Should You Hire an SEO Firm or Do It Yourself?

There are two ways to get seen on Google. You can either pay for ads that will display on top of search results, or invest in search engine optimization (SEO) to appear organically below the ads.

If you choose to go the advertising route, it’ll cost you at least $1 to $2 per click, but it can be more than $50 per click, according to WordStream. In fact, the average small business that signs up for AdWords spends between about $100,000 to $120,000 per year to be seen via paid search.

SEO, on the other hand, can be much more sustainable for small businesses. If you have the means but you don’t have the time, you may want to pay for a firm to take over your SEO campaigns.

WHY HIRE AN SEO FIRM?

When you invest in AdWords, it’s a short-term solution. However, if you hire a good SEO firm with a portfolio of positive results, they’re going to be focused on more long-term goals and work with your business to organically build traffic.

SEO is a full-time job, which is why many small businesses choose to hire firms instead of doing it themselves. Firms dedicate all of their energy and resources to the task of improving your SEO.

A decent SEO firm will charge between $5,000 to $10,000 per month, according to Brian Honigman (also read, “The Average Costs for SEO Services”). At this price point, you’re working with a company that has a staff of experienced content managers, Web developers, copy editors and analytics experts. The average cost of paying for specific services like website and SEO audits is $1,000 to $3,000. Link building costs $250 to $2,000 per link, and copywriting is 75 cents to $1 per word.

If you do hire an SEO firm, make sure that they’re up to date with Google’s requirements. Though no one can pinpoint exactly what algorithm Google uses to rank sites, it is known that they are looking at mobile optimization and the authority and relevance of your content.

Your SEO firm should be concentrating on building up your site overtime. SEO is not a quick fix, and it can take months upon months to see results. When you add too many keywords to try and rank higher in a short amount of time, you may end up getting penalized by Google.

Your firm should also have a solid client list and a great track record, and talk about the importance of website content. If a firm is all about littering your website with relevant keywords and not even discussing content marketing, find another company.

Just because you hire an SEO firm, it doesn’t mean that you should step away from SEO efforts completely. Your whole team has to be involved in the process by thinking of content to create for your business and analyzing your analytics. You must always monitor your firm, and make sure you’re getting what you pay for.

WHY DO SEO ON YOUR OWN?

At this point in time, you may not have the available funds to invest in an SEO firm. Or, you’ve had negative experiences with SEO firms in the past and you want to try it on your own for a while.

If you dedicate time to improving your SEO, you may see better results than a firm would provide. After all, no one cares about your business more than you do.

Another option, aside from doing it on your own, is to hire an SEO team member, which is a big investment up front that can lead to a huge pay off. This person will be much more invested in your company than a firm and know your business inside and out. You can see your analytics whenever you want, and personally consult with your specialist anytime. If you’re not ready to take on a full-time team member, you can hire a consultant for $100 to $300 per hour.

There are many resources available online for improving your SEO. After all, this is the age of DIY. If you’re choosing to go on this path, here are a few pointers to give you a head start.

QUICK TIPS FOR GETTING STARTED WITH SEO

 

1. Create content that will attract your demographic to your website. Start a company blog that incorporates engaging images and video along with text and internal links to your website. Promote your blog and content on all your networks including your social media sites, since that’s where people are clicking through to content nowadays. Make sure content on your blog is unique and can’t be found elsewhere.

2. Incorporate keywords into your posts, but don’t go crazy. Make sure they fit in organically within your piece. To find out which keywords are best for you, use an SEO keyword research tool.

3. Utilize all the SEO tools within your website builder for your blog posts. Include tags, make sure your search engine description is filled out, come up with an enticing headline, and use a descriptive URL.

4. Focus on getting linked on high-quality websites. According to Felix Tarcomnicu, an effective method is to monitor your competitors’ backlinks and aim at getting links placed on those same sites. You don’t want links on any website, especially ones that see little traffic.

5. Make sure your page is loading fast enough with Google’s PageSpeed Insights. Otherwise, Google may penalize your ranking if your site loads too slow.

A solid SEO plan is crucial for your business to succeed. Whether you hire an SEO firm or take it on yourself, make sure that it’s a priority for your company.

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How to Measure Video ROI: A Beginner’s Guide

Any modern age marketer worth his salt is under substantial pressure to prove the R.O.I (return on investment) behind his marketing activities and endeavors. Awash in endless reams of data from dozens of sources, and countless different metrics or signs he/she can measure, it’s no wonder that online video presents somewhat of a conundrum.

Even though it’s clear that video is dominating the internet (70% of internet traffic will be video by 2017) and becoming the hottest commodity in the marketing world, there’s still no definitive measurement for discerning business impact, which understandably makes marketers antsy and fearful. All too often we hear the sentiment that “no video is better than a bad one.”

“Any discussion about video R.O.I should begin with a clear agreement about business objectives.”

