize tend to be more successful than those who try to do many things. Companies that start by doing, say, web design and get lured into SEO ("Why give away the client to someone else - it's just a matter of packing in some meta tags and buying some software to submit the sites to a billion search engines every month right?") or try to host their own client's sites ("My reseller package gives me unlimited domains and unlimited traffic.") or offer other services that get into trouble.
So my advice has to be (and I'm not the first to say it) - do one thing, be excellent, and leave the rest to the experts in other fields.
Honestly, I've been tempted over the years to try to delve into other areas. I'm a half-decent designer and I know my code well enough (or what kind of SEO would I be?) so when a client comes with no site but a great idea it's always tempting to take the whole contract, but then reason sinks in (even when I have staff who can do the parts that I can't). Even the Beanstalk site was designed by a professional web designer (and many thanks to Frederick from W3 EDGE Web Design for a solid site that converts well). The key then is to find experts in other areas that you can trust with your clients. To that end I personally look for other, similarly-minded companies that specialize in what they do best and leave the rest to others.