Searching for SEO: How to Find the Right Partner

Today’s marketers want how to get better buy-in and cooperation for search engine optimization (SEO) initiatives throughout their organizations. They want to know how to optimize sites that rely heavily on Java Script and Flash.

These questions reflect a growing understanding of SEO, an evolution in the way marketers shop for SEO services and the increasing requirements many executives demand of their SEO partner.

After all, even the best SEO plan is worthless if you can’t get the front office to buy in to implement it effectively. And although brand-centric marketers know they need to be indexed by the engines for practical reasons, most won’t sacrifice the interactive experience offered by their Web site designed to engage customers with the brands.

Knowing how to shop for SEO and pick the right partner by asking the best, most practical questions will inevitably lead to better decisions happening more often.

Some of the most important questions often include:

· What is your SEO methodology; how do you approach SEO?
· How experienced is your SEO team?
· Who will manage my account on a daily basis? What tools will they use? How often will they report to me?
· Do you follow generally accepted search engine guidelines? Have any of your clients been penalized by search engines as a result of your work?
· What will be expected from our end to implement the program? How do you work with clients who have limited IT resources?
· After my program launches, how will you track, analyze and optimize it?
· How will you optimize our Java-Script and Flash heavy pages without compromising our brand?
· Do you use such Web 2.0 platforms as social networking, blogs and social bookmarking to improve search rankings? How?
· What will you do to help our video, image, local and news content appear in search engines?
· How will you align my SEO campaign with my paid search campaign and other online/offline marketing efforts?

Still in its infancy, the practice of SEO is not regulated, at least not by anyone but the engines themselves. CMOs should not expect uniform responses to these questions. Asking four different groups the same question will likely net four unique responses. So rather than grading responses to these and other questions from potential partners as right or wrong, CMOs should consider these questions to be conversation starters to help determine how well the partner matches the specific need.

Still, CMOs should expect to hear about a few must haves from any leading SEO team.

· A consistent structured approach is needed. The work itself demands discipline; any vendor hired should have a systematic method for ensuring indexation and maximizing opportunities.
· The vendor must employ a competitive team offering experience, energy and knowledge of your industry and the competitive landscape.
· Reporting practices must meet your specific strategy and needs.
· CMOs should seek out SEO client references and should contact these references with specific questions about the planning, ramp up and ongoing portions of the SEO program.
· For brand-centric marketers, SEO providers should not only be equipped to get rich media indexed but be able to do so in a manner that works with the brand and provides an aesthetically pleasing experience.

Stuart Larkins ([email protected]) is senior vice president of search operations at DoubleClick Performics and is a monthly contributor to Chief Marketer.