There are also many marketers who don’t think critically enough about objectives and just somehow expect that their video content should “go viral” (More on this unrealistic expectation later…). Any discussion about video R.O.I should begin with a clear agreement about the business objectives of the video, and a focus on a narrow specific goal for the video’s content.

However, there are straightforward methods and tactics that you can begin to utilize in order to better understand and measure the impact of online video, which will take away some of the mystery and bring it into the light. Here’s a beginner’s guide:

#BASIC BITCH LEVEL

Tracking Views: Number of views is the most basic and obvious indication of success for online video (the greater the number of views = the better distribution you have, and the more likely it is that you have a good video.) Still, you can get more specific analyzing by the number of paid views (PPC, YouTube pre-roll, Facebook campaigns etc) vs organic (# of shares on Facebook, Twitter, etc.) Remember though, that in the world of B2B video, a low number of views is not necessarily a bad thing, if you’re getting views from the narrow target you’re looking to convert (which is usually the case for B2B marketers.)

#INTERMEDIATE SALLY

Attention Span Data Tracking (AKA retention): Rather than looking at the total number of views, it’s important to know exactly how long people were viewing your video for, and if they even completed it. You can begin to measure this information using free tools inside YouTube Analytics. With this, you can identify drop-off spots as well as the most engaging parts of your video, and even tweak your content on the fly. This can also be done on Vimeo and other video hosting solutions I discuss later.

Check out this video on what’s available in YouTube analytics:

Measuring Engagement: Engagement is a buzzword, but it basically means the level of interaction with your video, and it’s the next step in understanding the effectiveness of your video beyond the generic view. Specifically, you should look at:

• Shares/Retweets/Likes/Favorites etc: # of times your video has been liked, shared, re-tweeted, favorited, etc. across social media platforms.


• Subscribers/Followers: After you release a video, do you see an increase in subscribers on YouTube or followers on Facebook?


• Comments: It’s not enough to look at the numeric tallies of “likes.” You should also dig into YouTube and Facebook comments and analyze what people are saying about and responding to in your content.


• Press Coverage: Is anyone writing about your video in an article or blog post? Are people making reaction videos or parodies?


• Click Through Rates: For example, A/B test emails (one with video content and one without) and measure the click through rate.

#BEASTMODE

Obviously, when you tie a video to a specific action or goal your business is trying to reach, this is when you can begin to show real R.O.I (Though of course, the above-mentioned metrics are also important in gauging the overall value of your content.)

One easy way to do this is to establish a simple, clear goal for the video. None of this wishy, washy “I want to go viral!” nonsense. This kind of thinking is naive and unrealistic, because if you don’t have viewer reach millions of people to begin with, it’s unrealistic to expect one video to solve this problem. You should aim to have the purpose of your videos to be similar to the purpose of your text-based assets. For example, a video could have a goal of: collecting info from prospects, reassuring a prospect as they move down the sales funnel, or explaining a product before purchase.

More specifically, let’s say you want to produce a video that will cause visitors to sign up on a landing page form. You can do two things. The first is to A/B test the landing page, and see which one performs better–the one with the video, or the one without. Research has shown that adding a video to a landing page can boost conversions by up to 80%.

If you can go a step further and assign a dollar value to each lead generated, you can even begin to come up with a rough dollar R.O.I by comparing the cost of the video to vs. the value of the leads produced.

When the goal of your video is even more explicit, such as “compelling the customer to purchase this product,” (for a video on a specific product page), it’s possible to get even more accurate with ROI.

BEASTMODE PLUS

As summarized above, there are many free metrics and actions to take to figure out ROI on your video content using existing basic tools.

However, for those marketers with lots of video assets and a robust video marketing strategy, it’s worth taking a look into paid video marketing platforms.

Rather than the public video hosting platforms like YouTube and Vimeo, these private platforms are centered around specifically identifying your video viewers and their engagement behavior, and tracking it across a huge array of data points. And the best part is that these platforms can be integrated into an organization’s existing marketing automation or CRM system (such as Salesforce, Marketo, HubSpot, etc.), giving you full engagement data down to the individual lead level. They also have a host of other great features like “email gates” for prompting viewers to give contact info before watching a video, etc.

Some of the most popular platforms out there today are Vidyard, Wistia and Vzaar.

FINAL THOUGHTS

It’s understandable that in the modern marketing landscape focused on hyper vigilant awareness of data, analytics and KPIs that video content can seem nebulous and risky. And while it’s true that video is a different animal, there are practical ways to start measuring and proving it’s ROI, as we’ve outlined above.

As stated before, any discussion about R.O.I should begin with a clear agreement about business objectives, as there are many goals which can be achieved with video–increasing brand awareness, increasing sales, prompting sign-ups, or even just explaining a product. These objectives will determine the type of video content needed. It’s really not enough to just broadly say “I want my video to go viral.” You will see much more ROI on your video when you set clear, narrow and specific goals for your content.

Check out this video on what’s available in YouTube analytics: