Let's just take one thing for granted. Google is the most powerful company on the planet right now. ALL it's income comes from PPC Paid Advertising. There is no way at all that they will develop a system that will deplete their income potential model. Now - over to SEO:
I've recently had two meetings, one with an SEO agency and one with an SEO Expert. The interesting thing about both meetings was the fact that in order to get anywhere in SEO you need to commit serious money investing in it and won't see a return for at least the first 18 months. Perhaps for the first 3 years you will have spent more money on it than was in the budget (seems that marketing online budgets are very flexible when it comes to PPC). Google admit to changing the algorithm regularly and so this is just an ongoing battle. You can really only ever afford to do SEO if you have a fast growing business. If you have a mature family business that is not intent on large growth then outside SEO expertise will just be a drain on finances (you are better off doing it in house over time).
The Agency Pitch
We work on the basis of being able to replace PPC and so in the long run you will spend less money advertising for new business. We have many mysterious and technical ways of achieving this.
The Consultant Pitch
I'm about risk management. Bypassing years of historical trading and internet presence to fool Google into thinking that I have a much better reputation than my new site would otherwise indicate. The nub of the issue is really link building, and tons of them. The technical stuff is just a given these days' Content and link building are the only ways you can perform better in search and both costs lots of money and link building is quite dubious in some instances so my role is to manage the risk of building SEO for a new client.
Conclusion
There are no guarantees to SEO. You should of course SEO optimise and write great content and link build, but do this over the long term with an inhouse team. Write a budget for it (named investment in the future), but don't throw all your other marketing activities (online PPc and offline) out of the bath. SEO is a long term investment. We are in a recession, spend at your peril (unless you happen to be a company that is immune to the recession) and concentrate on spending money to get immediate sales.
Foot Note: The consultant commented how difficult it is to make any money out of running an agency. Too many high cost people and too high an expectation from clients. In fact, if they did their job properly for the clients then they would not make any money. So, here's news to those companies hoping to outsource the magic. You can't unless you have very deep pockets. Get learning.
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